Pakistan keeps vital border crossing closed for 3rd day

Associated Press

ISLAMABAD

Pakistan kept a vital border crossing closed to U.S. and NATO supply trucks for a third day Saturday, a sign that Islamabad’s desire to avoid a domestic backlash over a NATO incursion that killed three Pakistani troops is — for now — outweighing its desire to stay on good terms with America.

Two U.S. missile strikes that killed 16 people in a northwest Pakistani tribal region, meanwhile, showed that America has no intention of sidelining a tactic it considers highly successful, even if it could add to tensions.

The closing of the Torkham border crossing to NATO trucks has exposed the struggles and contradictions at the heart of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance against Islamist militancy.

Both sides need each other: The U.S. gives billions in military and other aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. and NATO use Pakistani roads to transport the majority of their nonlethal supplies to troops in Afghanistan.

But while the U.S.-led coalition is busy tackling every insurgent group they can along the Pakistani- Afghan border before America’s scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan starting in mid-2011, Pakistan has gone only after certain groups sheltering on its side — the ones it deems most dangerous to its government, not to Westerners in Afghanistan.

A recent surge in the CIA’s drone-fired missile strikes in Pakistan along with NATO operations along the frontier suggest Western forces are testing how far they can push Pakistan.

Analysts said they expected the border to be closed for two or three more days at least.