PESHAWAR, Oct 20: Head of the anti-Taliban defence committee Gen Abdur Rahim Wardak is arriving in Pakistan next week to organize armed opposition, sources said.

The sources said that Gen Wardak, a commissioned army officer in his fifties, was expected to arrive in Pakistan next week to organize armed opposition to the ruling Taliban.

American-educated, Mr Wardak is the head of the defence committee formed in Rome early this month under the former King Zahir Shah to organize armed opposition to overthrow the Taliban.

Gen Wardak was a military attache in India during the   Daud government in Kabul and later during the Jihad he joined the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan of Pir Syed Ahmad Gillani and took active part in the  struggle against the Soviet forces. A Pushtun, Abdur Rahim Wardak, lived in Peshawar but had later moved to the United States. Anti-Taliban commanders in Peshawar said that Gen Wardak’s arrival would give an impetus to the efforts to overthrow the Taliban.