[should be read while bearing in mind India and Pakistan are not at all friendly and this is an Indian newspaper. OG]

6,000 Pak armymen fought alongside Taliban: Report Sudhi Ranjan Sen (New Delhi, November 16)

About 6,000 Pakistan Army personnel fought with the Taliban even after the US began bombing Afghanistan, says an Indian intelligence report.

The report claims that "officers not above the rank of captain, including regulars and junior commissioned officers (JCO's), were responsible for providing the Taliban with ground-level manoeuvres and battle plans".

The trained men helped ensure Taliban ground superiority in the initial days of the war, the report added. The report was circulated in the Ministry of External Affairs, the Home Ministry, the PMO and the Armed Forces a week ago.

The report says that about 6,000 soldiers were written off the rolls of the Pakistani Army days after General Pervez Musharaff decided to support the United States after the September 11 attacks.

The report, however, does not clarify whether the soldiers mutinied or were taken off the rosters to save the Musharraf government from embarrassment.

Sources say Pakistan does not want a repeat of the Kargil war when the presence where Pakistan Army regulars was established beyond doubt. The report says most of the 6,000 men who fought along with the Taliban were drawn from the Frontier Force Regiments.

Pakistan has claimed that the Pakistani soldiers in Afghanistan were retired officers or soldiers who had left the Army. It denies they function with official sanction.

Besides ground-level battle plans, the report says the Pakistani regulars were also responsible for training Taliban soldiers in battle tactics and strategy.

According to the report, the first abortive attack on Mazar-e-Sharif showed the Taliban to be using Pakistani tactics. "The frontline defending the city receded in face of the advancing Northern Alliance troops drawing the advancing army 5 to 6 kilometres within. Subsequently, Northern Alliance units were engaged from the front by the inner, better trained and armed cordon and from the phalanxes by the frontline, which had re-grouped by then. The same method was used in the Sialkot Sector in 1971 to defeat the advancing Indian forces," said the report.

According to sources, the US desire for a more active Indian involvement was partly driven by a desire to tap India's knowledge of Pakistani tactics.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001