US forces in Afghanistan troop up, target: Pakistan

AMERICAN IRE: US troops mass close to the border with Pakistan.

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London/Islamabad: US troops in Afghanistan are massing close to the border with Pakistan, poised to launch bombing raids on suspected terrorist bases in the North Waziristan region, British and Pakistani newspapers reported on Wednesday.

Nine American soldiers were killed and 15 wounded Sunday in an attack by militants on a US base in Kunar province, close to the Pakistani border.

The Times said troops have been airlifted from the village of Lowara Mandi and that heavy artillery and armoured vehicles were also being moved into position for possible cross-border attacks on Pakistan.

The Times said US Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a visit to Islamabad at the weekend, had told Pakistan's top civil and military leadership that the US could take unilateral military action if Pakistan were unable to stop cross-border attacks in Afghanistan.

Mullen also said some elements within Pakistani security agencies could be helping insurgents operate from their bases in the border region, the paper quoted well-placed sources as saying.

The Times quoted an influential Pakistani army official as saying there were strong indications the US was ready to launch bombing raids against suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban camps inside Pakistan.

Pakistani newspaper The News quoted official and tribal sources in the North Waziristan area as saying NATO troops had started arriving near the border areas on Monday night.

"Some of them had been brought in choppers and others by armoured personnel carriers. The troops had also shifted heavy arms and ammunition including tanks, heavy machine guns and artillery to the border," Haji Yaqub, a resident of the border town of Ghulam Khan, said.

The NATO troops have been deployed near the border towns of Ghulam Khan, Saidgai, Shawal and Mir Safar.

"They started setting up bunkers very close to the border while gunship helicopters are continuously hovering over the border," said a man named Roohullah, a resident of the border town of Saidgai.

He said he had never before seen such a large deployment of foreign troops near the border.

"For us, it's unusual as they are on the zero point," Roohullah said, adding that the foreign troops had not crossed the border thus far.