WASHINGTON, July 15: The United States will provide Pakistan with all the tools it needs for a projected crackdown on militants in the NWFP and the tribal areas, the US national security adviser said on Sunday.

In an interview to ABC News, Stephen Hadley also said President Gen Pervez Musharraf had decided to send more troops to the tribal areas and the United States fully backed the move. “We need to get the country in a position where it has the tools it needs to deal with the terrorist threat, which unfortunately is going to be with us for a long time.”

When the ABC anchor reminded Mr Hadley that the tribal chiefs had called off the agreement signed in September last year, he said: “The agreement … has not worked the way President Musharraf wanted and it has not worked the way we wanted.”

Earlier this week, US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher told a congressional hearing that Washington pays $100 million a month to the Pakistan Army for monitoring the tribal belt and the border.

In a separate interview to Fox News, Mr Hadley said that the Taliban were ‘pooling and training’ in Pakistan’s tribal areas and were also using these territories for carrying out operations.

He said that while the US backs the projected crackdown on pro-Taliban militants, it also wants to see ‘a vision of democracy’ implemented in Pakistan.