ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and Centcom chief Gen John Abizad made their whirlwind tours to Pakistan to assess Islamabad’s commitment in the campaign against Al Qaeda and to discuss their strategy on Afghanistan, Dawn has learnt through reliable sources.

A flurry of meetings between the visiting US officials and representatives of Pakistan’s civil and military bureaucracy in Rawalpindi and Islamabad led to vital decisions on certain issues regarding joint operations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The sources said an assessment of a key US official’s view on Pakistan’s commitment could be made from the fact that Mr Richard Armitage assured Pakistan that Washington would provide additional security assistance to Islamabad.

“The United States has so far provided security assistance worth $198 million to the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence, and now it has committed an additional sum of $25 million,” a military source told Dawn.

Pakistani representatives discussed with the visiting US officials a list of equipment that Islamabad required to facilitate its troops in the anti-Al Qaeda operation in the tribal belt. The list included monitoring and intelligence interception equipment, helicopters, night vision devices and sensors.

A request for the “good quality” fencing material to seal parts of the porous border to check infiltration of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters was also made. Pakistan maintained that in view of the long terrain it was not possible to effectively seal the entire border even with 70,000 troops it had currently deployed there.

Mr Armitage was particularly receptive to the request for fencing material, recognizing that it would economize efforts of the manpower, the sources said. He also acceded to a call for training of Pakistani intelligence operators in the US.

“The US officials agreed to provide us moral, material and technical support to aid our efforts against Al Qaeda,” defence sources told Dawn on Tuesday.

Pakistan also emphasized the need to improve coordination among the key US intelligence agencies — Centcom, CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). It was pointed out that these agencies were at loggerheads which caused delay in communication of information.

The US officials maintained that they would seriously consider Islamabad’s proposal of establishing an intelligence coordinating headquarters in Bagram to expedite flow of intelligence on identified targets to the Pakistani security agencies.

The visiting US officials informed the Pakistani side that their administration attached high priority to de-weaponization in Afghanistan to restore peace there. An estimated 100,000-strong militias of various warlords in Afghanistan far outnumber the strength of the Afghan law enforcement agencies and the police force that account for less than 10,000.

Pakistan also proposed that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) should expand its operations in Afghanistan to which Mr Armitage responded positively, the sources said.