Pakistan Views

Afghanistan said on Sunday it backed a senior US official’s assertion that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar were operating from neighbouring Pakistan.
It has long said al Qaeda and Taliban leaders receive safe refuge in parts of Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions, souring relations between the neighbours. But since a large tribal council last August, the two countries agreed to work more closely to fight the joint militant threat and ties have improved. The US official said bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and other network members were operating out of Fata.
Mullah Omar and other ousted Afghan Taliban leaders, meanwhile, were directing insurgent operations in Afghanistan from Quetta, said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan has rejected the charge, but a Spokesman Humayun Hamidzada for Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed it. “We are glad that finally a high-ranking American official confirmed this matter,” said the spokesman.
“The Afghan government has said the administration centres, havens and regrouping bases of the enemies of Afghanistan and Taliban are outside Afghanistan.”
INSURGENCY RELAUNCHED: US-led and Afghan troops overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 after its leaders refused to hand over bin Laden in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States. Many militant leaders are believed to have fled to Pakistan, but Taliban rebels regrouped and relaunched their insurgency two years ago with a wave of guerrilla attacks and suicide bombs. More than 6,000 were killed in Afghanistan last year alone. Hamidzada said the problem had to be dealt with at source.
“The government of Afghanistan in the past has repeatedly said the roots of terrorism, its original sources and bases should be dealt with,” he said.
“Certainly, the war in Afghanistan should continue, but the war should be taken to the source of terrorism where it is. We are not naming any country.”
The assertion by the US official about the presence of militants’ leaders in Pakistan comes after the killing in January of top al Qaeda commander Abul Laith al-Libi in a suspected US missile attack in a Pakistani tribal area.
It also coincides with an increase of attacks, including suicide bombings by militants in Pakistan. A Taliban spokesman said Mullah Omar was leading the insurgency from within Afghanistan and said the US official was preparing the ground for a military operation in Pakistan.
“This is false. Mullah Omar is not in Quetta but present in Afghanistan and commanding the Taliban,” Qari Muhammad Yousuf told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press. “The claims that Mullah Omar is in Quetta or any other place are aimed at finding a pretext for conducting an operation in the concerned area.”