'Pak must stop providing safe haven to Taliban'

Washington, May 24: Pakistan has failed to act decisively against al-Qaeda and continues to provide safe haven to the terror outfit, says the Washington Post.

Unless Pakistan stops providing sanctuary to the Taliban, the US-led effort to transform Afghanistan, one time base of Al Qaeda, will not succeed, the newspaper said quoting Afghan President Hamid Karzai who had earlier said the Taliban high command continues to use Pakistan as its main base.

An editorial titled 'A Fight in Afghanistan' published in the Washington Post today, said the Afghan government and its NATO allies will need some success beyond the battlefield if the Taliban offensive is to be turned back.

''Most important is that Pakistan, a former sponsor of Taliban, has failed to act decisively against the terror outfit,'' the editorial said.

''Finally, the Bush administration needs to press for more economic reconstruction in the south, which has had little improvement since the entry of Western forces nearly five years ago,'' it added.

The Taliban is also supported by Afghanistan's booming trade in poppy, the raw material of opium, which means more aggressive action is needed against this billion-dollar industry.

The editorial says the heavy fighting in Afghanistan during the past week, in which more than 300 people have died, may seem like a sudden eruption to many Americans who tend to assume the war there ended ears ago.

In fact, the conflict has been building for some time. Casualties in Afghanistan increased by about 20 per cent last year.

As winter waned this year, Taliban fighters were reported to be moving in large numbers into southern Afghan provinces.

That movement coincided with the deployment to the region of a new NATO force of 6,000 troops with a mandate to extend government control and take over counter-insurgency operations conducted until now by US forces.

The result is a crucial battle for control of the south -- crucial for both Afghanistan and the NATO, says the Post.

A decisive defeat of the Taliban offensive could help consolidate a still-fragile democratic government, and it could validate NATO as a military alliance capable of tackling the security challenges of the 21st century.

The Taliban, however, is betting it can prove the reverse, that the new Afghan political order is unworkable and the NATO is a paper tiger.

Given the scale of the military challenge, the planned withdrawal of 3,000 US troops from Afghanistan this summer looks increasingly risky, the Post added.

UNI