December 11, 2001	Tuesday	Ramazan 25, 1422

NEW DELHI, Dec 10: More than 5,000 foreign fighters are still in Afghanistan despite the rout of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni said here on Monday.

Qanooni, who is currently in India, alleged that the foreigners include an unspecified number of Pakistani army regulars.

“There are over 5,000 Pakistani army personnel and foreign mercenaries who are said to be still in Afghanistan,” the Press Trust of India quoted Qanooni as saying.

“We have arrested foreigners in the country and action will be taken against them as foreign prisoners,” Qanooni said while talking to the PTI.

Qanooni, later speaking to reporters, said his interim government will put Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden on trial after their capture.

“Osama bin Laden and Taliban Mullah Omar are criminals not just in Afghanistan but the world over and, if caught, they will be brought to justice,” Qanooni warned.

The designated interior minister also asserted that Pakistan’s alleged “interference” in Afghanistan led to the present situation in his country and asked Islamabad to “review its Afghan policy”.

“The new regime in Kabul wants to have good relations with Pakistan but Islamabad has to change its policy,” Qanooni said.

“We do not want to have problems with other countries,” he told reporters in the New Delhi house of his relatives.

The interior minister also said his multi-ethnic interim administration, mandated to hold office for six months in Kabul, had no misgivings about a multinational peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

“Peace is very important to us,” he said. The force’s mandate and the duration of its stay “will depend on several factors”, he added without elaborating.

Qanooni’s visit, to end on Wednesday, precedes a trip here by Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah the same day.—AFP