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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistani Chief Wants U.S. Out of Region |
| 2003-02-07 |
| The chief minister of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on Thursday denied the presence of Taliban or al-Qaida fighters in territory he controls along the border with Afghanistan and demanded a withdrawal of all American forces from the region. In a rare interview with a foreign journalist, Chief Minister Akram Durrani insisted there was no terrorist threat in his province and said Pakistan's federal government should kick U.S. forces out of bases in Pakistan being used to support the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. That's the MMA's party line... ``We don't have any al-Qaida or Taliban here,'' said Durrani, who heads a conservative Islamic coalition that won power in the province last year. ''Absolutely there is nothing here and we don't want any foreigners here.'' "Nope. Nope. No al-Qaeda. No Talibs. Sorry. They're, ummm... something else. And don't go sending us any foreigners. We're xenophobes, thank you..." He was speaking of American Special Forces that work with Pakistan troops in the tribal regions that border Afghanistan and FBI agents who have been on several raids with Pakistan security forces against Islamic schools and homes in the frontier province. Where they've caught al-Qaeda and Talibs, and had shoot-outs with others... In an interview lasting more than an hour, Durrani warned that a war in Iraq will set off protests not only in his deeply conservative province, but throughout Pakistan. ``It's time for the United States to rebuild its relationship with Pakistan,'' said Durrani, interviewed inside the chief minister's palatial brick residence in the heart of Peshawar. Pakistanis, Durrani said, are disillusioned by a United States they now see as antagonistic toward Muslims. Only those who want to kill large numbers of us. Nobody really cares about the rest. I think that's the part that gets to him... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |