What's in it for Pakistan?

The New York Times reports that American military units have adopted a different approach in seeking to aprehend Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 — The commander of American-led forces in Afghanistan said Tuesday that the military had adopted new tactics to combat Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in the country.

The officer, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno of the Army, said that in the past three months, American units down to the level of 40-soldier platoons had been dispatched to live in villages where they can forge ties with tribal elders and glean better information about the location and activities of guerrillas.

In the past, he said, American forces typically gathered intelligence about hostile forces, carried out focused raids for several days against those targets, then returned to base to plan and prepare for their next mission.

"What we're doing is moving to a more classic counterinsurgency strategy here in Afghanistan," General Barno told reporters at the Pentagon in a videoconference from his headquarters in Kabul, the capital. "That's a fairly significant change in terms of our tactical approach out there on the ground."

The approach, he said, will give soldiers "great depth of knowledge, understanding, and much better intelligence access to the local people in those areas by owning, as it were, those chunks of territory."

General Barno and other American officials have boasted that Osama bin Laden, the elusive leader of Al Qaeda, will be captured this year. He refused to repeat this assertion, though he said, "We have a very, very high priority in bringing to justice here the leadership of each of the terrorist organizations that we face."

[snip]

General Barno, a West Point graduate who assumed command last October, said cooperation with Pakistani forces on the Afghan border had increased, especially in the past six to eight weeks. American officials say they believe that Mr. Bin Laden is hiding in the mountainous border region.

Using a harsh, century-old British method, Pakistani forces have handed local tribal leaders a list of villages suspected of sheltering members of Al Qaeda. If the tribe refuses to hand over the suspects, the Pakistani Army threatens to punish the group as a whole, withdrawing funds or demolishing houses.

"That they're confronting the tribal elders and they're holding them accountable for activities in their areas of influence is a major step forward," General Barno said.

He said he meets in Pakistan with his counterparts at least once a month (his next visit is planned for Wednesday), and every four to six weeks he invites Pakistani and Afghan officials to meet at his headquarters to discuss security issues.

The general said the group had set up a committee to deal with border issues and another to address military information and coordination.

General Barno said American and Pakistani forces were cooperating to create a "hammer and anvil" strategy, in which forces on one side of the border drive Al Qaeda members across the border to troops waiting on the other side, a tactic that will "crush the Al Qaeda elements between the Pakistani and the coalition forces."

This sort of stuff doesn't happen without some sort of understanding between the two parties, namely, Pakistan and the United States. My guess is that the payoff for Pakistan will be twofold: first, the allegations that they are the local nuke pushers in the region will quickly fade away--with help from the lapdog media here in the West, and second, the money Musharraf (known as Busharraf in Pakistan) made as the retailer of nuclear technology will somehow magically be provided by increased US "aid." An alliance of convenience is the best way to describe the Pakistan/US relationship--and Bush needs all the allies he can get at this point.