A council of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders debating ways to end Al Qaeda-backed terrorism in the region heard calls on Friday for Western forces to be thrown out of Afghanistan in favour of Islamic troops, AFP reported.
Pakistani tribal elder and former MP, Malik Fazel Manaan Mohmand, said the presence of NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan was a major cause of insecurity. "Pakistan had helped Afghanistan battle the invading Soviets in a jihad, but Kabul had now brought in a new foreign force," he said. "How can I accept that yesterday jihad against the Russians was a must, and today this is not a jihad?" he asked.
| Could have something to do with the fact that we're not Russers, that we didn't impose our type of government on the Afghans, that the guys who actually fought and died throwing the Russers out had their accomplishment stolen from them by the Talibs, who'd spent the war years warm and dry in Pakistain. |
"There is no need for the NATO forces. Bring Islamic countries' troops," said Mohmand.
| "Like... ummm... Pakistain's." |
Iqbal Khattak adds: Pakistan's State Minister for Education Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli lashed out at the Afghans by reminding them that Kabul had voted against Pakistan's entry to the UN in 1947.
| That was 60 years and five or six Afghan regimes ago. Prob'ly twice that many Pak regimes. |
"But even then we helped Afghanistan," a charged Anisa told the delegates in Urdu. She said that "invisible forces" did not want the relations between the two countries to normalise. She, however, did not identify the "invisible forces".
| RAW? CIA? MI6? MI5? MI4? U.N.C.L.E.? Zionists? Djinns? Efrits? Homonculi? Succubi? The Invisible Man? Abbott and Costello? Adele Jergens? |
Sources told Daily Times that the Afghan authorities tried on Thursday night to remove irritation among the Pakistani delegates and officials when the Afghan delegates indulged in blame-game. Ms Barakzai said there was a need to "heal the wounds" and "open doors for dialogue" since women and children were the most affected in the conflict. She urged the jirga delegates to demand for the release for Korean women taken hostage by the Taliban.
Anisa asked why the Hamid Karzai government was opposing Islamabad's efforts to put a new border security management in place to stem illegal cross-border movement.
AP adds: The delegates from the two countries divided into five committees to talk about investigating terrorist groups, intelligence sharing and drugs, said Alimi Balkhi, an Afghan lawmaker who headed one of the working groups. |