American Advisers have been granted permission to accompany Pakistani troops into tribal areas of Pakistan on raids of suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda hideouts, senior Pakistani officials said this week. The agreement appears to clear the way for American help in Pakistani operations in a region near the Afghan border where hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are believed to have taken refuge.
A Bush administration official acknowledged on Tuesday that "joint operations are being discussed." But American officials declined to talk about details. It was unclear whether the American advisers would include CIA agents, who have played a prominent role in US operations in Afghanistan.
The agreement was struck after the seizure of documents and computer disks from a house inhabited by Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al-Qaeda leader arrested on March 27 during a joint American-Pakistani raid in Faisalabad.
According to Pakistani officials,
the information seized in the raid provided evidence of an effort by Al-Qaeda
and Taliban fighters to regroup in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani
border, using the tribal areas as a haven to avoid attack by American forces.
The information seized in the raid is not specific enough to guide individual
operations.