The Torch: Brits also training Pakistanis for the frontier (Curzon redux?)

First the Americans, now the Brits--following in the steps of the Raj:

The Viceroy of India founded the Frontier Corps in 1907 to control unruly tribesmen in the mountains that now form the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also known as the Scouts, the corps united the Khyber Rifles and other militias recruited from the Pashtun tribes but was trained and led by British officers in search of adventure.

For the first time since Pakistan's independence in 1947, British soldiers are training the Frontier Corps again in an effort to transform it into a strike force against al-Qaeda and Taleban militants on the Afghan frontier.

“A small team of conventional British military personnel is working in a Frontier Corps training school, conducting mutual co-operation training to assist the Frontier Corps in enhancing its capability,” a spokesperson for the High Commission in Islamabad told The Times.

The Ministry of Defence said that the team had been in Pakistan since last year, but declined to give further details.

It was the first time Britain had confirmed that it was helping the United States to train the 60,000-strong Frontier Corps, which still recruits locally and polices the frontier, but is now a neglected part of the Interior Ministry.

The team is working alongside 30 US military advisers [more likely 70, see first link above], thought to include special forces personnel, who began training the corps last summer in an effort to reduce dependence on the Pakistani Army, which is preoccupied with its traditional enemy, India. The MoD declined to say how big the British team was but Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces Minister, said last month that there were 23 British military personnel in Pakistan, engaged in training, liaison and diplomacy...

...[The] purpose is to create a counter-insurgency force that knows the local geography, language and culture and does not get distracted by Pakistan's regular disputes with India.

US officials have been lobbying for this for years, but were blocked by Pakistani generals who wanted to control American military aid, and by the Bush Administration's preoccupation with Iraq.

“We've been pushing this because the Pakistani Army is simply not designed for counter-insurgency,” a US official who championed the scheme said. “It's designed for a conventional war with India.”

Washington has given the Frontier Corps $43.8 million (£30 million) of equipment: Anne Patterson, the US Ambassador, handed over $1.5 million of it in January, including helmets and bullet-proof vests. Armoured vehicles will follow in a few months, the embassy said. US officials say that Washington is ready to spend up to $400 million on upgrading the corps, and building it a new training base outside Peshawar over the next few years...