Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday urged his Western allies to destroy Islamist militant sanctuaries in neighbouring Pakistan after thousands of secret US files were leaked.
“The time has come for our international allies to know that the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s homes and villages,” Karzai told a news conference in the Afghan capital.
“But rather this war is in the sanctuaries, funding centres and training places of terrorism which are outside Afghanistan. Whether we are able to destroy these sanctuaries or not is another question. We will try what we can. Our international allies have this ability, but the question is why they are not doing it.” His remarks came just two days after Afghanistan’s national security adviser Rangeen Dadfar Spanta called on the West to review policy towards Pakistan after leaked Pentagon documents appeared to suggest Pakistani double-dealing in relation to terrorism.
Kabul has consistently accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of supporting Taliban insurgents — including masterminding attacks against Afghan and US-led targets on the Afghan soil.
When asked on Thursday about the comments from Kabul, Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said they were “incomprehensible”. “We have asked our ambassador in Kabul to seek clarification as to why these remarks have been made,” he said.
Basit said the secret US military files released on whistleblowing website WikiLeaks on Sunday amounted to raw intelligence and disinformation rather than an indication — as Kabul alleges — of Pakistani complicity in the insurgency.