President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Monday denied that his country was responsible for the survival of the Taliban. “There is trans-border cooperation in militant activities, with the base in Afghanistan but support from Pakistan. We need to isolate the two, and deal with whatever is happening from Pakistan on our side, while the main action will have to be taken in Afghanistan to counter militancy,” Musharraf told a British TV channel. The president told Channel 4 News in an interview how he wanted to suppress the Taliban. Asked whether he accepted that Quetta was the headquarters for Taliban operations in Afghanistan, he said, “The base of the whole organisation is in Afghanistan. The whole of Afghanistan is divided into five command regions of the Taliban, each of which is headed by a commander. The financing comes from the drug underworld. However, they have support – I will accept to an extent – yes … in Quetta, there are about 450,000 Afghan refugees, and this is a hotbed of all kinds of activity.”
About the failure of coalition forces in countering the Taliban, he said, “They are failing in Afghanistan … they need to understand the realities, and convert the failure into success. We need to look into why they are failing. They have given a very, very easy cause, the scapegoat of Pakistan. They will keep failing in Afghanistan if they continue following this trend.”