KHOST, Oct 20: Thousands of people marched through the eastern Afghan city of Khost on Thursday to condemn the murders of three religious leaders blamed on Taliban insurgents and demand that Pakistan crack down on the “terrorists”.

The march was to “condemn attacks on religious clerics across Afghanistan and in particular in Khost,” the head of the provincial religious council, Mawlawi Hanif Shah Al-Hussini, said.

Pro-government cleric Mullah Mohammad Khan was killed in Khost province on Friday last week when a bomb exploded during prayers in his mosque.

Since then two other religious leaders have been killed in the country in attacks blamed on the Taliban, who have launched an insurgency that targets allies of the government of President Hamid Karzai. The marchers called on Islamabad to “stop helping terrorists and to destroy terrorist hideouts in Pakistan”.

Taliban loyalists fled across the border into Pakistan after the fundamentalist regime was forced out of power in a US-led campaign because they did not hand over Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.—AFP