Afghanistan News January 4, 2003

January 4, 2003

Wall Street Journal: Afghanistan's modest progress
Friday, January 03, 2003 8:10 AM EST
Jan 3, 2003, (Wall Street Journal /FT Information via COMTEX) Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's elected president, has apparently abandoned his slow and calculated leadership style and has instead adopted a more proactive role in running the country's affairs. Last month, 29 corrupt provincial officials were removed from office at Mr. Karzai's instruction, though some refused to heed his directive. The Afghan president also moved to undermine the political and economic might of warlords by accelerating efforts to disarm and demobilize them, as well as by boosting tax and tariff collections to take away their financial backing. Mr. Karzai's new approach could have been brought about by several factors, including his narrow escape from an assassination attempt in September and the need to establish order in the countryside before the start of foreign-funded construction projects in the spring and before the promulgation of a new constitution in October.

US, Afghan troops seize second arms cache in Afghanistan - military
KABUL (AFX) - US and Afghan troops have seized an arms cache, including rockets and grenade-launchers in eastern Afghanistan, the US military said.

This is the second such haul announced in the war-torn country in as many days.

The haul includes some 107 boxes of ammunition, numerous 107-mm rockets, 82-mm mortars and rounds of rocket-propelled grenades, the statement said.

No further details have been provided as to how the cache was found, or whether any arrests have been made.

U.S. Reserves Right to Enter Pakistan
Friday, January 03, 2003 1:59 PM EST
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) The U.S. military said Friday it reserves the right to pursue fleeing al-Qaida and Taliban fighters into Pakistan after an American soldier was wounded at the border earlier this week.

While American officials have said before they might chase enemy fighters ``in hot pursuit'' into Pakistan, until now they have pledged to do so only as a last resort and with the consent of Pakistani authorities.

Friday's declaration came as thousands of Islamic hard-liners rallied in Pakistan's major cities to protest a possible war on Iraq and Pakistan's cooperation with the United States.

``We do reserve the right to go after them and pursue them and that is something that Pakistan is aware of,'' said U.S. military spokesman Maj. Stephen Clutter. ``In hot pursuit, we're going to chase down the bad guys.''

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Khan said his country was looking into the American military's statement, but had no immediate comment.

``We are in the process of verifying if the statement was really made and at what level,'' he told The Associated Press in Islamabad.

While Pakistan is an ally in the war on terrorism and has extradited hundreds of terror suspects to the United States, U.S. forces and the government of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf have rarely spoken about military incursions, for fear of angering anti-American Islamic militants who could also pose a threat to Musharraf's regime.

U.S. officials have expressed concern that al-Qaida and Taliban remnants from Afghanistan have crossed into Pakistan, despite the deployment of thousands of Pakistani troops along the 1,344-mile frontier.

``It is a long-standing policy that if we are pursuing enemy forces, we're not just going to tiptoe and stop right at the border,'' Clutter told reporters at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan.

Clutter said, however, that U.S. forces had yet to cross into Pakistan in any hot pursuit operation.

He said the closest they've come was during the attack Sunday in which a rogue Pakistani border guard shot a U.S. soldier, wounding him in the head just a few hundred yards from the Pakistani border.

The border guard retreated to a nearby building, inside Afghanistan but under Pakistani control, which was bombed in a U.S. airstrike. The border guard survived and was taken into custody by Pakistani authorities, the U.S. military said.

A military spokeswoman, Master Sgt. Kelly Tyler, said the building, a checkpoint and a fence were all under Pakistani control, although they were inside Afghan territory.

The Pakistani government has said it is investigating the incident.

``It is important to reiterate that personnel on either side of the border should not approach coalition forces engaged in the conduct of their mission, as they place themselves in danger,'' Tyler said.

In March 2002, Maj. Gen. Frank Hagenbeck, then commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said American troops might chase al-Qaida fighters into Pakistan in hot pursuit. But he said that would be done only as a last resort and with the approval of Pakistan's government.

At the same time, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said ``that's a possibility'' but stressed such action would come under limited circumstances and with Pakistani consultation.

Tyler said the U.S. military's official rules of engagement had not changed but were not generally publicized ``as it can become a security issue and endanger the lives of our soldiers.''

``U.S. forces have always retained the right to defend ourselves from hostile actions. If it is necessary to pursue the enemy in that defense, then that is what will happen,'' Tyler said. ``We retain the right and the obligation to protect our soldiers by any means necessary.''

Sunday's incident along the Afghan-Pakistan border prompted Islamic groups in Pakistan to call Thursday for the United States to pull its troops out of the region, saying the clash showed the dangers of the American presence.

Many hard-line politicians in northwestern Pakistan have long been outraged over Musharraf's decision to join the U.S.-led campaign to overthrow Afghanistan's Taliban rulers following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Pakistanis Demonstrate Against Iraq War

Story Filed: Friday, January 03, 2003 10:28 PM EST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) A protest billed by Islamic hard-liners as a nationwide strike against a possible U.S. war on Iraq turned into a series of relatively small marches Friday, with demonstrators burning an effigy of President Bush and calling for the ouster of Pakistan's leader.

Security was high and extra troops were posted outside the U.S. Embassy and other sensitive sites, but the demonstrations in several of Pakistan's major cities remained peaceful.

A total of about 15,000 protesters showed up across the Muslim nation of 145 million and most shopkeepers ignored calls to close for the day, in what the government called a sign Pakistanis may be tiring of restrictions imposed by religious conservatives.

``I think people are disappointed in the way the (religious coalition) Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal has behaved,'' Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said, referring to the group that called the protest. The party governs one of Pakistan's four provinces, where in the name of Islamic purity it has cracked down on movie houses, burned videos and ordered buses to stop operating at Islamic prayer times.

Friday's largest gathering occurred outside the Madni Masjid mosque in the western city of Peshawar, where some 7,000 people chanted ``Down with America'' and ``Long Live Saddam Hussein.''

``The American attack on Iraq will be an attack on the Islamic world,'' said Fazl-ur Rahman, a one-time candidate for prime minister and leader of the religious coalition. He criticized President Pervez Musharraf and called for his ouster.

``Musharraf has caused irreparable damage to the Muslims by supporting America against the Taliban in Afghanistan,'' Rahman said. ``Removal of Musharraf from power is necessary for Pakistan.''

At a rally in the central city of Multan, another cleric, Qari Abdul Ghafoor, also called for Musharraf's ouster, branding him ``an agent of Jews and America.'' Demonstrators there burned an effigy of Bush.

Musharraf took over in a 1999 coup. He ceded power back to a civilian government in November, but retains the right to fire the prime minister and dissolve parliament.

In the capital, Islamabad, an estimated 400 people rallied outside a mosque, waving banners that read ``Yankees: Don't Spread Hatred in the Muslim World'' and ``Stop the Holocaust Against Muslims.''

Police stood by with anti-riot shields and sticks, and traffic was diverted. Demonstrations of about 1,000 people apiece were also held in the southern port city of Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore, and the southwestern town of Quetta.

``We are nobody's slaves. We are slaves of Islam. We will fight until America and its stooges are expelled from Pakistan,'' Noor Mohammed, a cleric and legislator, told the crowd in Quetta.

Supporters say the marches are just a taste of the anger that an attack on Saddam Hussein's regime could unleash in Pakistan.

There have been a series of terrorist attacks on Westerners and Pakistani Christians since Musharraf sided with the United States in its efforts to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Some fear the anger will intensify if America wages war on another Muslim country.

Before the demonstrations, the U.S. Embassy said it was monitoring events, but was not unduly concerned.

``We're watching events closely,'' said spokesman Terry White. ``But it's not accurate to say we're behind-the-barricades afraid. ... We've been security conscious for months.''

Most Western embassies in Pakistan are already operating at emergency levels, with families evacuated after a grenade attack on a church in March that killed a U.S. Embassy employee and her 17-year-old daughter. In June, a car bomb went off outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, killing 12 Pakistanis. A suicide bombing in that southern city in May killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers.

Even before Friday's protests, tensions were high after a weekend incident along the Pakistan-Afghan border. A U.S. warplane dropped a bomb along the border after a Pakistani border guard shot and wounded an American soldier. The U.S. military says the shooting took place on Afghan soil. Pakistan said it was investigating.

A Desire To Be Left Alone
Afghanistan's power-hungry neighbours threaten to revive the ruinous civil war of the early 1990s that gave rise to the Taliban
By Ahmed Rashid/Kabul Far Eastern Economic Review January 2, 2003

Russia is arming one warlord, Iran another. Wealthy Saudis have resumed funding Islamic extremists and some Central Asian Republics are backing their ethnic allies. India and Pakistan are playing out an intense rivalry as they secretly back opposing forces. The playing field is Afghanistan, and the interference threatens to revive a multifaceted power struggle that in the early 1990s eventually gave way to a near-ruinous rule by the Taliban.

The danger is widely recognized. On December 22, under the watchful eye of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, the foreign ministers or ambassadors of Afghanistan's closest neighbours-China, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan-signed the Kabul Declaration in which they pledged to never again interfere in the affairs of the war-ravaged country. Officials from other interested countries like Russia, India and Saudi Arabia looked on.

But the pledges of support for Karzai and the principle of non-interference, along with promises of aid for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, hid am starker reality. The very fact that such a declaration was needed, despite the all-powerful presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, demonstrated the apprehensions of Afghan leaders and the world.

"We are not going to be a political football for neighbours in the region as we were in the 1990s," says Karzai in an interview at the presidential palace prior to the signing of the declaration. "The soil of Afghanistan cannot be used by any country against a third country."

IN DANGER OF SPLINTERING AFGHANISTAN
Karzai's determination to keep his country free of outside disruption won't be easy to realize because many of the same neighbours who sponsored Afghan warlords in the early 1990s, prolonging the country's turmoil and eventually helping to bring the Taliban to power, are keen to resurrect their influence. According to western diplomats, many of the neighbours believe that the U.S. forces will wind down their operations in Afghanistan once a war in Iraq begins. They feel that Karzai's government is weak and Afghanistan will split along ethnic lines if the U.S. leaves.

Karzai and the U.S. strongly refute such conjecture, but many neighbours don't seem convinced. Russia backed the former Northern Alliance during the 1990s and is continuing to support the army of Gen. Mohammed Fahim, once a powerful Northern Alliance leader and now Karzai's defence minister.
Last September Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov declared in Kabul that Russia would provide $100 million worth of military equipment to the Afghan army.

It seems clear at this point that the aid will flow to Fahim's army. That force is separate from the one now being trained by the U.S. and France
to be the official Afghan National Army (ANA)-a projected body of 70,000 men of which only 3,000 have been trained so far.

Quietly U.S. officials have asked Moscow to stop the flow of arms, but to no avail. Zamir Kabulov, director for Asia at Russia's foreign ministry, says the aid to Fahim's force is permissible according to old treaty obligations between Russia and Afghanistan. Washington is unwilling to push harder for the moment because it needs Moscow's support for its potential invasion of Iraq. "We have made it clear to all of Afghanistan's neighbours that the country should be allowed to develop without interference," says Robert Finn, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul.

Western intelligence believes some Russian spare parts and even tanks are arriving in the northern city of Kunduz from Tajikistan and being transported down to the Panjshir Valley where Fahim has a large stockpile of weapons. Fahim denies the charge. "The Russians have made no promises
and so far we have received no items from Russia," he says.

Afghan ministers also say Russia has run off with the country's only geological survey of oil and gas resources, which was made in the
1970s. "We have asked Russia to return these documents," says Juma Mohammed Mohammedi, the minister of mines. Russian oil companies are reportedly negotiating with Gen. Rashid Dostum, a warlord in northern Afghanistan, to resume supplies of Afghan gas to Central Asia. The U.S. has said it will carry out a new
geological survey.

Even if Karzai can straighten out these issues, his problems have only begun. Afghan officials say Iranian Revolutionary Guards are continuing to provide cash and military support to Ismail Khan, a warlord in Herat in the west. And wealthy Saudis have apparently resumed sending money to remnants of the Taliban based in Pakistan. Not to be outdone, President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan has provided his own bodyguards to guard the Afghan Uzbek warlord Dostum, an opponent of Fahim.

Meanwhile India and Pakistan are using Afghanistan as a proxy battleground for their ongoing conflict. New Delhi has promised to deliver military vehicles and train Afghan officers. By providing civilian airplanes, buses and hospital equipment, India has quickly developed a huge presence in the country.

India is helping develop a new export route for landlocked Afghanistan through Iran-thereby avoiding Pakistan. It has opened consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, Herat in the west, and Kandahar and Jalalabad close to the Pakistan border. "India sees Afghanistan as a means to undermine Pakistan's western border, and Pakistan is retaliating," says a European ambassador in Kabul.

"I have assurances from India that these consulates will only be for trade and consular activities," says Karzai. "We will not allow either India or Pakistan to use Afghanistan to work against each other."

CALL-OUT BOX HERE:
sources say pakistan supports the u.s. on the surface but also allows taliban remnants to operate

Nevertheless, India's moves have irked Pakistan tremendously. An infuriated Pakistan President Pervaiz Musharraf reportedly made testy phone calls complaining to Karzai after he heard about the new Indian consulates.

Publicly, Pakistan supports Karzai and continues to hand over Al Qaeda operatives to the U.S. But according to western diplomats and Afghan leaders, Pakistan's Interservice Intelligence is also giving sanctuary to top Taliban leaders, some of whom are living openly in Pakistan, and
allows them to cross into Afghanistan to orchestrate rocket attacks against U.S. bases.

Moderate Pashtun leaders in Peshawar say the Interservice Intelligence is fuelling Pashtun radicalism, which is the ideology that led to the
creation of the Taliban in the first place. Pakistan wants to retain some influence in southern Afghanistan among ethnic Pashtuns as well as to counter the influence of India in Kabul.

Retired Pakistani military officers say the army is playing two sides of the Afghanistan conflict in border cities like Peshawar and Quetta. According to these sources, one senior Interservices Intelligence officer and his staff work with the U.S. in Pakistan to catch Al Qaeda elements, while another senior officer works separately to help protect the Taliban.

U.S. generals in Afghanistan say 90% of attacks they face are coming from groups based in Pakistan. "I think the security situation in eastern Afghanistan is going to be a problem for some time to come," said General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff at Bagram in an address to troops on December 21. Myers wants Pakistan to put more troops on the border to stop the infiltrations.

A stronger Afghanistan central authority may be coming in the spring. That's when large-scale international funding is scheduled to arrive and flow to building up the Afghan army and major infrastructure construction projects such as roads and power development. Stepped up economic development would undermine the warlords and their foreign backers and strengthen Karzai.

UNHCR: security, conditions still keeping refugees out of Afghanistan
Fri Jan 3, 1:57 PM ET AP
GENEVA - Security problems and poor living conditions mean it is still unsafe for many of the more than 4 million Afghan refugees to return to their homes, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday.

Even though more than two million people went home during 2002, conditions are "not yet sufficient" for many people to return, said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in a statement.

It cited security problems, racial conflict and the fragile infrastructure in the country as reasons for keeping refugees out of the country and said something must be done quickly otherwise those who have already returned might start leaving again.

"Substantive reconstruction aid for infrastructure repair and employment is urgently needed if returns are to be sustainable," said the agency, which helped more than 1.5 million people return to their homes from Pakistan last year, along with 261,000 from Iran and 10,000 from central Asia. Another 200,000 went home without UNHCR help.

"The current challenge for the aid community is to help families get through the winter," UNHCR said. "Some 550,000 people may face severe hardships during the cold season, including 290,000 recent returnees and 260,000 internally displaced Afghans."

Villages in the central highlands likely will be cut off by snow, while there are also problems in the south of the country, where more than 400,000 displaced people live after fleeing fighting in the north of Afghanistan.

About 2 million Afghans are still living in Iran and about 1.5 million in Pakistan. UNHCR expects that around 1.2 million will return during 2003, and it has appealed for US$127 million to meet the cost of supporting those people and the ones already back in Afghanistan, many of whom have nothing.

UNHCR said it was concerned that another influx of returning refugees this year would be too much for Afghanistan's crumbling infrastructure, and particularly called on richer countries to think twice before insisting that refugees go home.

"While for many Afghans the reasons for their exodus may have ceased to exist, there are still others who need continued international protection."

For those who want to go back, "the refugee agency asks host governments to provide support and ensure that returns are phased and coupled with development and reintegration support to increase the capacity in the communities of return," UNHCR said.

Afghan top official vows to effectively tackle drug production
Kabul, Jan 3, IRNA Head of the Afghan Anti-Narcotic Commission Abdullahi Elahi vowed on Friday to mobilize resources to effectively fight the illicit drug production and trafficking.

Elahi added that an effective fight against the illicit drug traffic could restore the national dignity and pride of Afghanistan.

Talking to IRNA correspondent, he noted that plans are underway to provide financial assistance to the Afghan farmers not to further cultivate the opium poppy.

The bulk of the Afghan illicit drugs are produced in a limited number of provinces including Badakhshan as well as Farah and Helmand in south and southwest of the country, he explained.

Though it is impossible to properly evaluate the amount of the opium poppy cultivated in the said provinces one can say that these provinces have been involved in the production of large amount of drugs, he said.

He went on to say that the Afghan government has announced its will to curb the cultivation and production of the illicit drugs but rather resources are needed to effectively suppress the drug cultivation in Afghanistan.

He said Afghanistan is in dire need of the help of the international community if it is to go ahead with its fight against the drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan.

He noted that programs have also to be developed to raise the public awareness on the drug problems.

Afghan government banned the cultivation of opium poppy with an aim to end traffic in the illicit narcotic drugs.

It ordered banned cultivation of poppy, Afghanistan's main cash crop, in all provinces, adding that farmers ignoring the order in Afghanistan would be prosecuted.

Afghan government implemented a project to demolish the poppy fields in Afghanistan while making up for the loss sustained by the farmers by giving them sums of money for their crop demolished.

Drug production in Afghanistan in the current year is estimated to be about 3400 tons.

The move by the Afghan police to launch operations against drug smugglers continues while a report released by the United Nations describing the attempts by Afghan officials to control the drug production and trafficking as unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government said it is fully committed to its previous pledges to fight the production of illicit poppy under any circumstances while declaring that Afghanistan needs to be supported by the international community if it is to effectively counter the production of the illegal drugs.

Iran sits on the crossroads of the international drug trade which originates from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan to markets in Central Asia, Europe and Persian Gulf littoral states.

The country accounts for 80 percent of the opium and 90 percent of the morphine intercepted in the world, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.

The country is home to over two million addicts which constitutes 1.2 percent to 2 percent of the total population. This is due to the country's location in the neighborhood of the drug producing states in particular Afghanistan.

Afghan neighbours threaten to revive ruinous civil war
By Ahmed Rashid Daily Times (Pakistan) January 4, 2003
KABUL: Russia is arming one warlord, Iran another. Wealthy Saudis have resumed funding Islamic extremists and some Central Asian Republics are backing their ethnic allies. India and Pakistan are playing out an intense rivalry as they secretly back opposing forces. The playing field is Afghanistan, and the interference threatens to revive a multifaceted power struggle that in the early 1990s eventually gave way to a near-ruinous rule by the Taliban.

The danger is widely recognized. On December 22, under the watchful eye of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, the foreign ministers or ambassadors of Afghanistan’s closest neighbours-China, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan-signed the Kabul Declaration in which they pledged to never again interfere in the affairs of the war-ravaged country. Officials from other interested countries like Russia, India and Saudi Arabia looked on.

But the pledges of support for Karzai and the principle of non-interference, along with promises of aid for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, hid a starker reality. The very fact that such a declaration was needed, despite the all-powerful presence of US forces in Afghanistan, demonstrated the apprehensions of Afghan leaders and the world.

“We are not going to be a political football for neighbours in the region as we were in the 1990s,” says Karzai in an interview at the presidential palace prior to the signing of the declaration. “The soil of Afghanistan cannot be used by any country against a third country.”

In danger of splintering Afghanistan: Karzai’s determination to keep his country free of outside disruption won’t be easy to realize because many of the same neighbours who sponsored Afghan warlords in the early 1990s, prolonging the country’s turmoil and eventually helping to bring the Taliban to power, are keen to resurrect their influence. According to western diplomats, many of the neighbours believe that the US forces will wind down their operations in Afghanistan once a war in Iraq begins. They feel that Karzai’s government is weak and Afghanistan will split along ethnic lines if the US leaves.

Karzai and the US strongly refute such conjecture, but many neighbours don’t seem convinced. Russia backed the former Northern Alliance during the 1990s and is continuing to support the army of Gen. Mohammed Fahim, once a powerful Northern Alliance leader and now Karzai’s defence minister. Last September Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov declared in Kabul that Russia would provide $100 million worth of military equipment to the Afghan army.

It seems clear at this point that the aid will flow to Fahim’s army. That force is separate from the one now being trained by the US and France to be the official Afghan National Army (ANA)-a projected body of 70,000 men of which only 3,000 have been trained so far.

Quietly US officials have asked Moscow to stop the flow of arms, but to no avail. Zamir Kabulov, director for Asia at Russia’s foreign ministry, says the aid to Fahim’s force is permissible according to old treaty obligations between Russia and Afghanistan. Washington is unwilling to push harder for the moment because it needs Moscow’s support for its potential invasion of Iraq. “We have made it clear to all of Afghanistan’s neighbours that the country should be allowed to develop without interference,” says Robert Finn, the US ambassador to Kabul.

Western intelligence believes some Russian spare parts and even tanks are arriving in the northern city of Kunduz from Tajikistan and being transported down to the Panjshir Valley where Fahim has a large stockpile of weapons. Fahim denies the charge. “The Russians have made no promises and so far we have received no items from Russia,” he says.

Afghan ministers also say Russia has run off with the country’s only geological survey of oil and gas resources, which was made in the 1970s. “We have asked Russia to return these documents,” says Juma Mohammed Mohammedi, the minister of mines. Russian oil companies are reportedly negotiating with Gen. Rashid Dostum, a warlord in northern Afghanistan, to resume supplies of Afghan gas to Central Asia. The US has said it will carry out a new geological survey.

Even if Karzai can straighten out these issues, his problems have only begun. Afghan officials say Iranian Revolutionary Guards are continuing to provide cash and military support to Ismail Khan, a warlord in Herat in the west. And wealthy Saudis have apparently resumed sending money to remnants of the Taliban based in Pakistan. Not to be outdone, President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan has provided his own bodyguards to guard the Afghan Uzbek warlord Dostum, an opponent of Fahim.

Meanwhile India and Pakistan are using Afghanistan as a proxy battleground for their ongoing conflict. New Delhi has promised to deliver military vehicles and train Afghan officers. By providing civilian airplanes, buses and hospital equipment, India has quickly developed a huge presence in the country.

India is helping develop a new export route for landlocked Afghanistan through Iran-thereby avoiding Pakistan. It has opened consulates in Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, Herat in the west, and Kandahar and Jalalabad close to the Pakistan border. “India sees Afghanistan as a means to undermine Pakistan’s western border, and Pakistan is retaliating,” says a European ambassador in Kabul.

“I have assurances from India that these consulates will only be for trade and consular activities,” says Karzai. “We will not allow either India or Pakistan to use Afghanistan to work against each other.”

Call-out box here: Sources say Pakistan supports the US on the surface but also allows Taliban remnants to operate Nevertheless, India’s moves have irked Pakistan tremendously. An infuriated Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf reportedly made testy phone calls complaining to Karzai after he heard about the new Indian consulates.

Publicly, Pakistan supports Karzai and continues to hand over Al Qaeda operatives to the US But according to western diplomats and Afghan leaders, Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence is also giving sanctuary to top Taliban leaders, some of whom are living openly in Pakistan, and allows them to cross into Afghanistan to orchestrate rocket attacks against US bases.

Moderate Pashtun leaders in Peshawar say the Interservice Intelligence is fuelling Pashtun radicalism, which is the ideology that led to the creation of the Taliban in the first place. Pakistan wants to retain some influence in southern Afghanistan among ethnic Pashtuns as well as to counter the influence of India in Kabul.

Retired Pakistani military officers say the army is playing two sides of the Afghanistan conflict in border cities like Peshawar and Quetta. According to these sources, one senior Interservices Intelligence officer and his staff work with the US in Pakistan to catch Al Qaeda elements, while another senior officer works separately to help protect the Taliban.

US generals in Afghanistan say 90% of attacks they face are coming from roups based in Pakistan. “I think the security situation in eastern Afghanistan is going to be a problem for some time to come,” said General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff at Bagram in an address to troops on December 21. Myers wants Pakistan to put more troops on the border to stop the infiltrations.

A stronger Afghanistan central authority may be coming in the spring. That’s when large-scale international funding is scheduled to arrive and flow to building up the Afghan army and major infrastructure construction projects such as roads and power development. Stepped up economic development would undermine the warlords and their foreign backers and strengthen Karzai.