Taliban deny receiving backing from Pakistan

Spin Boldak (Afghanistan), Dec 16: Taliban today denied accusations by Afghan leaders the group was being sponsored by Pakistan, an issue souring relations between the two nations.

A senior rebel commander, Hayat Khan, said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was trying to hide his own failure and the Taliban movement lived only on the support of ordinary people.

''Karzai's allegations are baseless. We neither have any links with Pakistan nor is the country helping the Taliban,''Khan told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.

''The Taliban movement is continuing only with the support of the Afghan people.

''Instead of shedding crocodile tears, Hamid Karzai should resign and join the Taliban ranks for jihad against the infidel occupiers to liberate Afghanistan,'' he added, referring to Karzai crying during a speech about civilian deaths this week.

The hardline Islamists have regrouped since their ouster in 2001, helped by safe havens and militant allies in Pakistan and money from the booming illegal opium industry.

About 4,000 people have died this year, a quarter of them civilians.

Relations between the neighbours, both key allies in the US war on terrorism, have deteriorated sharply this year over the question of cross-border incursions.

In his strongest comments yet, Karzai said this week ''terrorist nests'' operated from Pakistan. Pakistan was once the Taliban's main sponsor but officially dropped support for the group after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Pakistan denies it supports the insurgents but acknowledges some militants are crossing the rugged, porous border. President Pervez Musharraf also said recently some retired security officers might be helping the militants.

But in talks with a European Union official in Islamabad yesterday, Musharraf repeated Pakistan's position that ''the militancy problem was essentially an Afghan problem''.

''Pakistan is committed to not allow its territory to be used by militants and had done all within its means to deal with this issue,'' the Pakistan Foreign Ministry cited Musharraf as telling the EU's Afghan representative, Francesc Vendrell.

Senior US Senator John McCain, visiting Kabul ahead of a trip to Pakistan, today called on the two nations to ratchet up their efforts to fight the Taliban.

''The level of rhetoric needs to be lowered and the level of cooperation needs to be dramatically increased,'' he told reporters at a US base in the Afghan capital.

McCain, a possible candidate for the 2008 US presidential election, is a member of the Senate armed services committee.

Reuters