U.S. wants to boost training of Pakistani forces

By Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Pakistan will likely discuss stepping up U.S. training for Pakistani security forces when President Asif Ali Zardari visits Washington next week, a U.S. official said Thursday.

The United States has become increasingly alarmed about the threat of Taliban militants based in Pakistan's Swat valley to Zardari's weak government, whose support it needs to defeat al Qaeda and stabilise neighbouring Afghanistan.

One proposal being considered is for the United States to offer counter-insurgency training to larger groups of Pakistani military personnel outside Pakistan, possibly in the United States or a third country, said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"They (Pakistan) in principle have agreed we need to do it. The question now is how to do it," the official said.

Some 30 U.S. personnel have been training a few hundred members of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps since last October, said a U.S. defence official.

The effort has focussed on training trainers who can then pass on the skills they have learned more widely in the Frontier Corps, the official said. So-called "training events" have also been held with Pakistani special operations units.

But Pakistan has rebuffed U.S. efforts to train the regular army in counter-insurgency partly because the army still sees their traditional enemy of India as their main threat.

Pakistani leaders are also wary of closer cooperation with the U.S. military, fearing it could fuel anti-American sentiment domestically.