US Special Operations forces, Afstan and Pakistan

The Americans are certainly pulling out a lot of stops in trying to get various things moving:

The commander of the United States' Special Operations forces is meeting this week with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, as well as top Special Operations officers there, to assess the mission in Afghanistan, senior military officials said Thursday.

The commander, Admiral Eric Olson [interview ShadowSpear.com here], was in Pakistan on Thursday to meet the new leader of Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary force, Major General Tariq Khan, and to observe a new American-led training program for the Pakistani corps.

Over the next several months [not quite as soon as desired by the US], about two dozen American and British military trainers will instruct Pakistani officers at a base in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. The Pakistani officers will in turn train Frontier Corps soldiers next year, in what both countries say is a crucial step in building an effective indigenous force to combat fighters from Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's unruly tribal areas.

But the bulk of Olson's time in the region will be spent conferring in Afghanistan with senior American Special Operations officers from across the country, as well as with the senior American commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, on Friday...

Olson, McKiernan and another senior commander, General David Petraeus, the former top officer in Iraq who takes charge of the Central Command on Oct. 31, are reviewing the Afghanistan mission...

American officials say they hope that the creation of a more unified command structure under McKiernan will improve the coordination of all forces in Afghanistan — most notably American units near the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan, which have been independent of the NATO-led force in southern Afghanistan.

Olson was expected to meet with Special Operations officers this week at Bagram air base in Afghanistan to discuss details of how many of the Special Operations forces could improve coordination with McKiernan's command.

Some headlines about events in Pakistan:

U.S. Strike Is Said to Kill Qaeda Figure in Pakistan [more on the upsurge in US actions within Pakistan here]

Pakistani army 'kills 60 Taleban'

Pakistan army arrests 168 foreign militants in tribal regions

Pakistan looks, at least for now, to be fairly serious in its new determination to take on the Taliban and al Qaeda.