Islamabad, Sep 22 (IANS) With the Senate elections due in November, Pakistan is feeling the US heat in the war on terror.

This week, six American helicopters reportedly intruded into the North Waziristan Agency, violating Pakistan's air space, in a clear indication of the heightened anti-terror operations on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

A Pakistani report quoted officials and residents as saying that Pakistani security forces did not react to the intrusion.

Lt Gen. David Richards, who leads the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has been echoing what President George W. Bush has been saying for some time.

Using the language of a soldier, he claimed to have the mandate to cross into Pakistani territory without informing, leave alone consulting, Islamabad, if he had specific evidence of terrorist whereabouts.

These assertions have to be read in the context of the heightened air and ground operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The US and NATO forces claimed to have killed 2,000 to 2,500 Taliban militia fighters.

The run up to the meeting between Bush and President Pervez Musharraf provided a clear indication that the chips are perhaps down in the US-Pakistan campaign against terror.

The US seems determined to lead the offensive, no matter on which side of the Afghan-Pakistan border it is, and will not brook any protests.

Realising that this is bound to weaken Musharraf at home, the Bush administration has agreed to look at Pakistan's economic problems. Musharraf got adequate assurances from US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

On his part, Musharraf made adequate preparations before embarking on his visit to the US and the UN.

The provincial authorities signed a pact with the tribal chiefs of Waziristan Sep 5, something Musharraf said was a measured response based on ground realities.

But the pact has come under heavy criticism both at home and abroad on grounds that it is bound to weaken the fight against terrorists.

Pakistani columnist Ayaz Amir says the agreement is a face saving formula because the government could not continue the military operations against the Taliban remnants and foreign mercenaries.

Musharraf assured the US media that not a single soldier had been withdrawn from Waziristan. But the agreement stipulates that security forces would go back to the barracks and be confined to check-posts on the border with Afghanistan.

The US gave the agreement only a qualified welcome. But Bush's assertion that his forces would seek Osama bin Laden and others no matter where they are gives a clearer idea of what the US thinks of the pact.

Musharraf has now revealed that the US had threatened to "bomb Pakistan back to stone age" in 2001 if it did not cooperate with the US against the Taliban regime in Kabul that was subsequently ousted. It is a clear admission that the US would judge other countries as friends or foes on one single basis: does the country back Washington vis-à-vis terrorists or not?

Pakistan, which is where the Taliban was born, hardly has any choice.