Dubbed "Operation Lionheart," the operation takes cooperation between US, Afghan and Pakistani forces to "the next level" in terms of intelligence sharing and coordination, said Colonel John Spiszer.

"We are in coordination on a daily basis with the Frontier Corps," said Spiszer, who commands the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade.

The US military has long complained about the Pakistani military's failure to act against insurgent sanctuaries in its border tribal areas.

But Pakistan's Frontier Corps has been engaged over the past two months in fighting in Bajaur, which borders Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that the Pakistani operations in Bajaur have had a "significant impact."

Spiszer said his troops were working along the Kunar River valley and up into the mountain passes along the border to intercept and ambush insurgents trying to escape from Pakistani operations in its Bajaur Agency.

"What we have done is worked very hard to refocus our ISR assets, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance assets to do everything we can to identify transiting across the border," he said.

Spiszer, who has about 3,000 US troops in an area that encompasses four Afghan border provinces, said he did not have enough troops but would get more with the arrival of a brigade from the 10th Mountain Division early next year.

He hailed the cooperation developing between the United States and the Pakistan military as a major success.

"I wish I had more resources to devote to it. And we will have more over the coming months," he said in a teleconference from Afghanistan.

earlier related report
NATO chief calls for more non-US troops in Afghanistan
NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer appealed Tuesday for more troops from outside the United States to be sent to Afghanistan to prevent it from again becoming a "safe haven" for terrorists.

"No strategy will work if it is not matched by the right resources. I welcome (US president-elect Barack) Obama's commitment to boost troop levels, but increased United States troop levels are not enough," he told a gathering of lawmakers from NATO member states in Valencia.

"All of us, all the NATO allies, need to make greater efforts to the military, economic and civilian development (of Afghanistan)," the NATO secretary general said.

"Our purpose is to help ensure that this country will never again become a safe haven for terrorists and we must do what it takes," he added.

Obama pledged during the campaign to begin a phased pullout from Iraq while beefing up Washington's military presence in Afghanistan and he is expected to ask allies to send more troops to the country as well.

Last month Germany preemptively boosted the upper limit on troops it has serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan by 1,000 to 4,500.

Germany has about 3,300 soldiers in the relatively safe north of Afghanistan as part of the 50,000-strong ISAF.

NATO's role in Afghanistan has divided the alliance amid concerns that some countries are not sharing the same combat burdens.

Discussing the Afghan government's offer to hold peace talks with Taliban insurgents, Scheffer said that a "political solution" will ultimately be needed to end unrest in the war-ravaged country.

"At a certain moment there will have to be a political solution. I do not see a long-lasting military solution, you need the military for reconstruction but we can't forget the political response," he said.

"I don't know if negotiations exist, it is an Afghan question, of a sovereign country. There needs to be a political solution. It is important to talk but it is not up to us to stimulate, manage or demand it," he added.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that he would go to "any length" to protect the fugitive Taliban militia leader Mullah Omar, long seen by Washington as an arch-enemy, if he agreed to peace talks even if this caused a rift with his international partners.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, said Monday that conditions are not right yet for talks with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Taliban were driven from government in a US-led invasion for sheltering Al-Qaeda after the September 2001 attacks.

But they have steadily increased their attacks in Afghanistan over the past two years, despite the efforts of the developing Afghan security forces and nearly 70,000 international soldiers, serving under NATO and as part of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.

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