U.S. troops on Pakistan border quiet about cease-fire

[unhappycamper]

U.S. troops on Pakistan border quiet about cease-fire
By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, February 8, 2008

The U.S. military command in Afghanistan had little to say about the Thursday announcement that the Pakistani government reached a cease-fire with militant groups and Taliban fighters along the Afghan border.

Officials at the Combined Joint Task Force—82 headquarters in Afghanistan did not respond to a request for comment on the reports by press time Thursday. The command is responsible for thousands of U.S. troops operating on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

According to the spokesman for an umbrella group of militant organizations in Pakistan, the cease-fire was reached Wednesday and the Pakistani military had stopped operations in South Waziristan, a semi-autonomous tribal region home to al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

U.S. officials have said the region is a haven for insurgents mounting cross-border attacks against coalition forces and civilians in Afghanistan. Some U.S. intelligence officials also have said the region is the most likely hideout of Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida figures.

News reports quoted unnamed Pakistani government officials as confirming that the cease-fire talks included Siraj Haqqani. Haqqani has been called “one of the most influential insurgent commanders in eastern Afghanistan” and one of Afghanistan’s “prime atagonists.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52292