US again accuses Pakistan of giving 'refuge' to Taliban
Afp, Washington
The United States has again charged Pakistan of providing "refuge" to Taliban militants fighting American and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan."The Taliban increased its insurgency in 2006. It's a real problem," US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said. "There is a problem of forces coming from Pakistan into Afghanistan to attack and then to return to Pakistan to seek refuge and refitting," he said at a media briefing on US efforts to frame a new strategy in Afghanistan with NATO to ward off the renewed Taliban threat. Pakistan helped the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in 1996 but dropped the hardline movement in 2001 after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States blamed on Al-Qaeda, whose leader Osama bin laden was sheltered in Afghanistan. Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf is now a key US ally in the "war on terror" but the country's lawless northwestern tribal areas have reportedly become a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, US spy chief John Negroponte charged that Pakistan was harboring Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, in an annual "threat assessment" to the US Congress.
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