Pakistan Aid Not Fighting Terror

The US has given Pakistan $7 billion in military aid over the past 6 years, yet the paramilitary forces fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are armed with little but “sandals and bolt-action rifles,” a military official tells the LA Times. With militants on the rise because the forces designated to combat them are underfunded, Pervez Musharraf has used the surge to justify emergency rule.

Where is the money going? Into weaponry better suited to battling India, US officials say. Meanwhile, the indigenously recruited paramilitary Frontier Corps, the force that 's leading the pursuit of resurgent Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents, is years from viability. “I think it’s worse than starting from scratch,” says an ex-CIA agent. (More Pakistan stories.)