 As many as 56,000 private contractors could accompany the 30,000 additional U.S. troops being sent to Afghanistan, according to a congressional study. The Congressional Research Service report says that would bring the number of contractors in the country to about 160,000. Last December, contractors made up 69 percent of the Pentagon's personnel in Afghanistan, "the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States," according to the study, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo. The dramatic increase in contract work is changing the way military leaders wage war. "Prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, contracting was done on an ad-hoc basis and was not adequately incorporated into the doctrine -- or culture -- of the military," the CRS report said. Now "doctrine and strategy are being updated to incorporate the role of contractors in contingency operations."
 For the first time, the president set a timeline on America's military involvement in the country it invaded in October 2001. The White House hopes that the addition of 30,000 US troops, which will begin almost immediately, combined with the pressure of the new deadline, will spur the government of Hamid Karzai into action. In a speech televised live across America, Mr Obama said that "these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011". He continued: "Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We will continue to advise and assist Afghanistan's fecurity forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul. "But it will be clear to the Afghan government – and, more importantly, to the Afghan people that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country." The speech came as it was announced that British and American troops in Afghanistan are to launch a major new onslaught against the Taliban within weeks. Thousands of soldiers will be deployed to "deliver a punch" to insurgents responsible for attacks in Helmand province. The move is part of President Barack Obama's plans to increase US troop numbers by 30,000 to be announced in a speech to the nation. He will send 9,000 US marines to fight with British forces in an offensive early in the New Year as the advanced guard of a major surge. Final preparations for the US marines' departure will begin almost immediately. They are expected to deploy shortly before Christmas for an offensive against Taliban strongholds in the south of the country. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said "we're going to get in there quickly" in order to "deliver a punch quickly". More at the Telegraph 
 KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Commanders in Afghanistan say they will devote the majority of the fresh troops expected from the White House to securing the country's troubled south and will especially target this volatile city, the Taliban's main power base. President Barack Obama will announce his revamped war strategy in an address early next week, likely Tuesday.
He is widely expected to adopt a plan that sends between 20,000 and 40,000 more troops to bolster a flagging military campaign and the 68,000 U.S. troops now fighting it. But even before Mr. Obama takes his case to the public, military commanders on the battlefield are ready to implement a plan that makes a defensive ring around Kandahar a linchpin of the fight to come.
No matter how many troops the president decides to authorize, the Kandahar campaign will be an early, large-scale test of U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's plan of refocusing allied military, political and economic efforts on population centers and away from sparsely peopled rural areas. The new commander of coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, and his staff detailed how they will put the McChrystal approach into action, in interviews with The Wall Street Journal: They plan to mass thousands of troops now scattered around the south and pack them into a tight cordon around the outskirts of Kandahar city. At the same time, the coalition plans to pour economic, police and political assistance into the urban core to try to persuade residents that the Afghan government serves them better than the Taliban alternative. "We have to regain the initiative, and we have to get some momentum going," said Gen. Carter. As Gen. McChrystal's team scrambles to reverse Taliban gains in Kandahar, they will also dispatch thousands of American soldiers to secure the major highways that pass through the city to Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. More at WSJ
 Barack Obama is expected to announce his long-delayed plans for a troop surge in Afghanistan next week with a promise of between 3,000 and 7,000 extra troops from Nato allies — including Britain, so as to stop this looking like America’s war. An announcement by the US president is anticipated before the meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels on December 3.
American officials suggest a combination of US and European troops, amounting to a total reinforcement of some 35,000, is the likely move. That is fewer than the 40,000 troops General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, requested in the summer to curb the Taliban insurgency. Republicans have accused Obama of dithering. Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate, argues that the delay in reaching a decision on Afghan strategy is creating uncertainty within the military, as the insurgency in Afghanistan continues to worsen. At the Halifax International Security Forum, which ends today, McCain said that “many of our young soldiers were wondering why there’s this delay”. Brown agreed to the reinforcement, which will take British numbers to 9,500, on the condition that each ally bears its “fair share”. The Georgians have agreed to send 1,000 extra troops, the Turks 500-600 and Slovakia is doubling its contribution to 250. Tomorrow Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general, will travel to Poland in the hope of raising more there. “This is not just America’s war — the Europeans have doubled their contribution in the past 20 months from 18,000 to 36,000 and the secretary-general is confident there is more to come,” his spokesman said. Germany, Italy, Turkey, France and Romania — all of which have forces in Afghanistan — are under pressure to send at least a battalion of between 500 and 1,000 troops each, although Germany has insisted on waiting for the outcome of a conference on Afghanistan in January. Times Online
 A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise. David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy".
He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit. Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, he compared the president to someone "pontificating" over whether to send enough firefighters into a burning building to put a fire out. He was speaking as Obama left Washington for a nine-day trip to Asia without announcing a decision on troop numbers.
The options being considered by the US have been narrowed down to four: sending 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000, the latter the figure requested by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. These would be on top of 68,000 US troops already deployed. The deep divisions with the Obama administration were exposed yesterday by leaked diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who urged Obama to ignore McChrystal's request unless the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, cleaned up his corrupt government. Kilcullen expressed concern that Obama might deny McChrystal the 40,000 extra troops and split the difference between the four options, the kind of fudge common in domestic politics. "Time is running out for us to make a decision. We can either put in enough troops to control the environment or we can credibly communicate our intention to leave. Either could work. Splitting the difference is not the way to go," Kilcullen said. "It feels to me that all these options are dangerously close to the middle ground and we have to consider whether the middle ground is a good place to be.
The middle ground is a good place on domestic issues, but not on strategy. You either commit to D-Day and invade the continent or you get Suez. Half-measures end up with Suez. Do it or not do it." Read more,,,, The Guardian
 KABUL — The Taliban have said they were behind the killing of five British soldiers shot dead by an Afghan policeman they were training in Helmand province, Sky News reported. A spokesman said the officer, who fled the scene and has yet to be found, was a member of their rebel organization, according to Sky News. "It's a new Taliban tactic," he said. "We have more Taliban who have infiltrated into the police and army." Three soldiers from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police were fatally wounded during an attack following a patrol in the Nad-e'Ali district. Six soldiers wounded in the incident are being treated at Camp Bastion, the Army's main Afghan base. Click here for more from Skynews.com. Source: Foxnew
 There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory. Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed. The commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the extra forces are needed to implement a new strategy that focuses on protecting civilians and depriving the militants of popular support in a country where tribal militias may be Taliban today and farmers tomorrow. The White House said Tuesday that President Barack Obama has nearly finished gathering information and advice on how to proceed in Afghanistan, where bombings killed eight more American troops.
With October now the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the war, many experts question the need for more troops. "The U.S. and its allies already have ample numbers and firepower to annihilate the Taliban, if only the Taliban would cooperate by standing still and allowing us to bomb them to smithereens," said Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, and one-time platoon leader in Vietnam. "But the insurgents are conducting the war in ways that do not play to (allied) strengths." The Taliban rebels are estimated to number no more than 25,000.
Ljubomir Stojadinovic, a military analyst and guerrilla warfare expert from Serbia, said that although McChrystal's reinforcements would lift the ratio to 20-1 or more, they would prove counterproductive. Read more,,, Source: FoxNews
 AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has no intention of sending more soldiers to Afghanistan despite Britain increasing its troop numbers. Britain has announced it will send another 500 troops to Afghanistan, a move welcomed by the United States. But Mr Rudd today said that Australian troops would return from Afghanistan once their mission in Oruzgan province was completed. Australian currently has about 1500 troops in the country, based in the southern Oruzgan Province. "The Australian deployment was increased by 40 per cent only some months ago," Mr Rudd said. "Our mission in Oruzgan province is clear cut; that is, our mission statement is to train the Afghan national army and Afghan security forces to take control of the security of that province. "Once that mission is completed and we hand over our responsibility to that provincial authority, then of course Australia's mission will be concluded and our troops would come home." "We made our position quite clear some months ago in terms of the appropriate force for Australia in order to achieve the mission which I have defined for Australia," he said. Source: Herald Sun
 Sen. John McCain said any added military deployment in Afghanistan smaller than the 40,000 troops reportedly requested by the top U.S. commander there "would be an error of historic proportions." Asked whether he thought the war in Afghanistan could be won with fewer troops than Gen. Stanley McChrystal has reportedly requested, McCain said, "I do not." The Arizona Republican, who was defeated by President Obama in the 2008 presidential election, spoke in a wide-ranging interview that aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think the great danger now is a half-measure, sort of a -- you know, try to please all ends of the political spectrum," McCain told CNN chief national correspondent John King. "And, again, I have great sympathy for the president, making the toughest decisions that presidents have to make, but I think he needs to use deliberate speed." Disregarding requirements that have been "laid out and agreed to" by Central Command head Gen. David Petraeus and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen "would be an error of historic proportions," McCain said when asked whether 10,000 or 20,000 additional troops in Afghanistan would suffice. Also Sunday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said U.S. troops would be put in "jeopardy" if Obama does not listen to McChrystal. Read more here,,,, Source: CNN
 KABUL: Ten Afghan army soldiers were killed and more than 100 Taliban militants died or were wounded in clashes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to the Defence Ministry. "Ten members of the Afghan army were martyred and more than 100 enemies were killed and wounded in the south and east of the country in the past 24 hours," a statement said. Ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the casualties were from two operations, in Helmand and Nuristan provinces. NATO and Afghan troops launched an operation in Nuristan to flush out insurgents who killed eight US soldiers at the weekend - the coalition's heaviest toll in a single incident in more than a year. The push comes amid reports the British government turned down a request for more troops for Afghanistan this year. General Richard Dannatt, who retired as head of the British army last month, said he was "disappointed" with ministers. He said a call for 2000 extra soldiers had been declined and the forces had to fight on with "at least part of one arm" tied behind their back, he told The Sun. "If the military says we need more troops and we can supply them, then frankly they should take that advice and deploy up to the level we recommend," he said. US President Barack Obama is considering a request from US commander General Stanley McChrystal for more troops and considering future strategy. Responding to General Dannatt's comments, the Ministry of Defence said it would review troop numbers in the wake of Afghanistan's presidential elections in August. Another British soldier took on his government over the weekend in Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and Home Secretary Alan Johnson spent Sunday day meeting British troops and local officials in southern Afghanistan. The first visit by a British Home Secretary to the troops in Afghanistan was designed to boost troop morale. But Mr Ainsworth was soon put on the back foot by soldiers who echoed calls from General David Richards, the new head of the British Army, for more reinforcements. The Defence Secretary asked Staff Sergeant Kim Hughes, 30, a bomb disposal specialist, what he needed most. "More troops on the ground," Staff Sergeant Hughes quickly replied. He said later: "We have lost two guys. More troops are needed on the ground but the same could be said for equipment." Mr Ainsworth was forced to admit it would take time - and help from other NATO allies - to provide the extra troops called for by General McChrystal. "We can't meet General McChrystal's effort on our own. It has got to be a coalition effort," he said. British military officials warned last week of the risks of sending more troops without the equipment required to protect them. General Richards is known to have drawn up plans to deploy up to 1000 more soldiers to Helmand, and Mr Brown has indicated that he has an open mind about reinforcements. But the government, and the rest of NATO, is waiting to see what Mr Obama decides over the US general's request for 40,000 more troops. Source: The Australian
 Violence in Afghanistan is growing and the success of the campaign against the Taliban cannot be taken for granted, General Stanley McChrystal, the head of US and Nato troops has said. Delivering what he called an honest assessment of the eight-year-old conflict, McChyrstal said the situation was serious and time was running out. "The situation is serious and I choose that word very, very carefully," he told military and defence experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London on Thursday. "Neither the success or failure for our endeavour there in support of the Afghan people and the government can be taken for granted. "My best military judgment is that the situation is, in some ways, deteriorating." He went on to say that unrest across the country was up, and it was up "not only because there are more coalition forces, it is up because the insurgency is growing". McChrystal has previously said that the mission in Afghanistan, involving 100,000 foreign troops of which about 60,000 are American, faces failure unless the strategy changes. He also believes, according to US officials, that up to 40,000 more troops and trainers are needed. His recommendations on how to pursue the conflict have been handed to the Pentagon and the White House. Barack Obama, the US president, is now holding discussions with policy experts and analysts and is expected to make a decision on troop deployments within the next few weeks. McChrystal refused to comment further on how many more troops he wants, saying only that he believed "resources and goals" would be aligned in the end. But he said those fighting the war needed to be ready to do things differently. "Whether we like it or not, we have a conventional warfare mentality," he said. "We must do things dramatically differently, even uncomfortably differently," he said, referring to the need to take risks to protect Afghan civilians. "I discount immediately anyone who simplifies the problem or offers a solution ... or says 'this is what you have got to do' because they absolutely have no clue about the complexity of what we are dealing with." Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 Nato troops will remain in Afghanistan for as long as is necessary to complete its mission, the secretary-general of the organisation has told the US president. Anders Fogh Rasmussen assured Barack Obama on Tuesday that soldiers from the military alliance will continue to support US forces in Afghanistan. "Our operation in Afghanistan is not America's responsibility or burden alone: it is and it will remain a team effort," Rasmussen said during a visit to Obama at the White House. Rasmussen said that he supported Obama's approach of "strategy first, then resources". "This alliance will stand united and we will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job," he said. Obama is due to hold talks on the strategy in Afghanistan with senior US military and government officials on Tuesday and Wednesday. The US president has said that he is yet to make a decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrystal, the senior US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, has said that the military effort risks failure unless more troops are sent to the country as part of a revised strategy. McChrystal is expected to ask for an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops for combat operations and training of Afghan forces. Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute's Saban Centre for Middle East Policy, told Al Jazeera that Obama is considering the current strategy in place before committing to any increase in troops. "I think what the president is doing is the mature and correct thing – to take a hard look at this. The US embarked on a new strategy earlier this year; it has been six months … [but] I think at the end of the day, the president will decide to send in more troops."
Kai Eide, the United Nations' special representative to Afghanistan, on Tuesday called for more troops to help train Afghan security forces. "Decisions concerning procurement of equipment or weapons will have to be taken soon – more international troops for training and for mentoring will be required," he said. Eide said that 2009 had been the deadliest year for Afghan civilians in the eight-year war between the US-Nato alliance and fighters loyal to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The apparent move by McChrystal to get more US troops sent to Afghanistan comes amid a dramatic rise in the number of US military deaths in the country. Support among the US public for the mission has dropped in recent weeks, while some Democrats say they are reluctant to support the sending of more soldiers. Some senior Democrats, including Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, have said that having too large a US military force in Afghanistan runs the risk of it being seen as an occupation force by Afghan civilians. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 Ethiopian troops have crossed into neighbouring Somalia and seized control of a town from Islamist fighters, witnesses say.
Hundreds of troops reportedly entered the strategically important town of Beledweyne on Saturday. Abdinur Ahmed Maow, a local resident, told The Associated Press news agency that the armed opposition fighters had left "without a single shot". Abdulahi Faramiliq, another resident of Beledweyne, said that the troops were cordoning off residential areas and going from house to house searching for weapons.
However, General Muqtar Hassan Afrah, the Somali military commander in the region, denied that any Ethiopian troops were in the region. Ethiopian forces withdrew from Somalia in January as part of a peace deal, more than two years after moving in to help the UN-backed interim government battle the Islamic Courts' Union, which had seized control of much of the south and centre of the country. Their presence was unpopular with the majority of Somalis and was used by local Islamist groups as a recruiting tool.
Rashid Abdi, a Kenya-based Somalia analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that it is unlikely that Ethiopia is planning to send a larger force across the border. "It's a strategic town for them," he said, referring to the Beledweyne's location near the border. "They want a buffer zone and they won't allow it to be in hostile hands."
There have been several reports of Ethiopian troops crossing the border in recent months, but the Somali government has not confirmed their presence.
Somalia's government is struggling to control the country, despite including several factions of the Islamic Courts' Union.
Fighters from al-Shabaab and Hizb ul-Islam groups have seized control of large areas of the country and have vowed to topple the administration of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the current president and former Islamic Courts leader. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 But though the US President continued to dazzle Europeans on his debut international tour, the Continent’s leaders turned their backs on the US President. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help. He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from Britain. Just two other allies made firm offers of troops. Belgium offered to send 35 military trainers and Spain offered 12. Mr Obama’s host, Nicolas Sarkozy, refused his request. The derisory response threatened to tarnish Mr Obama’s European tour, which yesterday included a spellbinding performance in Strasbourg in which he offered the world a vision of a future free of nuclear weapons. Mr Obama – who has pledged 21,000 more troops to combat the growing insurgency and is under pressure from generals to supply up to 10,000 more – used the eve of NATO’s 60th anniversary summit to declare bluntly that it was time for allies to do their share. “Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone,” he said. “This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort.” He said that failing to support the US surge would leave Europe open to a fresh terrorist offensive. “It is probably more likely that al-Qa’ida would be able to launch a serious terrorist attack on Europe than on the United States because of proximity,” he said. The presidential charm offensive failed to move fellow NATO countries. President Sarkozy told Mr Obama that France would not be sending reinforcements to bolster its existing force northeast of Kabul. Germany, Italy, Poland, Canada and Denmark said that they were considering their positions. After a meeting with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, Mr Obama tried to apply further moral pressure. “I am sure that Germany, as one of the most important leaders in Europe, will be stepping up to the plate and helping us to get the job done.” Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO Secretary-General, warned that new laws proposed by President Karzai in Afghanistan sanctioning child marriage and marital rape had made it harder to raise more soldiers. “We are there to defend universal values and when I see, at the moment, a law threatening to come into effect which fundamentally violates women’s rights and human rights, that worries me,” he said. “I have a problem to explain to a critical public audience in Europe, be it the UK or elsewhere, why I’m sending the guys to the Hindu Kush.” The temporary British deployment falls short of the 2,000 soldiers that the Army had planned to deploy long-term to Afghanistan and appeared to catch defence chiefs by surprise. Mr Brown announced the commitment as he flew into Strasbourg for the two-day summit, but hopes that it would spur other allies to follow suit were soon dashed. British officials said the extra troops, expected to number between 500 and 700 – increasing Britain’s military strength there to about 9,000 – would be dispatched to southern Afghanistan for a four-month period leading up to and beyond the election, due to take place on August 20. The plan is to withdraw them once the election is over. Mr Brown said the extra troops were only supposed to provide a “temporary uplift”. Military contingency plans remain on the table to send up to 2,000 more troops long-term, taking the total to 10,000, but that will depend on the political will to approve the deployment. Although Mr Brown discussed Afghanistan with Mr Obama when they held bilateral talks before the G20 summit in London, it is understood that no formal offer of extra troops was made. Source: The Australian
March 27 BARACK Obama is to deploy an extra 4000 military trainers as part of a new strategy to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qa'ida in safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The strategy, the product of a 60-day review in conjunction with US allies, will also establish clear benchmarks to judge the performance of the US and its allies in the neighbouring countries, to enable mid-course corrections, administration officials said today on the eve of the announcement. It marks one of the boldest foreign policy bets laid so far in Mr Obama's two months in power and defies those who warn he is walking into a quagmire. The 4000 US troops will build up the Afghan army and are in addition to 17,000 extra troops already promised by the president. Mr Obama will also send hundreds more civilian and development workers into Afghanistan. “It is a clear, concise, attainable goal, and that goal is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qa'ida in its safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” one of the officials said on condition of anonymity. The officials accused the Bush administration of leaving US policy “adrift” in the two nations. “Seven-and-a-half years after September 11, the al-Qa'ida core leadership, Osama bin Laden and others, have moved from Kandahar, Afghanistan, to a location unknown, somewhere in Pakistan,” one official said. “From that location in Pakistan, we know they are plotting new attacks against the US, against our allies, against our forces in Afghanistan, against our Pakistani friends as well.” The officials discounted the arguments of critics who oppose escalating the US role in the conflict, warning that given a vacuum, the Taliban would return in force to Kabul, and bring al-Qa'ida along. The officials also said the Taliban had made a “very significant comeback in the last two years,” that could not be allowed to take root. Mr Obama will formally announce the new strategy to members of the military and development workers who will serve in the two nations in coming months, as well as foreign ambassadors at a White House event tomorrow. He will then present it to US NATO allies at the end of next week at the western alliance's annual summit, along the border of France and Germany. A key ingredient will be benchmarks so that later this year Mr Obama will be able to judge if his policy is working, or if it needs to be adjusted. “We will develop benchmarks and metrics to measure our performance, and frankly to measure the performance of our partners and our allies,” one official said. Another key goal of the strategy is to support Pakistan's besieged Democratic government, and to help Islamabad crack down on al-Qa'ida and Taliban havens on its territory. “In many ways, Pakistan is the hardest part of the problem,” one of the officials said, adding that terror groups had become a “Frankenstein” within the country that threatened the survival of democracy. Mr Obama will support a bi-partisan Senate bill to triple US aid to Afghanistan to $US1.5 billion ($A2.13 billion) a year for five years, and would also look at needed military assistance, particularly helicopters to transport troops to war zones. “We are going from a policy of throwing money at Pakistan and ignoring it, to a policy of consistency and constancy towards Pakistan,” the official added. The officials also said they expected to secure pledges for additional military help for the Afghan war from NATO allies next week. France, for instance, had expressed an interest in working with the Afghan police force, one of the officials said. The administration officials argued that the Bush administration had failed to properly finance the development of the national Afghan army. The review will set a target of expanding the Afghan army to 134,000 men and the police force to 82,000, but the numbers could go higher if needed, the officials said. As a result of the troop increases, the US force in Afghanistan will reach 61,000 to 65,000 by mid-September, which officials said would have a significant impact on the war zone. They also said they would attempt to engage Afghan tribes and foot soldiers, who were not as committed to the fight as Taliban leaders and could be prised away from the force. Source: The Australian
 ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has redeployed thousands of troops to the border with India, officials said Friday, in a dramatic escalation of tensions with New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
Washington urged the two sides to avoid escalating tensions and said it was touch with both countries.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned his military chiefs to review New Delhi's "defence preparedness" while his foreign ministry advised Indians not to travel to Pakistan, saying it was unsafe for them to be in the country.
The developments sent ties plummeting to their lowest point since late 2001, when Kashmiri militants staged a brazen attack on the Indian parliament -- an attack New Delhi blamed on the Pakistan-based extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
India has blamed the same group for the Mumbai attacks and has repeatedly said Islamabad is not doing enough to rein in militant groups, a claim that Pakistan rejects.
The nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours -- which have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir -- have said they do not want war this time, but warn they would act if provoked.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reiterated Friday that Pakistan was a "peace-loving" nation, telling reporters in the eastern city of Lahore that while Islamabad had no "aggressive designs", it would respond if provoked, the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.
In Islamabad, senior defence and security officials said troops were being moved from the northwest tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, hotbeds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity, to the eastern border near India.
"We do not want to create any war hysteria but we have to take minimum security measures to ward off any threat," a defence ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He added that leave for "operational" armed forces personnel had been cancelled "as a defensive measure".
A top security official, who also asked not to be named, explained that a "limited number of troops have been pulled out from snowbound areas on the western border where they were not engaged in any operation".
Pakistan's army and air force have recently scaled back their operations against Taliban-linked militants in both the Swat valley and the Bajaur tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Both operations were launched in mid-2008.
Any major shift of Pakistani troops out of the tribal areas would likely spark concern in Washington and other Western capitals, as it could open the door to more cross-border militant attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan.
"We continue to urge both sides to cooperate on the Mumbai investigation as well as counter-terrorism in general," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told AFP.
"We also do not want either side to take any unnecessary steps that raise tensions in an already tense situation."
Another senior Pakistani security official told AFP the new deployments on the Indian border were not in "significant numbers but only in areas opposite the points where India is believed to have brought forward its troops".
The defence ministry official said authorities had noticed the movement of Indian troops toward the border near Lahore, and that they believed India had also cancelled military leave.
Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas declined to comment.
New Delhi has said its slow-moving peace process with Pakistan is now on hold in the wake of the Mumbai attacks last month, in which 172 people including nine of the gunmen were killed.
Islamabad has said it is willing to cooperate with India in investigating the carnage, but says New Delhi has offered no proof that Pakistani nationals were involved -- a claim dismissed by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
"We have ample evidence... to prove that elements based in Pakistan carried out the Mumbai attacks," Mukherjee said.
"Pakistan should not divert attention from the real issue of taking action against terrorists by raising war hysteria," he told reporters in New Delhi.
Singh was meanwhile meeting the chiefs of India's army, air force and navy to discuss the current security situation, an official in his office said.
The Indian foreign ministry meanwhile advised its nationals to stay away from Pakistan. Spokesman Vishnu Prakash said such travel would be "unsafe". Source: AFP
God Bless Our Troops!
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