By NNN-PTI
New Delhi : The United States military is developing a plan to send about 100 of its trainers to work with a Pakistani paramilitary force that is in the vanguard of the fight against the extremist groups, a media report quoting American military officials said Sunday.
Pakistani leaders, the New York Times said, have privately indicated that they would welcome additional American trainers to help teach new skills to Pakistani soldiers whose army was tailored not for counterinsurgency but to fight a conventional land war against India.
Even though the training program would unfold over several months, the paper said it is being disclosed at a time of heightened operations in the unruly tribal areas along the Afghan border.
The 40-page classified plan now under review at the United States Central Command to help train the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from ethnic groups on the border, will significantly increase the size and scope of the American training role in the country, the report said.
United States trainers initially would be restricted to training compounds, but with Pakistani consent could eventually accompany Pakistani troops on missions “to the point of contact” with militants, as American trainers now do with Iraqi troops in Iraq, a senior American military official was quoted as saying.
Britain is also considering a similar training mission in Pakistan, officials said.
“The US is bringing in a small number of trainers to assist Pakistan in their efforts to improve training of the Frontier Corps,” Elizabeth O. Colton, a spokeswoman for the United States Embassy in Islamabad, was quoted by the paper as saying in an e-mail message.