PESHAWAR, May 10: Pakistan Army has moved its special services force into the tribal areas with the twin objective of catching Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters and compliment the US-led coalition forces operating across the border in eastern Afghanistan, senior security officials said.

Government officials acknowledged that commandos of Special Services Group had been moved into Miranshah, headquarters of the federally-administered North Waziristan Agency, and deployed at a local vocational college to flush out Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters hiding in the border areas with Afghanistan.

The SSG are assisted by about a dozen American ‘communication experts’, the sources said. “The role of the Americans is only to assist our forces. They will not take part in any combat,” they insisted.

“The troops would act on information, so contrary to speculations we may not see a full-scale operation to catch the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in our tribal areas,” the officials maintained.

They said the main job of the Pakistani troops was to compliment around 150 American and several hundred British, Canadian and other coalition forces operating on the other side of the Pakistan-Afghan border in southeastern Afghanistan.

The allied forces recently launched an operation to search and apprehend Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives. The officials said that the US forces had cut off five entry points along the border close to Angor Adda in South Waziristan Agency to plug the escape routes of fighters.

Similarly, a limited number of regular Pakistan Army troops in addition to the jawans of the Frontier Constabulary have been stationed in Wana in South Waziristan Agency to trace the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The Pakistani forces, sources said, had been assisted by a relatively larger batch of about 20 American intelligence and communication specialists.

The officials said it was in South Waziristan’s Shabikhel and Azam Warsak areas where the American intelligence officials suspect the fugitives of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters might have dispersed to avoid being caught. Pakistani officials, however, discard reports of Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters’ presence in the Pakistani tribal areas as ‘wrong.’

“Such information invariably comes from Afghan informers on the pay of US forces. There are people out there who make money out of the situation by providing all sorts of misleading information. We have to be very careful and calculated,” one senior security official said.

Security agencies recently arrested two Afghans from two different places in the tribal areas in possession of the American greenback and satellite Ground Positioning System (GPS) that helps the US forces to zero-in on potential targets.

Fearing a tribal backlash in the face of any operation in the traditionally semi-autonomous tribal areas, the government has taken several measures to ensure that the sensitivities of the tribal people do not hurt.

The Corps Commander, Peshawar, Lt-Gen Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, held a meeting with tribal elders from North and South Waziristan agencies in Islamabad early this month. According to official sources, the tribal elders assured the government that they would allow access to Pakistan Army and local scouts to the hitherto administratively inaccessible tribal areas and seize and hand over any suspect.

In return, Gen Orakzai promised to deliver a special development package for the areas, which is likely to be announced sometime later this month, the sources said.

The Shabikhels, a sub-tribe of the main Mehsud tribe inhibiting the area, have given it in writing to the government that they would cooperate in seizing and handing over suspects. The tribe has also offered to impose a Rs5 million fine on any native providing shelter to the fugitives, besides dismantling the house of anyone violating the agreement. Senior security and government officials, however, deny the presence of any top Al Qaeda or Taliban leader in the Pakistani tribal areas. A senior security official said that Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Aiman Al Zawahiri, were spotted together in Tora Bora on Nov 17 last year. “Nobody knows where they are. Reports of their being here and there are all speculations. We have not had any credible information. However, our gut feeling is that Osama is still alive and is in Afghanistan,” commented a senior official.