Pakistan behind Afghan insecurity-state newspaper

KABUL, Dec 13 (Reuters) Pakistan's government is equipping and sending militants into Afghanistan, a state-run Afghan paper said today, the harshest criticism yet against Islamabad in the face of the bloodiest violence since the Taliban's fall.

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

''For a long time, our country has been exposed to invasions and threats,'' Anis, the leading government-controlled paper, said in an editorial.

''The country's current crisis of military challenge is the result of direct and indirect interference of Pakistan.'' It is the toughest statement made by a government paper against Pakistan since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban's government in 2001 and came after President Hamid Karzai said yesterday ''terrorist nests'' were operating from Pakistan.

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

Pakistan denies it supports the insurgents.

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

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

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

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

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

The Taliban, most of them from Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtun majority, typically have tribal links on both sides of the porous border.

Islamabad, the newspaper Anis said, wanted a weak government in Afghanistan that will not raise the issue of the ''Durand Line'', the Afghan/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 in 1893 imposed the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan from was then British India.

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

REUTERS BDP BST1504