October 31, 2001	Wednesday	Shaba’an 13, 1422

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NEW DELHI, Oct 30: India staked its claim on Tuesday to a say in any post-Taliban scenario in Afghanistan, confirming for the first time New Delhi’s military support to the anti-Taliban opposition forces grouped under the Northern Alliance.

Fernandes also signalled India’s frustration with US reluctance to join what India insists is its own “war on terrorism” in Kashmir.

“India has played a major role in helping the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban militia, a role, by all accounts, bigger than that of any other country,” Defence Minister George Fernandes said in a speech to a seminar on terrorism in New Delhi.

“We have been helping on every front, including financial resources ... when they needed weapons we provided them,” Fernandes said, adding India must insist on a major role in reviving Afghanistan.

India has been a prominent backer of the Afghan opposition forces who have been waging a six-year civil war against the Taliban.

According to the Jane’s Intelligence Review, India has supplied helicopter spare parts, winter uniforms, high altitude warfare equipment and also helped build landing strips north of Kabul — valued at about eight million dollars in the last two years.

However, New Delhi has never before confirmed widespread reports of providing actual weaponry.

Fernandes’s claim for an Indian role in Afghanistan’s future appeared aimed at countering a similar claim by Pakistan.

In his speech, Fernandes questioned Pakistan’s credentials for joining the US-led anti-terrorism coalition, accusing Islamabad of “training” and “harbouring terrorists” to mount attacks on India.

Fernandes argued that previous US-Pakistan collaboration on Afghanistan, when arms were poured into the country to help fight the Soviet occupation, had helped create the Taliban.

“Now it is again Pakistan that has become the cat’s paw for the United States to destroy the Frankenstein they jointly fathered,” the minister said.

Washington’s twin objectives — capturing Osama bin

Laden and overthrowing the Taliban — might end up as an unfulfilled wish and a long-term gamble respectively, he said. —AFP