ISLAMABAD, May 31: United States president’s decision to send his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to Pakistan is prompted by reports of Pakistan thinning out troops deployed on its western borders to check infiltration of Al Qaeda and Taliban members, informed sources told Dawn on Friday.

President Musharraf made it clear on Thursday that Pakistan’s first priority was its own security, suggesting that military stand-off between Indian and Pakistan required troops concentration along the eastern borders.

Sources said President Musharraf’s statement that “no one should grudge” the decision was basically for the consumption of the US that was apparently concerned about it.

Pakistan has been trying to warn the Americans about its national security compulsions for the last five months but these remained unheeded by them,” sources said.

The government had last month deployed more than 8,000 troops in the tribal belt of Waziristan as part of the biggest US anti-terror operation within the country.

The president informed the US the other day about his decision to pull back troops engaged in the anti-terror operations on the western borders to re-deploy them on the eastern borders in view of a possible attack by India.

When contacted, Inter Services Public Relations Director-General Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi said all troops required to seal the Pakistan-Afghan border continued to be deployed and were performing the task assigned to them. He said “some additional troops not involved in the operation” had been moved from there to the eastern border, where India had amassed its 1.2 million strong army.

The ISPR DG declined to give the number of troops moved to the eastern borders for “operational security” reasons.

Sources also link Rumsfeld’s visit to the region with the US contingency plan to evacuate its 1,100 troops and some 63,000 American citizens from India and Pakistan in case war breaks out between them. The plan was confirmed by the White House spokesman on Thursday.

The ISPR DG and the Foreign Office spokesman, Aziz Ahmed Khan, said that they had no prior indication of Donald Rumsfield’s visit to Pakistan. Till Friday afternoon nothing at the official level had been communicated to Pakistan about his visit. “We will let you know once we have the dates,” Aziz Ahmed said on Friday when queried about the visit.

Asked if Pakistan had decided to call back its forces engaged in the United Nations peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone, the ISPR DG said: “It depends on what happens in the next few days and then we will take a decision.”

Pakistan, currently among the world’s four biggest contributors to UN peacekeeping forces, has a brigade comprising 3,000 troops in Sierra Leone. Pakistan had committed to dispatch another brigade to Sierra Leone but last month the UN was officially informed that it would not be able to do so and would at some point also withdraw the personnel serving there.