KABUL, March 7: A rift between Afghanistan and Pakistan deepened on Tuesday as President Hamid Karzai’s office said intelligence about Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives allegedly hiding in Pakistan was ‘very strong and accurate’.
Mr Karzai’s spokesman Karim Rahimi said the Afghan government would present Islamabad with further intelligence about militants’ whereabouts and that it was “hopeful that measures will be taken.”
Afghan and Pakistani officials told the Associated Press that the list included Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and top associates, and that Afghanistan also shared the locations of alleged terrorist training camps.
“Afghanistan provided very strong and accurate intelligence,” Mr Rahimi told a press conference in response to an interview by President Gen Pervez Musharraf to CNN on Sunday in which he said that the information was old.
Mr Rahimi said that even if the intelligence was outdated, “it still shows that there are problems and terrorists have freedom of movement” in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam urged Afghanistan — and the US-led coalition forces — to do more to stop militants from sneaking across the border into tribal regions.
She said Pakistan had deployed some 80,000 troops along the rugged frontier and that Afghan and coalition forces should “equally contribute in stopping militants.”—AP
