U.S.: Afghan Attacks Triple
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U.S.: Afghan Attacks Triple *
Wednesday September 27, 2006 9:16 PM
By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - American troops on Afghanistan's eastern
frontier have seen a tripling of attacks since a truce between the
Pakistani army and pro-Taliban tribesmen that was supposed to stop
cross-border raids by militants, a U.S. military officer said
Wednesday.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry rejected the U.S. claim and said home-based
insurgents were behind the violence in Afghanistan, where at least 25
militants were reported killed in fighting Wednesday.
Raising further questions about the cease-fire, a Pakistani political
leader maintained Taliban leader Mullah Omar approved the deal. A
government official denied that.
The developments could add to the feuding between Afghan President
Hamid
Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who were having dinner
Wednesday night with President Bush at the White House to try to patch
up their dispute over how to quell Islamic extremists.
The U.S. officer said the cease-fire that began June 25, cemented by
the
signing of a peace accord Sept. 5, contributed to the Taliban's
resurgence in Afghanistan. He said ethnic Pashtun insurgents are no
longer fighting Pakistani troops and are using Pakistan's North
Waziristan border area as a command-and-control hub for attacks in
Afghanistan.
Pakistani tribal elders brokered the truce between Musharraf's
government and militants, which ended years of unrest in the tribal
region bordering Afghanistan.
But the agreement appears to have bolstered Taliban infiltrators, with
the number of attacks in eastern Afghan provinces rising threefold
since
July 31, said the U.S. officer, who agreed to discuss the situation
only
if not quoted by name due to the sensitivity of the issue.
``That's why they had the chance to rest and refit, because they were
in
a sanctuary,'' he said, referring to a surge in Taliban attacks over
the
last several months but without giving specific numbers for incidents
before or after the truce.
Pakistan's Foreign Ministry rejected that view, insisting Afghan
insurgents get no help from inside Pakistan.
``We don't agree with this. These are just excuses,'' Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said. ``Whatever is happening, it is deep
inside Afghanistan and is not because of Pakistan.''
Pakistan turned over several Taliban fighters to the Afghan government
after the accord, Aslam added.
The U.S. officer acknowledged that the truce, championed by Musharraf,
is not the only factor behind Taliban attacks in Afghanistan's eastern
Paktika, Khost and Paktia provinces.
The Army's 10th Mountain Division has been pressing its own offensive,
Operation Mountain Fury, sparking firefights and bombings that
otherwise
might not have occurred, the officer said.
Meanwhile, Latif Afridi, a top official in Pakistan's Awami National
Party, said he received a letter containing Taliban leader Mullah
Omar's
approval of the North Waziristan peace deal.
He said the letter also claimed Pakistani militants who back the
Taliban
in North Waziristan would fall under the command of Jalaluddin Haqqani,
a front-line Taliban commander.
It was not immediately possible to verify Afridi's claims. Government
spokesman Shah Zaman dismissed them as ``baseless.''
Since the U.S.-led offensive that ousted the Taliban in late 2001, many
of Afghanistan's former rulers are thought to have found sanctuary
across the border. Some 30 members of the Taliban's top leadership,
including Omar and the group's 10- to 12-member Shura Council, are
believed to be in Pakistan, mainly Quetta, Miran Shah and Peshawar, the
U.S. officer said.
Musharraf has said Omar is not in Pakistan, and that he's more likely
to
be in his former powerbase of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
The U.S. officer said the Taliban's connections with Pakistan run so
deep that wounded fighters seek treatment on the Pakistani side of the
border and even carry their dead to Pakistan for burial.
Some of the suicide bombers in Afghanistan have been recruited in
Pakistan, including a 17-year-old boy who blew himself up in front of a
U.S. military convoy in Kabul this month, killing a bystander and
wounding three American soldiers, Afghan police say.
The border region is also believed to harbor top al-Qaida fugitives
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, the U.S. officer said,
discounting
reports that bin Laden may have died from typhoid or that his trail has
gone cold.
``No, I don't think he's dead. The overall assessment is that they're
still in Pakistan,'' the officer said.
In Afghanistan on Wednesday, insurgents attacked an Afghan police
checkpoint in southern Helmand province and ``at least 25 insurgents''
were killed in the ensuing clash with international troops, the
NATO-led
force said in a statement.
Three Italian soldiers attached to the NATO force and one civilian were
wounded Wednesday when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in the western
Herat province, the Italian Defense Ministry said.
The attack was the latest in a spree of bombings in previously calm
western Afghanistan, where NATO and Afghan officials have reported an
increase in Taliban activity. Four Italian soldiers were wounded Sept.
8
by a roadside bomb in neighboring Farah province.