October 14, 2001	Sunday	Rajab 26, 1422

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KOHAT, Oct 13: The Taliban government has refused any sort of help offered by the Pakistani tribal community and asked thousands of fighters belonging to religious groups like Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, who went to Afghanistan to join Taliban forces during the five days of air strikes to return and wait amidst reports of burning of food drops by the people in the scattered parts of Paktia, Khost, Herat and other scattered areas in condemnation of the aggression, reports reaching here on Saturday said.

At least 2,000 strong men from the 18 tribes of Orakzai Agency, parts of Kohat district, and Waziristan Agency were returned back by the Taliban on Friday after which the tribal elders asked the intending fighters to wait till the time the Taliban call them or as and when they take their own decision keeping in view the future situation in Afghanistan.

A multi-millionaire tribal malik, who owns a huge construction business in the United Arab Emirates, Haji Salamat Khan Orakzai, told Dawn on Saturday that he had sent a messenger on behalf of his tribe to the Taliban with an offer of worth Rs60 million of heavy artillery and cash but they refused to accept any help.

He said that Taliban leaders conveyed to him that at the moment they did not need any foreign help in fight against US-led forces however they would themselves ask for it when and where required. They (Taliban) said that their forces were already faced with shortage of resources — food, water and other logistics and the extra forces from outside would put an extra burden on them.

It may be recalled that the tribesmen of Pakistan fought side by side with the Afghans during the Russian invasion and were well acquainted with the style of ground war in the difficult mountainous areas.

An official of a sensitive state agency stationed near the Kurram Agency border with Afghanistan confirmed on Friday that in some areas the enraged Afghan people had burnt the food packets dropped by the US planes which was a clear proof that their morale was very high.

To a query he said that the fresh entrants from across the border were mostly old people, children and women and the young were staying behind for the expected ground war. They were waiting for the US troops to land inside Afghanistan when the “real war” would start for which the Afghan guerillas were famous.

He further said that the recent attacks and other difficulties faced by the Afghans were not new because they had been experiencing the impacts of civil war, drought, shortage of food, devastation of structures and medicines without a smallest halt for the last two decades. In some cases the wounds received during the Russian aggression and in the aftermath in the shape of land mine blasts were yet to heal.

Commenting on the movement of tribesmen to other side of the border to help the Taliban he said the current situation demanded halt to the air strikes and world condemnation of the US action which was aimed at toppling the Taliban government and installing government of its choice in Afghanistan.