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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan spy chief urges Pakistan action on enemies |
| 2006-08-22 |
| KABUL - Pakistan is the main source of Afghanistan's insecurity, the country's intelligence chief said on Thursday, adding that there could be no peace here if the war against Islamic militants was not shifted to include Pakistan. In the strongest comments by an Afghan official yet, director-general of intelligence Amruallah Saleh said enemy training sites and organisational and financial resources all lay inside Pakistan. "Pakistan has not given up its interference and aggression," Saleh told parliament's lower house, which is considering his renomination as intelligence chief. Saleh conceded there were shortcomings in the Afghan government, but said the source of insecurity lay on the other side of the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan from Pakistan. The meat of the problem "As long as the war against terrorism is not extended openly and seriously from Afghanistan, we cannot restore full security in our country," he said. "The enemy's organisation set-up, the enemy's financial resources, the enemy's training sites and all it has, lie on the other side of the Durand Line where our arms can't reach." Worst fighting since 2001 Fighting in Afghanistan is at its worst since a US-led coalition drove the hardline Islamist Taleban from power in 2001. Most of the increase has been in the south and east, the Taleban's heartland bordering Pakistan. Both Islamabad and Kabul are major US allies in its war on terrorism, but they have exchanged harsh words in recent months over the campaign against the Taleban, once supported by Pakistan, undermining already long uneasy ties. More than 1,800 people have been killed in the Taleban-led insurgency, attacks by drug barons and in operations involving foreign forces this year, mostly in the south and east. The toll includes more than 80 foreign soldiers. Saleh said his organisation had given Pakistan intelligence showing Taleban and other militants operating in Pakistan. "But until today, none of the training camps has been closed," he said. New Delhi makes the same charges against Pakistan over support for militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. Pakistan denies supporting any militants. Pakistan and Afghanistan have had a troubled relationship since Britain partitioned the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947. Much of the trouble is over border disputes. Pakistan used to be the Taleban's main supporter, but switched to become a major US ally in the war on terrorism after the Al Qaeda network, which Taleban sheltered, carried out the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States. Islamabad is battling militants, most of whom fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and says it does all it can to curb cross-border infiltration. It also says there are people in President Hamid Karzai's government who want to spoil relations with Pakistan. Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the Taleban's fall, has also in the past urged the world to extend the war against the militants beyond his country's borders, but has held back from specifically naming Pakistan. |
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