Pakistan reinforces troops on Indian border: British daily

LONDON - Pakistan has sent extra troops to its border with India, saying rising tensions with New Delhi prevent it from expanding its military campaign against the Taliban, the Financial Times said Friday.

The move came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks with Pakistan’s military leadership in Washington on how to exert more pressure on Taliban forces fighting US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

US and European diplomats have tried to persuade Islamabad that India, with which Pakistan has fought three wars, was a lesser threat to regional stability than the terror groups based in the Afghan border region.

Islamabad’s envoy to London told the Times that assertiveness by New Delhi was sapping his country’s ability to fight Pakistani Taliban militants.

“The government has had to send some troops down there because we don’t want to leave ourselves exposed,” said Wajid Shamsul Hasan, a close confidant of the family of President Asif Ali Zardari.

“This is taking away from our defence capabilities on the Afghan border,” Hasan was quoted as saying. “We really wish the international community would intervene, but nobody has said anything to the Indians.”

Pakistani officials said the number of troops the army had deployed on the Indian border was modest and declined to give details. The daily said the reinforcements were estimated to be in the hundreds.