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Afghanistan's erstwhile Taliban militia, ousted from power by the US two years ago, is again gaining strength with the help of the Pakistani establishment and Islamic groups, says a reputed news magazine. The Far Eastern Economic Review said in its latest issue that hit the stands here this weekend that Afghan leaders had complained to the US about the overt and covert assistance being extended to the Taliban from Pakistan.
The report came as Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrapped up a week-long visit of Indonesia and Thailand during which he accused Pakistan of continuing to encourage terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.
In places such as Quetta, Capital of the Baluchistan province where a hardline Pakistani Islamist group is in power, Taliban fighters and supporters can be seen on the streets without any fear of the Pakistani authorities, the Review said in a report by its veteran correspondent Ahmed Rashid.
"Taliban leaders wanted by the US and Kabul governments are living openly in nearby villages, and the families of Taliban have found safe haven in refugee camps inside Pakistan," it said adding, "In Quetta, thousands of Taliban fighters reside in mosques and madrassas with the full support of a provincial ruling party and militant Pakistani groups." "Afghan leaders accuse the Pakistan military's Inter Services Intelligence of giving direct support to the Taliban. They cite as evidence the level of organisation the Taliban have acquired in their attacks in recent months," it added.
Pakistani officials routinely deny any links with the renewed offensive of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the group has killed several Western and Afghan aid workers as well as Afghans considered sympathetic to the regime of Hamid Karzai. "Many Afghan leaders are convinced that the Bush administration has been muted in its criticism of Pakistan," the Review said."We see the Pakistani army posts on the border waving in the Taliban groups and then waving them out again," it quoted a frustrated middle ranking US army official as saying in Afghanistan. "Washington needs to do something." Added Yousuf Pashtun, the Governor of Kandhar province: "We are fed up with Pakistan's policy. Do the Americans want to keep quiet about Pakistan's support to the Taliban at the risk of destabilizing Afghanistan?"
The magazine said Pakistan's intelligence agencies covertly backed the Taliban in the 1990s, and Western and Afghan intelligence officials in Kandhar claim they are doing it again. The magazine added: "(Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf is playing a deft game, exploiting the leverage over the Americans while doing just enough to curtail overt US criticism." The Review quoted vehicle dealers in Pakistan as saying that the Taliban had bought 900 motorcycles in the past three months in the Quetta region. These vehicles are apparently meant to give mobility to Taliban fighters again regrouping in Afghanistan.
"Western and Afghan intelligence
officials in Kandhar believe that before winter sets in, the Taliban plan
to send up to 2,500 fighters in small groups into Kandhar province from
the Pakistan border crossing at Chaman." It quoted Afghan official Yousuf
as saying that the next Taliban escalation would come in the form of widespread
urban terrorism in Afghanistan's south and this would include bombings
and assassination attempts, primarily in Kandhar. The Review said the renewed
encouragement being given to the Taliban in Pakistan was worrying Islamabad's
secular parties. "The (Pakistan) army has resurrected mullah power in Baluchistan
and the Taliban in Afghanistan," Hamed Khan of the Pashtunkhwa National
People's party told the Review adding, "We are being drowned."
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