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Pakistan to tighten border with Afghanistan

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 27, 2006

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan said Tuesday it will plant land mines and build a fence on parts of its long, rugged frontier with Afghanistan to address criticism it does too little to stop Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas from crossing the border.

Relations have been souring between the neighbors, which are key U.S. allies in its war on terror groups. Afghan and NATO officials say militants operate from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but the Islamabad government says it does all it can to stop them.

The new plan did little to ease those frictions.

Afghanistan objected to the idea of a fence along the 1,510-mile border. But Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan said his country would be acting on its own territory and did not need Afghan consent.

Khan told reporters Pakistan also will send unspecified military reinforcements to the frontier, joining about 80,000 soldiers already in the country's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

Khan did not specify when work would begin on the border fence.

Afghanistan has rejected previous offers by Pakistan to fence and mine the border. "Fencing or mining the border is neither helpful nor practical," said Khaleeq Ahmed, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

Insurgents have stepped up attacks in Afghanistan over the past year, triggering the worst violence since the hard-line Taliban was ousted with U.S. help five years ago.

[Last modified December 27, 2006, 00:59:36]