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Taliban 'worse than al-Qaeda'
12/09/2006 22:41 - (SA)
Brussels - Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf warned the West on Tuesday that Taliban insurgents
were a more dangerous terrorist force than al-Qaeda because of
the broad support they have in Afghanistan.
Five years after the 9/11 attacks on the United States
masterminded by al-Qaeda and the subsequent US invasion of
Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, Musharraf said Taliban
fighters had regrouped in southern Afghanistan.
"The centre of gravity of terrorism has shifted from
al-Qaeda to the Taliban," he told EU lawmakers who quizzed
Musharraf on Pakistan's counter-terrorism efforts.
"This is a new element, a more dangerous element, because it
(the Taliban) has its roots in the people. "Al-Qaeda didn't have
roots in the people," he said. Nato
Musharraf said he was certain that the Taliban fighters were
being commanded by former Taliban ruler Mullah Omar from a base
in southern Afghanistan, where Nato troops are struggling to
contain an insurgency.
Musharraf rejected criticism that Pakistan was not doing
enough to prevent the Taliban from mounting attacks on Nato
troops by infiltrating its porous borders with Afghanistan.
"No one should blame us or doubt us for not doing enough,"
he said, adding that Pakistan had deployed 50 000 troops on its
side of the border to tackle militant Islamists.
He urged the international community to do more to rebuild
Afghanistan. "We would encourage faster reconstruction activity
in Afghanistan," Musharraf said.
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