| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Jihadis massing to go help the Talibs |
| 2001-10-27 |
TEMERGARAH, Pakistan (AP) - As Pakistan's leader cautioned against "excessive'' civilian deaths in U.S. strikes, armed militants streamed toward Afghanistan on Saturday to fight the United States and blocked the fabled Silk Road with boulders and mines. More than 5,000 men - many armed with heavy weapons - rolled out of a northeastern Pakistan village in all manner of vehicles, bound for the Afghan border. Their vow: to fight a holy war against the U.S. military. They said they would help the ruling Taliban defend against any ground attacks by U.S. troops. Hundreds crossed into Afghanistan by Saturday evening, Pakistani border police said. ``I am an old man. I consider myself lucky to go - and to face the death of a martyr,'' said Shah Wazir, 70, a retired Pakistani army officer. He carried a French rifle from the 1920s. In northeastern Pakistan, volunteers answered a militant cleric's call to enter Afghanistan for what they called Islamic holy war. Groups hundreds strong were massing in towns across North West Frontier Province, an enclave of ethnic Pashtuns with ethnic ties to neighboring Afghanistan. ``We are in a test. Everybody should be ready to pass the test - and to sacrifice our lives,'' Mohammad Khaled, a brigade leader, told volunteers in the frontier town of Temergarah. The call for holy war came from Sufi Mohammad, a Muslim cleric who runs a religious school in nearby Madyan. He exhorted ``true Muslims'' to help out in Afghanistan. What they will do there is unclear. But hundreds of vehicles containing more than 1,000 volunteers rolled night into mountains that separate the countries, said Himdallah Khan, a police official in the border area. Thousands of other volunteers were converging nearby. In the northern town of Gilgit, along the Karakoram Highway, police described the situation as tense Saturday after tribesmen closed part of the road. Hundreds of traders and tourists were reported stuck. Riaz Durrani, a spokesman for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, an influential Pakistani religious party, said the highway was blocked ``to participate in the agitation launched against the government's support for America.'' |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |