The Afghan border chief gestures toward a fresh spray of bullet holes across his pickup truck, then points toward the place he says the Taliban attackers came from: Pakistan.
Despite a crackdown involving tens of thousands of troops and a pledge by President General Pervez Musharraf to do all he can in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Afghans say a steady stream of Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives are finding a safe haven on Pakistan's side of the 3,300km border.
"See the trees? They started from that border post," said Palawan, the shaven-headed Afghan border chief. Afterward, "the vehicles came from there, and took the Taliban away."
Sealing the border is vital if a promised spring offensive by American troops is to succeed in its main goal, crushing Taliban resistance and capturing al-Qaeda leaders like bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, both believed in hiding somewhere along the porous frontier.
The US military has described the strategy as a "hammer and anvil" approach, with Pakistani troops moving into semiautonomous tribal areas on their side of the border, and Afghans and American forces sweeping the forbidding terrain on the other.
But Palawan and other Afghan security officials say they aren't convinced that offensives will succeed, because Pakistan's security and intelligence services are rife with Taliban and al-Qaeda sympathizers.
"They are living there, they are coming to do the terror attacks, and they are going back," Palawan said, gun at his side as he drives along the barren border.
Pakistani officials scoff at the charges and say they are doing everything they can to arrest Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives.
"This is nonsense," Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said in Islamabad. "We are fighting against terrorists, not sheltering them."
Pakistan can point to an impressive record: It has arrested more than 500 al-Qaeda suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks and it has recently deployed 70,000 troops to the tribal regions of Waziristan.
But Palawan is not alone in his suspicions, and Afghans have not forgotten the strong support Pakistan gave to the former Taliban regime before Musharraf abandoned them in favor of the US just after the attacks on New York and Washington. Pakistan supplied money, arms and shelter to Islamic guerrillas, including the Taliban, during the guerrilla campaign in the 1980s against Afghanistan's then-Soviet occupiers.
"Without Pakistan, the Taliban would be finished. Without the Taliban, al-Qaeda would be finished," General Khan Mohammed, regional commander of the Afghan militia, said in Kandahar, capital of the southern province that includes Spin Boldak.
Some Afghans say Pakistan's security and intelligence services make a distinction between turning away al-Qaeda members -- many of them Arabs foreign to the region -- and turning away their former Taliban allies seeking shelter.
"I don't think there's been a fundamental shift in the perception of the Taliban in the Pakistan military," said Vikram Parekh, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "That's going to be the big problem," -- whether Pakistan's military "draws a line between al-Qaeda and the Taliban."
Afghan intelligence officials say they have intercepted phone conversations from Taliban commanders in Quetta, the largest Pakistani city near the southern border.
Attackers have maintained a steady series of rocket, small-arms and bomb assaults on Afghan and US posts along the border and elsewhere in Afghanistan. Pakistan prohibits the 13,000 US troops in this country from crossing into its territory, but says it is rigorously hunting down terror suspects there.
The bullet holes in his pickup-truck door come from a Taliban attack 10 days ago, said Palawan, whose nom de guerre means "strongman."
Later, he showed the graves of what he said were 15 of 45 Taliban killed in an attack in June. Burial flags -- green, white or embroidered with flowers -- and ceremonially broken dishes marked visits to the alleged Taliban graves by loved ones.
Afghan border officials said the June battle began when alleged Taliban ambushed an Afghan official.
Palawan said he watched the night of the attack as vehicles came from the Pakistani side of the border to retrieve Taliban survivors.
Later, he said Afghans laid out the bodies of the Taliban dead -- young to middle-aged men in bushy beards and turbans, with old weapons -- on the border.
People from the Pakistan side collected all but the 15, he said.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS