Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe has said Pakistan has "stepped up" its campaign to capture Osama bin Laden, deploying thousands of troops into its north-western frontier, pressuring tribal elders, according to senior Pentagon and Pakistani officials.
Pakistan's government has had little presence until now in the harsh, desolate region along the Pak-Afghan border, where bin Laden and other fugitives are believed to be hiding. Pakistan has opposed US soldiers entering the region.
The officials said a better political climate in the ethnic Pashtun tribal areas in Pakistan, improving weather, and the enhanced ability of Pakistani forces to operate in the terrain have combined to mark a watershed by defeating the Taleban and al Qaeda.
"The army is oriented, the physical terrain has been overcome, and now we are mounting operations," Brigadier Shafqaat Ahmed, Senior Defence Officer of the Pakistan Embassy Washington said in an interview with the daily.
"For the first time in our history, the Pakistani Army is in those areas" in significant number.
Bush administration officials describe the increased activity as the first signs of the major operation against al Qaeda leaders.
"There's still unfinished business in this part of the world, and we're making every effort here during the coming months to close those efforts out," Army Lieutenant General David Barno, the senior US military commander, told reporters from Bagram Air Base near the Afghan capital of Kabul last week.
Meanwhile, the United States has taken advantage of the stepped-up Pakistani activity and shifted its own tactics, positioning small military teams in Afghan border towns as part of a new campaign that is expected to grow bolder in the coming months, the officials said.
One day last week, according to US military field reports, American forces stationed on the Afghan side of the border captured eight suspected enemy fighters. On the same day, they also uncovered six caches of weapons, including two that were turned over by locals.
"During the day we help rebuild the country, and at night we conduct raids," said a senior US military official who asked not to be named.
In a tactic known as "hammer and anvil," the United States seeks to pursue suspects as they cross the border and head into the mountains, where Pakistani forces capture or kill them. Pakistani forces will sometimes force Taleban or al Qaeda fugitives to cross back into US-controlled territory, where they will confront US forces. Brigadier Shafqaat Ahmed said in a telephone interview that his army has only recently been in a position to operate in the remote areas along the 1,700-mile border with Afghanistan, which for hundreds of years has been almost entirely self-governing.
Pakistan has been building roads, promoting health and education and Government officials have then sought to use their leverage with tribal leaders to persuade them to turn over any Taleban or al Qaeda adherents who may be hiding in the area. "We have been trying to bring up an intelligence network," Brigadier Shafqaat said, adding: "You have to have excellent intelligence. It has taken us a while to create that capability."
The senior US military official added that up until a few months ago, Pakistani forces would often show up in an outlying village and everyone would be gone because the locals were tipped off beforehand.
"They constructed these intelligence networks and established a big web of people and go from place to place to find the big prize," he said. "You do the same here with people who know people or might know people who have ties to bin Laden".
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