Humiliated Pakistani Army On High Alert Along Indian Border - Beefs Up Troops

Josy Joseph, May 8, 2011, 01.13am IST

NEW DELHI: An embattled Pakistan Army has put its troops along the Line of Control (LoC) on a high state of alert as it scrambles to emerge from the embarrassment of having been caught unawares by the US troops, who raided the cantonment town of Abbottabad to take out Osama bin Laden.
According to authoritative sources, all units of Pakistani Army along the entire 740-kilometer LoC and the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line in Siachen were on Friday put on a "higher state of alert". Accordingly, "active deployment" has been beefed up along forward posts, said a senior official of Indian Army.
The officer said Indian Army has been careful not to respond to the high state of alert by Pakistan and "would not respond to it." Traditionally, the two sides are used to tit-for-tat responses to military actions.
Pakistan Army's move came a day after its corps commanders met with Army chief General Pervez Kayani to warn India against any misadventure. The statement was meant to be retaliation for remarks of Indian Army and Air Force chiefs that India has the capability to carry out an operation like the one executed by the US Seals in Pakistan.
The Pakistan Army top brass said in a statement on Thursday, "The forum, taking serious note of the assertions made by Indian military leadership about conducting similar operations, made it very clear that any misadventure of this kind will be responded to very strongly. There should be no doubt about it."
According to Indian military sources, ever since the last Monday raid by US troops to kill Bin Laden, there has been panic, embarrassment and disbelief in the Pakistan military over the way US helicopters travelled through their airspace, carried out the Special Forces Operation in Abbottabad, and went away with bin Laden's body All the way through, the Pakistani air defence did not pick up any signals of the 'intrusion'. Worse, the first Pakistani fighters were scrambled almost a full hour after the American helicopters entered the Pakistan aerospace, shows Indian assessment.