Just a day after announcing that the U.S intends on launching a spring offensive against Qaeda and Taliban fugitives along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border comes this:

Pakistan Bans Anti-al-Qaida Operations

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan will not allow American troops to use its soil for a planned "spring offensive" against Taliban or al-Qaida fugitives, officials said Thursday.

Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, the chief of the National Crisis Management Cell coordinating with U.S. officials in the war against terrorism, said Pakistani policies do not allow American troops to operate inside the country.

U.S. officials in Washington said Wednesday the Defense Department was planning a new offensive amid concern that operations in Afghanistan are not as effective in breaking up terrorist networks as they had hoped. One official hinted that troops might extend operations to the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.

Cheema said he had not heard of the plan. U.S. forces used Pakistani bases and airspace during the campaign that led to the late 2001 ouster of the hard-line Taliban from power in Afghanistan, but Pakistan insisted it only provided logistic support.

"As a matter of fact they (the United States) have not contacted us for this purpose," he told The Associated Press.

Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants are believed to be hiding in the rugged border regions - possibly inside Pakistan. Also, the U.S.-backed Afghan government complains that resurgent Taliban rebels are operating from Pakistani territory and launching cross-border assaults. Much more at link

Read the article. There is more about tribal groups being sympathetic to the Taliban, and no doubt to al-Qaeda. It is very odd that we in the West think we know so much about the world, when we don't know squat about many cultures and customs.