Afghan-Pakistani relations deteriorating
(AP) - KABUL, Afghanistan - A rift between Afghanistan and Pakistan deepened Tuesday as Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said intelligence about Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives allegedly hiding in Pakistan was "very strong and accurate."
Karzai's spokesman Karim Rahimi said his government will present Islamabad with further intelligence about the militants' whereabouts and that it was "hopeful that measures will be taken" against them.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan - key allies of Washington in its war on terror - have deteriorated sharply since Karzai gave Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month a list of Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives he said were hiding in Pakistan.
Afghan and Pakistani officials told The Associated Press the list included Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and top associates, and that Afghanistan also shared the locations of alleged terrorist training camps.
"Afghanistan provided very strong and accurate intelligence," Rahimi told a press conference Tuesday in response to a claim by Musharraf in an interview Sunday on CNN that the information was old.
Rahimi said that even if the intelligence was outdated, "It still shows that there are problems and terrorists have freedom of movement" in Pakistan.
Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of leaking the list to the media because Kabul did not trust Islamabad to act on it. "The bad-mouthing against Pakistan is a deliberate, articulated conspiracy," Musharraf was quoted as saying Monday by the state-run news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan.
Musharraf said nobody should question his commitment to fight terrorism and that his security forces have captured terrorists and will continue to do so. He added that he discussed the matter with President Bush during Bush's visit last week to Islamabad.
Top U.S. military commander Gen. John Abizaid was expected to visit Pakistan later Tuesday to discuss a range of issues, including the fugitive militants list, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.
"Definitely, we will present our view about Afghanistan's list when our officials meet with General Abizaid," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
In another sign of the increasing tensions, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam urged Afghanistan - and U.S.-led coalition forces - to do more to stop militants from sneaking across the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border into its tribal regions.
She said Pakistan had deployed some 80,000 troops along the rugged frontier and that Afghan and coalition forces should "equally contribute in stopping militants."
Pakistan, which used to support Afghanistan's former Taliban government, switched sides in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and has backed Karzai since then. But a spike in violence in Afghanistan has fueled suspicions in Kabul that Pakistan's intelligence agencies may be still supporting the Taliban - a charge Pakistan strongly denies.
Some 1,600 people were killed in violence in Afghanistan last year, the most since the Taliban was ousted in 2001. Recent months has seen a wave of suicide attacks that Afghanistan claims were plotted in Pakistan and executed by militants who crossed the border.
Karzai's spokesman Karim Rahimi said his government will present Islamabad with further intelligence about the militants' whereabouts and that it was "hopeful that measures will be taken" against them.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan - key allies of Washington in its war on terror - have deteriorated sharply since Karzai gave Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf last month a list of Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives he said were hiding in Pakistan.
Afghan and Pakistani officials told The Associated Press the list included Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and top associates, and that Afghanistan also shared the locations of alleged terrorist training camps.
"Afghanistan provided very strong and accurate intelligence," Rahimi told a press conference Tuesday in response to a claim by Musharraf in an interview Sunday on CNN that the information was old.
Rahimi said that even if the intelligence was outdated, "It still shows that there are problems and terrorists have freedom of movement" in Pakistan.
Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of leaking the list to the media because Kabul did not trust Islamabad to act on it. "The bad-mouthing against Pakistan is a deliberate, articulated conspiracy," Musharraf was quoted as saying Monday by the state-run news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan.
Musharraf said nobody should question his commitment to fight terrorism and that his security forces have captured terrorists and will continue to do so. He added that he discussed the matter with President Bush during Bush's visit last week to Islamabad.
Top U.S. military commander Gen. John Abizaid was expected to visit Pakistan later Tuesday to discuss a range of issues, including the fugitive militants list, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.
"Definitely, we will present our view about Afghanistan's list when our officials meet with General Abizaid," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
In another sign of the increasing tensions, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam urged Afghanistan - and U.S.-led coalition forces - to do more to stop militants from sneaking across the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border into its tribal regions.
She said Pakistan had deployed some 80,000 troops along the rugged frontier and that Afghan and coalition forces should "equally contribute in stopping militants."
Pakistan, which used to support Afghanistan's former Taliban government, switched sides in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and has backed Karzai since then. But a spike in violence in Afghanistan has fueled suspicions in Kabul that Pakistan's intelligence agencies may be still supporting the Taliban - a charge Pakistan strongly denies.
Some 1,600 people were killed in violence in Afghanistan last year, the most since the Taliban was ousted in 2001. Recent months has seen a wave of suicide attacks that Afghanistan claims were plotted in Pakistan and executed by militants who crossed the border.
posted by Marko at 3/07/2006 10:10:00 AM
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