October 28, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 15, 1428

PESHAWAR, Oct 27: Some people were desperately trying to prove that Pakhtuns were the source of social strife in the NWFP even though they were not, said the Awami National Party on Saturday.

Pakhtuns should work together to foil the designs of these elements, added the party.

The party’s additional secretary-general, Haji Mohammad Adeel, said the Pakistani government had brought in all types of extremists from all over the world and sent them to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet troops. Later these fighters settled in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

He said US policymakers knew of the origins and activities of the so-called fighters, who rented out their muscles to anti-Afghan forces. He claimed that after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the remnants of the Afghan war had melted away in Fata, continuing their war business.

Haji Adeel said the political administration in Fata and the federal government knew of the activities of the ‘foreign guests’ but they did not take any step to contain their anti-state activities. He said foreign militants, with the support of local religious pockets, had tried to set up a parallel government in the Fata by exploiting the religious sentiments of the people there.

He said after challenging the government’s writ in Waziristan agencies, militants moved to the Bajaur Agency and set up training facilities there, which the US bombed out. He said after entering the Mohmand Agency, a militant group had captured the shrine of Haji Sahib Turangzai, putting up its own flag on the mausoleum, but the political administration and the federal government did nothing to control the trend.

He said these incidents were nothing when compared to what was transpiring in the Swat valley now.

The government, he said, had dispatched security forces to end the “rule” of a little known mullah who had gone into hiding. Haji Adeel said the government had dispatched Pakhtuns to fight Pakhtuns.

He said that any military operation could cause a great loss of life and property to Pakhtuns. He said the ANP opposed use of force and it had always underlined the need for negotiations for solving all kinds of disputes. In Swat the government was trying to put the “genie” back in the bottle, he said.

Blaming the government for allowing extremists to fill the vacuum caused by a ban on political activities in Fata, he said extremists were freely running FM radios stations and fanning sectarian hatred across the tribal belt.