Pakistan has deployed an extra 9,500 troops to the border with Afghanistan to prevent infiltration by "miscreants" intent on disrupting Afghan elections later this month, the army spokesman said Tuesday. Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror in Afghanistan, now has about 80,000 forces at the border, The Associated Press reported. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said 5,000 extra forces have been deployed in the northwest and 4,500 in southwestern Baluchistan province. The deployment was completed after an Aug. 28 meeting in Islamabad of senior military commanders from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States to review security for the Afghan vote, the country's next key step toward democracy after two decades of war, he said. Sultan said Pakistan has also set up between 40 and 50 mobile check posts and sent six transport helicopters and three helicopter gunships to the frontier "to beef up security and curtail activities of miscreants."
