Pakistan Says Uzbek, Chechen Fighters Aiding Taliban in Swat
Saturday, May 23, 2009
May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani authorities said fighters from Uzbekistan and Chechnya are among foreign forces helping the Taliban battle the army in the northwestern Swat Valley.
“There is no doubt that some Uzbeks, Chechens and people of other nationalities were found involved with their designs to create an insurgency in Swat,” Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told reporters yesterday in the capital, Islamabad, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan.
The Russian region of Chechnya and Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan were wracked by violence after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and fighters from both were reportedly trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan is fighting about 4,000 militants in Swat and neighboring districts who reneged on a peace accord and last month advanced toward the capital, even after the government agreed to introduce Islamic law in the area.
Pakistani troops arrested three Uzbek “militant commanders” who crossed from Afghanistan this week and were headed toward Swat to join the Taliban, the Daily Times newspaper said yesterday, citing a state security agent.
Fighting between the military and the Taliban in the northwest has forced 2 million people to flee since last month in what Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has described as the biggest exodus since Pakistan was founded in 1947.
The government has called for international aid to help cope with the refugee crisis and donors pledged about $224 million at a conference yesterday in Islamabad.
‘Hearts and Minds’
Gilani told foreign ambassadors at the conference that Pakistan has to demonstrate “visible” assistance to win the support of the refugees for the battle against the Taliban. “We have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” he said.
Pakistan may need $1 billion for reconstruction of property damaged in the fighting, Hina Rabbani Khar, junior minister for economic affairs, told reporters in Islamabad yesterday.
The Pakistani government has announced it will pay grants of 25,000 rupees ($310) to each displaced family from an 8 billion rupee fund.
The 2 million displaced people in the northwest join about 500,000 refugees who fled earlier fighting, according to the North West Frontier Province administration.
President Barack Obama has said an aid package to Pakistan worth $1.5 billion a year would be conditional on the government tackling Islamic extremists. The U.S. says the militants threaten the stability of the nuclear-armed nation and endanger American security.
Source
“There is no doubt that some Uzbeks, Chechens and people of other nationalities were found involved with their designs to create an insurgency in Swat,” Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told reporters yesterday in the capital, Islamabad, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan.
The Russian region of Chechnya and Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan were wracked by violence after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and fighters from both were reportedly trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan is fighting about 4,000 militants in Swat and neighboring districts who reneged on a peace accord and last month advanced toward the capital, even after the government agreed to introduce Islamic law in the area.
Pakistani troops arrested three Uzbek “militant commanders” who crossed from Afghanistan this week and were headed toward Swat to join the Taliban, the Daily Times newspaper said yesterday, citing a state security agent.
Fighting between the military and the Taliban in the northwest has forced 2 million people to flee since last month in what Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has described as the biggest exodus since Pakistan was founded in 1947.
The government has called for international aid to help cope with the refugee crisis and donors pledged about $224 million at a conference yesterday in Islamabad.
‘Hearts and Minds’
Gilani told foreign ambassadors at the conference that Pakistan has to demonstrate “visible” assistance to win the support of the refugees for the battle against the Taliban. “We have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” he said.
Pakistan may need $1 billion for reconstruction of property damaged in the fighting, Hina Rabbani Khar, junior minister for economic affairs, told reporters in Islamabad yesterday.
The Pakistani government has announced it will pay grants of 25,000 rupees ($310) to each displaced family from an 8 billion rupee fund.
The 2 million displaced people in the northwest join about 500,000 refugees who fled earlier fighting, according to the North West Frontier Province administration.
President Barack Obama has said an aid package to Pakistan worth $1.5 billion a year would be conditional on the government tackling Islamic extremists. The U.S. says the militants threaten the stability of the nuclear-armed nation and endanger American security.
Source
Labels: Chechens, Swat Operation, Taliban, Terrorism, Uzbecks
posted @ 9:39 AM,
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