March 06, 2007	Tuesday	Safar 16, 1428

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PESHAWAR, March 5: Awami National Party (ANP) president Asfandyar Wali Khan has called upon the Pakhtuns to make efforts to ensure that there are fewer casualties in the impending ‘spring offensive’ in areas inhabited by Pakhtuns.

Speaking as chief guest at a ‘Loya Jirga’ organised by Malgari Doctoran at a local hotel on Sunday, he said that the next three to four months were very crucial for the Pakhtuns and Pakistan as Afghanistan-based foreign troops would try to achieve their targets during the so-called ‘spring offensive’.

Senator Asfandyar Wali Khan said that it would be a decisive offensive on the part of foreign troops stationed in the region.

He said that according to a rough estimate some 7,000 foreign elements had sneaked into North and South Waziristan in the last three months.He said that the presence of foreign militants in tribal areas was now an open secret, since General Musharraf had himself conceded their existence there.

Mr Khan said that the foreigners in tribal areas were ‘special guests’ of the establishment and the Pakhtun nation had no links with them.

He warned the government not to target innocent tribesmen in the hunt against the foreigners and their local hosts.

Asfandyar Wali Khan said the Pakhtun nation besides natural disasters had been drowned in a man-made crisis for three decades and added that the situation had worsened to the point of no return.

“The region has been engulfed by a storm and the Pakhtuns are unfortunately lying in the eye of the storm,” he said.

He said the Pakhtuns were being portrayed as Taliban to the world and considered most dangerous than the Al Qaeda, but an unwanted war had been imposed upon them which had destroyed social values and institutions like Hujra and Pakhtunwali.

He said the Mullahs had been made a powerful instrument in the Pakhtun society by the establishment and added that it was after the 9/11 events that the US had realized the hazards of religious extremism.