Pakistan behind Afghan insecurity: State newspaper

Kabul, Dec 13: Pakistan's government is equipping and sendingmilitants into Afghanistan, a state-run Afghan paper said today, theharshest criticism yet against Islamabad in the face of the bloodiestviolence since the Taliban's fall.

The United States and its Afghan allies say the Taliban has beenable to regroup since its 2001 ouster using safe havens in Pakistan anddrugs money.

''For a long time, our country has been exposed to invasions andthreats,'' Anis, the leading government-controlled paper, said in aneditorial.

''The country's current crisis of military challenge is the resultof direct and indirect interference of Pakistan.'' It is the tougheststatement made by a government paper against Pakistan since US-ledforces overthrew the Taliban's government in 2001 and came afterPresident Hamid Karzai said yesterday ''terrorist nests'' wereoperating from Pakistan.

This year has seen the worst fighting in Afghanistan since theTaliban's overthrow in 2001, with about 4,000 people killed, around aquarter of them civilians.

Pakistan denies it supports the insurgents.

Both countries are planning tribal councils in a bid to stem theviolence. But no date or venue has been set for the meetings, called''jirgas'', in which Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart PresidentPervez Musharraf would also take part.

The Taliban on Monday backed away from comments they, too, mightjoin the councils, saying they would not do so as long as 40,000foreign troops remain in the country under separate NATO and UScommands.

Pakistan was once the Taliban's main sponsor, but officiallydropped support for the radical Islamic movement after the September 11attacks on the United States. It has since arrested hundreds of alQaeda and Taliban members, including top lieutenants of Osama bin Laden.

Islamabad concedes there is some cross-border infiltration bymilitants into Afghanistan, but says the problem is a matter ofgovernment inefficiency as opposed to policy.

Relations between the two neighbours, both allies in the US war onterror have gone through long periods of strain ever since Pakistan wascreated in 1947, due mainly to border disagreements.

The Taliban, most of them from Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtunmajority, typically have tribal links on both sides of the porousborder.

Islamabad, the newspaper Anis said, wanted a weak government inAfghanistan that will not raise the issue of the ''Durand Line'', theAfghan/Pakistan border drawn by the British.

The paper said the core problem with Pakistan was a border dispute that has rankled for more than a century.

After being defeated in two wars against Afghans, the British in1883 imposed the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan from was then BritishIndia.

The border was drawn intentionally to cut through tribal areasoccupied by Pashtuns, whom the British feared and may have tried todisunite. About 28 million Pashtuns are found on the Pakistan side odthe line, and around half that on the Afghan side.

Reuters