BRUSSELS: Billions in new aid pledges will help, but succeeding in Afghanistan is not just about the money.

The currency that counts most is a rich mixture of political and military progress. And that appears unlikely until there’s a bigger Nato troop commitment in Afghanistan and a greater willingness by the new government in Pakistan to be a partner against the terrorists.

Nor is success in Afghanistan just about the helping the Afghans.

Senior US government officials, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, are warning that the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding, is where planning for the next terrorist attack on the United States is under way.

In Paris on Thursday, a plea by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for world aid drew $21 billion in pledges at a donors conference aimed at reminding rich countries how much Afghanistan still needs them, nearly seven years after the radical Taliban regime was removed by force. The United States is promising $10.2 billion.

The new promises of basic aid are in addition to $25 billion pledged by the international community since 2002. However, only $15 billion 60 per cent of those previous pledges has been honoured so far.

And still, questions persist about the basic direction of the US-led efforts to stabilise a desperately poor, weakly governed country whose eastern and southern borders with Pakistan are porous.

No matter how much cash a sympathetic world throws at the problem, the central obstacle, resilient Taliban forces and their benefactors in the Al Qaeda network, is unlikely to budge until stronger action is taken inside Pakistan.

The US and its international partners generally agree that a multi-pronged approach to Afghanistan is required a military campaign that is creatively connected to civilian-led efforts to improve the reach of the Afghan central government, improve basic services for ordinary Afghans, and rebuild the economy.

But security remains Job One.

The situation grew more complicated with US airstrikes on Tuesday that may have killed friendly fighters on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. The incident inflamed the already touchy relations between Washington and Islamabad and raised fresh questions about cooperative efforts to root out terror suspects in the lawless region that American officials believe could spawn a new terrorist attack.

US leverage in Pakistan has waned with the declining political fortunes of President Pervez Musharraf, who is under pressure to resign.

The Pentagon, which has more than 30,000 troops in Afghanistan the most since the war began in 2001 is adding a new dimension to its efforts in Pakistan by arranging to begin training, on a small scale, tribal forces near the border in the hopes that they can be more effective against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.

Pakistan does not want a larger US military presence on its territory.

At the Paris donors conference, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan will not be solved until they cooperate to purge terrorism along their border.

In Brussels, where Nato defence ministers opened two days of talks, to include an assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and its connection to recent developments in Pakistan, the Pentagon’s senior representative here told reporters that while improving security is key, “it’s not a purely military solution”.Vice Adm. William D. Sullivan said the movement of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters across the Afghan-Pakistan border is a crucial problem. Sullivan, who represents Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen at Nato, said he believes that ending the cross-border infiltration is possible.

“More forces are needed to do that,” the admiral said. “We, the United States, have been leading the way in trying to encourage the other members of the alliance to contribute more forces to the effort so we can begin to cover these areas where we simply don’t have enough forces to cover now.”

Asked if it was possible to solve the border problem without more Nato help, Sullivan said yes, sort of. “It could be, but it will take longer, it likely will result in more casualties to allied troops in the time that it takes to achieve these goals without more forces,” he said.

Also troubling, from the US and Nato point of view, is the Pakistan government’s peace deals with tribal elements. Bush administration officials have publicly counselled patience, even as private doubts grow.

“We’ve been very clear that this is a matter for Pakistan to decide,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. “The issue is that anything that is agreed needs to maintain the ability of Pakistanis to be effective against terrorists who lodge in these areas and threaten not just the United States or Afghanistan but of course threatens Pakistanis.”

Sullivan, echoing a view shared by many senior US military officers, called Pakistan’s peace deals problematic.

“We’re concerned that peace agreements allow the opposing militant forces the opportunity to regroup, re-supply, retrain themselves,” he said. “And so we think it gives some breathing room for those forces without being threatened on the Pakistan side of the border. So it’s something we watch very closely.”—AP