Hamid Karzai charges Pak with aiding Taliban

Taliban on the rise in Afghanistan; Karzai accused Pak of helping insurgency.

BY A CORRESPONDENT

15 December 2006
NEW DELHI, INDIA

The Pakistan government came under a cloud as Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai directly accused it of supporting the Taliban insurgency in his country.

The allegations came hours after a suicide attacker exploded himself in an Afghan governor's compound, killing eight people. The Taliban attacks may be seen as aimed at undermining the Karzai government. This realisation by Karzai boiled over in the form of his toughest rhetoric yet against Pakistan. According to Karzai, the problem is not Taliban. The problem is with Pakistan.

He went on to add that Pakistan was supporting the Taliban. This has made Afghanistan presume if there is still any Taliban and that they are being supported by a state element.

The bomb which exploded on Tuesday went off in a parking lot and Helmand Governor Mohammed Daud escaped injury, although a district chief was killed. The explosion also killed six guards, Washer district chief Abdul Sattar Khan and an unidentified civilian.

Reports said that Helmand is a center of Afghanistan's vast opium and heroin industry as well as Taliban resistance, and has seen some of the heaviest fighting this year. The bombing came one day after the province's deputy governor, who is the brother of Helmand's former governor, was fired. The two are seen by many as linked to the drug trade.

Karzai made the remarks against Pakistan on a visit to Kandahar province. U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann and the chief of NATO forces in Afghanistan were traveling with the Afghan President to discuss how to prevent civilian casualties in military operations