http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061212/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanafghanistantalibanunrest
US concerned over "extremist" safe havens in Pakistan WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said it was concerned over safe havens being established by Islamic militants in northern Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. ADVERTISEMENT The concerns stemmed from reports Monday that Pakistan's peace deals with militants in its tribal areas are helping to fuel Taliban's regrouping. The militants are consolidating their hold in northern Pakistan and vastly expanding their training of suicide bombers and other recruits and fortifying alliances with Al-Qaeda and foreign fighters, the New York Times reported Monday. Their new strength has led to "virtually a Taliban mini-state" and portends an "even bloodier year for Afghanistan in 2007," the report warned, quoting diplomats and intelligence officials from several nations. Many Taliban guerillas fled to Pakistan's tribal zone after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Taliban's subsequent insurgency has spiked in 2006 with almost 4,000 deaths. "Clearly, you still do have cross-border infiltration and I know that that is a concern for the Pakistanis and the Afghans," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, commenting on the Times report. "But having safe havens and areas where these extremists can operate from is a real concern for us," he said. The peace deals were signed by the Pakistani government in the semi-autonomous tribal regions of North Waziristan in September 2006 and neighbouring South Waziristan in April 2004. Since the September accord, NATO officials say cross-border attacks by Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and their foreign allies have increased, the Times reported. US President George W. Bush hosted talks between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai at the White House in September to help ease the border tensions. McCormack said Monday it was "too early to tell" whether the peace programs were succeeding. But the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said in a report Monday that the peace deals had allowed the Taliban, once backed by Pakistan, to regroup and sparked increasingly deadly attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan. President Musharraf's policy of "appeasing" insurgents after the failure of army offensives has merely fuelled radicalism along the border and throughout Pakistan, it said. "Using the region to regroup, reorganise and rearm, they are launching increasingly severe cross-border attacks on Afghan and international military personnel," the think tank report said. "The Musharraf government's ambivalent approach and failure to take effective action is destabilising Afghanistan," it added. Pakistan says it has 80,000 troops along the border tackling the problem. NATO is battling a tough Taliban-led insurgency, particularly in southern Afghanistan, and it fears that if reconstruction does not happen quickly enough people may turn back to the fundamentalist militia. +++ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
