Obama's Middle-Eastern Policy Shredded: "PAKISTAN SHUTS DOWN U.S. 'INTELLIGENCE FUSION' CELLS."

CAPTION FOR PHOTO, ABOVE: "Pakistanis in Lahore protest the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. The raid deeply embarrassed Pakistan's military and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment across the country."

==================================================

latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-pakistan-20110527,0,5278634.story

"PAKISTAN SHUTS DOWN U.S. 'INTELLIGENCE FUSION' CELLS."

Pakistan also tells the U.S. to cut back its troops in the country, in a move amid deepening mistrust after the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden and a CIA contractor's shooting of two Pakistani men. Joints Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen heads to Pakistan for talks.

By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

May 27, 2011

(Reporting from Washington Services Group, a Pakistani army commando unit, in operations against militants).

In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces......

U.S. special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down....

....The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove U.S. advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups in Pakistan. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus spearheaded the effort to increase the U.S. presence in the border areas two years ago out of frustration with Pakistan's failure to control the militants.

The collapse of the effort will probably hinder the Obama administration's efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere, U.S. officials said....

...The move to close the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents.....

...Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani brigadier, blamed the decision to close the three intelligence centers on the mistrust that has plagued U.S.-Pakistani relations in recent months. Washington's decision to carry out the raid against Bin Laden without informing Pakistan's security establishment brought that mistrust to a new low, he said.

"There is lot of discontent within Pakistan's armed forces with regard to the fact they've done so much in the war on terror, and yet they are not trusted," Hussain said. "Particularly after the Abbottabad raid … the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the people has gone down. And they hold the U.S. responsible.".....

...The closures have effectively stopped the U.S. training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said......

....A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said the reams of documents and electronic data that the SEALs seized at the compound have sparked "dozens" of intelligence investigations and have produced new insights into schisms among Al Qaeda leaders.

=========================