WASHINGTON, Nov 18: The US military has launched a coordinated operation with Pakistani forces to put pressure on insurgents on both sides of Afghanistan’s wild eastern frontier, a US military commander said on Tuesday.

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.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday that the Pakistani operations in Bajaur Agency had had a “significant impact”. Col 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 Bajaur.

“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.

Col 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.

In Valencia, Spain, Nato chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer appealed 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.—AFP