WASHINGTON, Nov 1: In a hard-hitting editorial on Wednesday the Washington Post claimed that Quetta has become “the new headquarters of the extremist Taliban.”

The newspaper, quoting recent press reports, says that “thousands of Taliban fighters reside in mosques and Madressahs with the full support of a provincial ruling party and militant ... groups.”

“Taliban leaders wanted by the US and Kabul governments are living openly in nearby villages.”

One of the report the Post based its editorial on quotes Balochistan’s information minister as saying: “Only the Taliban can constitute the real government of Afghanistan.”

The editorial says that during a recent visit to Quetta Post’s correspondent John Lancaster met a Taliban recruiter, who travelled with 14 others across the border into Afghanistan last summer to wage war against US and Afghan government forces.

“All this is happening in a country whose government claims to be an ally of the United Sates in the war on terrorism and to which the Bush administration has pledged more than $3 billion in aid — the down payment on what it describes as a long-term commitment,” the newspaper says.

The Post claims that Taliban leaders and their followers are not ensconced in remote caves or dispersed across trackless badlands but “operate openly in a major city, where they effectively control several neighbourhoods.”Local politicians, the Post says, deliver speeches and raise money on their behalf.

“When they (the Taliban fighters) travel to Afghanistan to carry out attacks, they cross not in ones or twos but by the score, in buses that are waved through by Pakistani border guards,” the newspaper claims.

In the past several months, the Post says, they have killed more than 400 Afghan civilians and soldiers, along with several US soldiers, in various attacks.

“If Afghanistan now is in danger of slipping back into the chaos of civil war, the haven and support found by a regrouping Taliban in Pakistan is a major cause. Yet the Bush administration continues to shrink from demanding accountability from President Pervez Musharraf.”

The newspaper says that last month, just before a visit to Islamabad, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage “hinted at an open secret — that parts of Gen. Musharraf’s army and security forces don’t support the war on terrorism.”

To placate Mr Armitage, the editorial says, the Pakistan “army carried out a raid against Al Qaeda just before the arrival of the American delegation, and Mr Armitage pronounced himself “thrilled” by his conversation with Mr Musharraf. “This is a special relationship to the United States,” he said, “one that President Bush treasures particularly.”

The Bush administration, the Post says, seems to believe it has no choice but to work with Mr Musharraf, “who is good at promising to combat Islamic extremism — and at pointing to it as the alternative should his government fail.”

According to the Post in late September the Bush administration “coaxed its client” to sign a written agreement promising to strengthen control over frontier areas bordering Afghanistan. “That’s a big job, but it’s hard to see why Mr Musharraf can’t at least prevent open Taliban operations in Quetta and other cities,” the newspaper asks.

“Congress recently renewed conditions on aid to Pakistan and added a provision requiring the administration to certify that Pakistan is cooperating in the war on terrorism. If the United States is to continue supporting his regime, the general must be held to that requirement,” the newspaper concludes.