WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration asked for millions of dollars Wednesday to help equip and train Pakistan's army to fight insurgents inside its borders and shift away from its traditional focus on rival India. 

Undersecretary of Defense Policy Michele Flournoy said the effort marks the first time the Pentagon planned to direct anti-insurgency money toward training and outfitting of Pakistan's army. The U.S. already is aiding Pakistani special forces and frontier militias. 

Top Pentagon and State Department officials told the House Armed Services Committee that Pakistan's army is ill-equipped and untrained to clear Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents from its heartland and along the Afghanistan border. 

Flournoy said Pakistan was slowly realizing that insurgents may pose a greater threat to its stability than India, the nation's longtime adversary. 

"As the Pakistani leadership -- the civilian and the military -- become more focused on the threat, and they're willing to deal with it, I think our ability to help them develop the capabilities to be effective is going to be that much more crucial," Flournoy told lawmakers. 

At issue is a $400 million funding request the Pentagon and State Department says would be spent only on Pakistan counterinsurgency missions. The money would be the first bite of a total estimated $3 billion package over five years to curb extremism in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region. 

The administration also is close to finalizing plans to provide training for the Pakistani military at a location outside Pakistan. While the site has not been decided, a senior administration official said Wednesday that the issue would come up next week as President Barack Obama meets with Pakistani leaders. 

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue still was in discussion, said the expanded training comes in response to a request from Pakistan. The details were very nearly worked out, the official said. 

There are roughly 80 U.S. military trainers in Pakistan training members of the Frontier Corps, but the Pakistanis have been very explicit that they do not want a lot of American boots on the ground in their country. 

Both Flournoy and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher described Pakistan's stability as important as neighboring Afghanistan's, where as many as 68,000 U.S. troops will be fighting a resurgent Taliban this year. The Obama administration views the elimination of militant sanctuaries in Pakistan as critical to success in the Afghan war and preventing another Sept. 11-style terrorist strike on the United States. 

With Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists crossing the nations' shared border and hiding out in their mountainous terrains, the officials warned that as Pakistan's security goes, so goes Afghanistan's.
Al Qaeda's top leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding in tribal areas near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.