UNITED NATIONS, Sept 20: Foreign troops in Afghanistan will not be able to end attacks by Taliban unless steps are also taken to “destroy terrorist sanctuaries” outside the country, President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday.

Mr Karzai told the United Nations General Assembly that outsiders were behind the new upsurge of violence in his country.

“Military action in Afghanistan alone, therefore, will not deliver our shared goal of eliminating terrorism,” he said.

He said: “We must look beyond Afghanistan to the sources of terrorism. We must destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm and deploy terrorists.”

He said the fight against terror was linked to faltering attempts to eradicate the narcotics trade.

He blamed booming poppy production on weak security for Afghan counter-narcotics agents and the lack of credible programmes to persuade Afghan farmers to grow other crops.—Reuters