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Taliban denies Pakistan support
16/12/2006 10:51 - (SA)
Spin Boldak - The Taliban on
Saturday denied accusations by Afghan leaders the group was
being sponsored by Pakistan, an issue souring relations between
the two nations.
A senior rebel commander, Hayat Khan, said Afghan President
Hamid Karzai was trying to hide his own failure and the Taliban
movement lived only on the support of ordinary people.
"Karzai's allegations are baseless. We neither have any
links with Pakistan nor is the country helping the Taliban,"
Khan told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.
"The Taliban movement is continuing only with the support
of the Afghan people.
"Instead of shedding crocodile tears, Hamid Karzai should
resign and join the Taliban ranks for jihad against the infidel
occupiers to liberate Afghanistan," he added, referring to
Karzai crying during a speech about civilian deaths this week.
The hardline Islamists have regrouped since their ouster in
2001, helped by safe havens and militant allies in Pakistan and
money from the booming illegal opium industry.
About 4 000 people have died this year, a quarter of them
civilians.
Relations between the neighbours, both key allies in the
US war on terrorism, have deteriorated sharply this year over
the question of cross-border incursions.
In his strongest comments yet, Karzai said this week
"terrorist nests" operated from Pakistan. Pakistan was once the
Taliban's main sponsor but officially dropped support for the
group after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Pakistan denies it supports the insurgents but acknowledges
some militants are crossing the rugged, porous border.
President Pervez Musharraf also said recently some retired
security officers might be helping the militants.
But in talks with a European Union official in Islamabad on
Friday, Musharraf repeated Pakistan's position that "the
militancy problem was essentially an Afghan problem".
"Pakistan is committed to not allow its territory to be
used by militants and had done all within its means to deal
with this issue," the Pakistan Foreign Ministry cited Musharraf
as telling the EU's Afghan representative, Francesc Vendrell.
Senior US Senator John McCain, visiting Kabul ahead of a
trip to Pakistan, on Saturday called on the two nations to
ratchet up their efforts to fight the Taliban.
"The level of rhetoric needs to be lowered and the level of
cooperation needs to be dramatically increased," he told
reporters at a US base in the Afghan capital.
McCain, a possible candidate for the 2008 US presidential
election, is a member of the Senate armed services committee.
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