Pakistan has ordered the United Kingdom to withdraw some of its
military training teams from the country, the British Embassy said
Monday. The demand is likely related to fallout from the covert U.S.
raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month.
Following the
al-Qaida chief's death, Pakistan sent home at least 120 U.S. military
trainers, an expression of the country's anger over the American
operation, which was kept secret from the Pakistani government.
Relations
between Pakistan and the United Kingdom tend to be less turbulent than
with the U.S. But the Pakistani army has been under serious pressure to
reassert the country's sovereignty in the wake of the May 2 raid that
killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town not far from the Pakistani
capital.
"The U.K. has been asked to withdraw some of its
training support teams on a temporary basis by the Pakistan government
in response to security concerns," said British Embassy spokesman
George Sherriff. "The training teams will continue their own training
and will be ready to redeploy at the first possible opportunity."
The
withdrawal was first reported by the British newspaper the Guardian on
Sunday. The newspaper said Pakistan expelled at least 18 British
military advisers, deployed as part of a 15 million pound ($23.9
million) program to train the paramilitary Frontier Corps.
The
newspaper said the training program began last August and was scheduled
to run until at least summer 2013. The trainers were stationed at a
British-funded Frontier Corps base near Quetta, the capital of
Pakistan's southwest province of Baluchistan. AP
