PAKISTAN: Official says Taliban are gaining popular support

Pakistan says it is doing all it can to stop Taliban from infiltrating into Afghanistan where they are gaining support because of growing resentment against the U.S-led NATO forces. The Taliban are feeding off resentment among Afghanistan's biggest ethnic group and their insurgency is developing into a liberation war against U.S.-led NATO troops, a senior Pakistani official said on Friday (February 16). International forces had failed to make headway against al Qaeda or the Taliban and eventually negotiations would have to take place, said Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan. Fighting in Afghanistan over the past year has been the worst since the hardline Islamist Taliban were toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2001, and a surge in violence is expected this spring. Pakistan is an important U.S. ally but U.S. officials have been voicing frustration over Taliban sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the porous border. But Orakzai, one of Pakistan's most influential officials, said while the Taliban might be getting some help from Pakistani supporters, it was anger over indiscriminate bombing and a perceived lack of representation and development among Afghanistan's Pashtuns that was fueling the war. "With the passage of time their strength has been swelling and today they've reached the stage that a lot of the local population have started supporting the militant operations," Orakzai told a news conference in his official residence in the provincial capital, Peshawar. "And it is developing into some sort of a nationalist movement, a resistance movement, a sort of liberation war against coalition forces," he added. Orakzai was the architect of a controversial peace deal in Pakistan's North Waziristan border region in September aimed at ending fighting between pro-Taliban militants and Pakistani forces and cross-border raids into Afghanistan. U.S. commanders in Afghanistan say attacks in Afghan areas adjacent to North Waziristan have increased several fold since the deal was struck but Orakzai rejected that. Pakistan's military commanders manning the rugged border say the problem lies in Afghanistan and that is where it needs to be looked into. "You can reduce infiltration if you increase the manning of the border on the other side. Everywhere the responsibility to control any kind of cross-border movement it lies with both sides. It can't be done by one side only," Pakistan's military spokesman major-general Shaukat Sultan told reporters on a media trip to the border areas. Orakzai said al Qaeda was a global ideology and partners in the war on terrorism had failed to offer an alternative to it. It would not be defeated through force, he said. Similarly, the 45,000 U.S.-led foreign troops in Afghanistan had failed to make headway against a surging Taliban; Osama bin Laden was still there, and al Qaeda was spreading, he added. Eventually, he said, negotiations would have to take place because "military operations cannot be continued until infinity."

ITN Source | February 18, 2007

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