April 26, 2002	Friday	Safar 12, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, April 25: Pakistan on Thursday denied reports that US special forces or military advisers were accompanying the Pakistani troops into tribal areas to search for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.

“This is not true, there is no new development,” a foreign ministry official said after the Washington Post reported that US commandos were believed to be secretly operating on Pakistani territory.

“We agreed to intelligence sharing with US authorities but that does not mean Pakistani agencies would operate under the guidance of any foreign advisers,” the spokesman said.

The Post on Thursday reported that covert US military units using aerial support and four Pakistani bases had been hunting down Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters along the Pakistani frontier in recent weeks.

The paper said Islamabad had asked Washington to keep the mission, involving US Special Forces and Delta force operatives, a secret.

The New York Times on Wednesday said Washington had struck an agreement with Islamabad to send US “advisers” into the tribal areas with Pakistani troops.

It said the agreement followed the discovery of documents in the Faisalabad, where senior Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah was arrested and the information seized in the raid indicated extremist fighters were regrouping along the Afghan-Pakistani border, using tribal areas as a haven, the daily said, quoting unnamed Pakistani officials.

The foreign ministry spokesman said there had been no operations involving foreign agents on Pakistani soil.

“Everything regarding any on that they would work with practical assistance or advice from foreign advisers is not true,” he said.

“There is no operation going on anywhere in which foreign officials would be advising Pakistanis.”

Islamabad has offered its full support to foreign troops to launch combat operations from its territory.—AFP