On the border Pakistan not much help

Washington Post:

Lt. Gabe Lamois's mission sounded simple: Hike down the hill to the Pakistani Frontier Corps' border post, inform the commander there that U.S. and Afghan troops were going to be moving through the area at 3 a.m., and hike back up the hill.

Before Lamois had even finished speaking, the Pakistani officer was shaking his head. "We have a lot of enemies here," Lt. Ghulam Habib explained. His jittery troops might mistake the Americans for the Taliban and shoot them.

"How about 4 a.m.?" Lamois asked.

"Impossible; 7 a.m.," Habib countered.

The haggling turned to pleading before they settled on 5:30 a.m. Lamois walked off, and the Pakistani commander, eager to demonstrate that he was in charge of the area, trained his machine guns and mortar tubes on the U.S. campsite, about 500 yards away.

"It's a strange relationship, considering we're supposed to be allies," Lamois groused.

Senior U.S. and Pakistani officials have stepped up efforts in recent months to tame the chaotic border area, used by the Taliban as a base from which to fire rockets at U.S. positions in Afghanistan and smuggle fighters and weapons. But high-level talks have not led to cooperation on the ground, where U.S. troops are struggling to overcome decades of enmity between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I am not sure why the [Pakistanis] are even here, except to stick a thumb in the eye of the Afghans," said Maj. Jason Dempsey, the No. 3 officer in the U.S. battalion on the border.

...

There is more. It seems clear that the Pakistani troops and their commanders on the border still do not comprehend the importance of cooperating on fighting the Taliban. Some actually appear to be intimidated by the Taliban rather than the other way around. There is also the unreasonable fear of Afghan motives in trying to stop the infiltration. The Pakistan government and army still has much work to do in changing the attitude of their forces.