Pakistan says it won't allow US forces to hunt terrorists on its soil

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Pakistan reiterated that it will not let American forces hunt al-Qaida and Taliban militants on its soil, after a news report said the Bush administration was considering expanding US military and intelligence operations into Pakistan's tribal regions. The Foreign Ministry dismissed as "speculative" a story in The New York Times saying US President George W. Bush's top security officials discussed a proposal Friday to deploy US troops to pursue militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. "We are very clear. Nobody is going to be allowed to do anything here," said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the top spokesman for Pakistan's army. "The government has said it so many times," Arshad said Sunday. "No foreign forces will be allowed to operate inside Pakistan." The Pakistan-Afghanistan border area has long been considered a likely hiding place for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, as well as an operating ground for tribal Taliban sympathizers.