Afghan leader says Pakistan trains miltitants

KABUL, May 18 (Reuters) Pakistan is training militants and sending then into Afghanistan but Islamabad should realise it no longer has power to determine events in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was quoted as saying today.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan deteriorated sharply this year after Afghanistan said Taliban insurgents were able to operate from the safety of Pakistani soil.

''Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends to Afghanistan with logistics,'' the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency quoted Karzai as saying.

Taliban violence has surged this year and about 80 people were killed in fighting in various parts of Afghanistan yesterday and today.

Many Afghans blame Pakistan for supporting the Taliban, or at the very least turning a blind eye to Taliban operating from Pakistan's lawless border regions.

Pakistan, which is battling Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants on its side of the border, denies helping the Taliban.

But a senior US security official said recently Pakistan was not doing enough in the war on terrorism, and militant sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border had to be dealt with.

Pakistan supported the Taliban until the September. 11, 2001, attacks when it joined the United States in its war on terrorism.

Karzai said the influence Pakistan used to have over Afghanistan was a thing of the past.

''Pakistan should know that gone are the days when Afghan governments were formed in Pakistan and dissolved there,''Karzai was quoted as telling tribal elders and officials in the eastern province of Kunar, which is on the Pakistani border.

''Afghans are now themselves masters of their country and the Afghan people themselves will take decisions,'' he said.

Karzai also descried fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as a coward, AIP said.

''If he is a man, he should come out ... now he is hiding in the other country and sending youth to kill our people,'' he said.

''Pakistan wants that Afghanistan be its military base but that dream will never come true.'' REUTERS SI RK2004