June 03, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

NEW DELHI, June 2: International forces in Afghanistan have mismanaged the fight against the Taliban, leading to a rise in violence, and now risk losing people’s goodwill, President Hamid Karzai told an Indian news channel.

In an interview aired on Indian television on Monday, Karzai said foreign troops had failed to go after “the sanctuaries of the terrorists” which Afghan officials say exist over the border in Pakistan.

Mr Karzai did not directly mention Pakistan but the Afghan government has said that the West should have done more to crack down on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan.

“It was a serious neglect of that, in spite of our warning,” he told CNBC TV 18, adding that other former members of the Taliban who had given up arms were unfairly hunted down within Afghan territory.

“Some of the Taliban who have laid down their arms, who are living in the Afghan villages peacefully, who have accepted Afghanistan’s new order, they were chased, they were hunted for no reason, and they were forced to flee the country.”

“The international community came to Afghanistan in the name of fighting terrorism and that fight has to be real and effective,” Mr Karzai said.

“There is no way we can win this war against terrorism unless and until Afghanistan is ... detached from the other interests or views that some of our partners have in this region.”—Reuters