Afghanistan, Pakistan clash over war on terror

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 21 (Reuters) Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has angrily rejected Afghan charges that he was being soft on the Taliban and said Kabul should be doing more to stamp out the militant threat.

The spat with Afghan President Hamid Karzai marked an unseemly rift between two leaders who met in early September and agreed to do more to fight Taliban fighters largely blamed for a recent upsurge in violence.

Karzai told the United Nations yesterday that foreign troops in Afghanistan would not be able to end Taliban assaults unless ''terrorist sanctuaries'' outside the country were destroyed -- a clear reference to Pakistan.

NATO troops are battling to put down the heaviest outbreak of violence in Afghanistan since 2001 when US-led forces overthrew the Islamic-fundamentalist Taliban, which had been sheltering Osama bin-Laden and his al Qaeda organization.

Musharaff, complaining that ''what President Karzai has said is not the correct thing,'' said Kabul did not fully understand what was going on in the region.

''I am already doing a lot in Pakistan. They need to be doing more in Afghanistan,'' he told a news conference, saying Taliban commander Mullah Omar and his top subordinates were in the southern Afghan region of Kandahar.

''They (Afghan forces) need to go for them. Military action is required against him and his command echelon,'' he said.

''Instead of this blame game that goes on ... he (Karzai) must realize what is the correct environment and take action accordingly in Afghanistan. The problem lies in Afghanistan and ... that has been creating problems in Pakistan for 27 years.'' US Army Gen John Abizaid, the commander overseeing American operations in Afghanistan, on Tuesday expressed concern about Taliban military activity being organized and supported from inside Pakistan.

Rebels can freely cross the mountainous frontier between the two countries, an area where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding.

Musharraf reacted with displeasure to comments by US President George W Bush, who said yesterday that if he had firm intelligence bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would issue the order to go into that country.

''We wouldn't like to allow that. We'd like to do that ourselves,'' he told the news conference.

Bush will hold a joint meeting with Musharraf and Karzai in Washington next week.

SAFE HAVEN FOR TALIBAN? Karzai said outsiders, whom he did not identify, were behind the new upsurge of violence.

''Military action in Afghanistan alone, therefore, will not deliver our shared goal of eliminating terrorism,'' he said.

There are around 41,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Pro-Taliban militants and the Pakistani government reached a deal on September 5 under which the militants agreed to stop attacks in the country and in Afghanistan in return for a halt in government's operations in the region.

Critics say Pakistan's government has virtually caved in to the militants' demands and the strategy risked creating a safe haven for Taliban insurgents and their al Qaeda allies.

But Musharraf, speaking earlier in the day, said the deal was with tribal elders rather than militants and represented ''the best strategy we have employed'' against the Taliban.

In his speech, Karzai said: ''We must look beyond Afghanistan to the sources of terrorism. We must destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm and deploy terrorists.'' Musharraf acidly pointed out that the Taliban were an Afghan phenomenon.

''Who were they? Were they from Pakistan, I would certainly like to ask you? Certainly they were the people of Afghanistan who took over Afghanistan under Mullah Omar,'' he said.

REUTERS DKS BST0509