Pakistan’s border controls are ‘real concern’: US

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LAHORE: Pakistan's security controls on its border with Afghanistan are a “real concern'” for the US, the State Department said on Tuesday, following an attack two days ago that killed nine US soldiers at a camp near the frontier, according to a Bloomberg report.

“There is a deep concern about cross-border infiltration into Afghanistan and then back [across] the border,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told a briefing in Washington on Monday. Pakistan understands “the importance of engaging in the counter-terrorism fight”, he added. The soldiers were killed in Kunar province in north-eastern Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said in a statement. A group of about 200 gunmen raided a US post in the deadliest attack on US forces in Afghanistan in three years, the Associated Press reported.

The Pakistan government says it is combating extremism through the selective use of force and a strategy of economic and political development in the tribal regions. The US and NATO say Pakistan's policy of holding talks with militants in the Tribal Areas has led to increased attacks by Taliban and Al Qaeda