LAHORE: The United States has been pressing the Pakistan Army to allow the posting of a security liaison officer (SLO) at every corps headquarters but the army has rejected the demand considering it a threat.
This point has been one of the many irritants between US and Pakistan as the military establishment remained under constant pressure from US authorities to allow US these SLOs to facilitate effective intelligence sharing mechanism and also to launch covert/overt operationsaction for hunting fugitive al-Qaeda elements in Pakistan.
Knowledgeable security sources claimed that both the civilian and military command of the country resisted the move for a quite long time and had even at times swallowed the serious and strong worded warnings during several high-profile visits of US state officials to Pakistan in the past.
However, both the American Embassy and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) did not reply when The News emailed its queries to them on their official email accounts on several occasions during last one month. The News has forwarded queries to Alberto Rodriguez, Country Information Officer/Press AttachÈ, and Lt Col Michael Shavers, USAF Director Public Affairs, Office of Defence Representative Pakistan US Embassy, but these efforts did not resulted in getting official response from the US Embassy.
Similar was the case with the ISPR when after repeating its queries through emails this correspondent contacted the ISPR office which explained the situation to The News that “we have forwarded your queries to the quarters concerned as we are required to do so and now it is up to them to reply or not”.
Once the pressure had become so insurmountable that a portion of the establishment started considering allowing Americans to have an SLO only in Quetta (Balochistan) where only one corps headquarters exists.
However, official sources say the Government of Pakistan was not willing to allow such SLOs to be stationed within the premises and compound of corps headquarters but would be visiting the headquarters as and when needed. But this single SLO proposal also fizzled out.
However, few security officials are of the firm opinion that the pressure of Americans had, in fact, forced the Pakistani authorities to allow US SLO to be posted in quarter corps headquarters but within a month the SLO had to see his exit from the corps headquarters.
The post of SLO used to be diplomatic post in embassies which work in close coordination of the intelligence agencies of both the countries and maintaining close liaison in the matters of mutual interests. Majority of these posts are generally considered under cover posting meaning they are intelligence guys posted under the garb of SLOs in embassies and foreign missions.
The Americans remain convinced that appointing SLOs would certainly facilitate the intelligence communities of both the countries to put on firm footing the erstwhile fragile coordinated efforts on account of tracking down the high value targets and the grouping and regrouping of the militant groups in Pakistan. These efforts to convince Pakistani authorities continue.
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