WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Two key U.S. allies in the war against terror -- Pakistan and Afghanistan - are now openly lunging at each other over increased Taliban activities in Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has directly blamed Pakistani clerics for sending Taliban guerrillas into his war-ravaged country.
Pakistan does not deny that Taliban fighters are getting support from the clerics but blames Afghanistan for creating a situation that allowed the religious militia to re-emerge after its December 2001 defeat by the Americans.
"There is no denying the fact that certain elements within the (Pakistani) clergy," have helped the Taliban, says Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat.
"But the Taliban have some sympathizers inside Afghanistan too," the minister told reporters in Islamabad while urging the Afghan government to "take steps to neutralize that threat within their own society."
This exchange of allegations follows a sudden increase in Taliban activities along the autonomous tribal belt that divides Pakistan and Afghanistan.
On Monday, U.S. forces and their Afghan allies killed 15 Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, which was the headquarters of the Taliban religious movement before its defeat.
Earlier on Monday, Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas fired mortars and machines guns at U.S. soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.
In recent months, the guerrillas have carried out a series of attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan. Both regions border Pakistan.
Islamabad, however, says that similar attacks have also been reported from areas deep inside Afghanistan that have no border with Pakistan.
Neutral observers, however, blame both.
They say that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is reluctant to annoy his country's religious groups who emerged as the second strongest force in parliament after the October 2002 general elections. This, they say, has encouraged some of these groups to quietly support the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
The observers point out that several key al-Qaida members were hiding with these groups and some of them were also arrested from the sanctuaries provided by them. This includes Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, so far the highest-ranking al-Qaida leader in U.S. custody, who was arrested from the residence of a worker of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Some religious groups have been quietly collecting funds for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters as well but so far the Musharraf government has not done much to stop them, the observers say.
On the other hand, they also acknowledge that the Afghan government has not dealt with the situation very effectively either. Although a Pashtun, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has so far been unable to win over this fierce ethnic group, which is also Afghanistan's largest, the observers say.
The Karzai government, they say, is still dominated by non-Pashtun ethnic groups. This has isolated the Pashtuns, causing many among them to secretly support the Taliban.
It was restlessness among the Pashtuns, observers say, that forced Karzai to postpone a grand tribal council, or Loya Jirga, for two months. Under the U.N.-sponsored Bonn agreement, which brought Karzai to power, the tribal council has been tasked with approving a new constitution for Afghanistan,
The postponement could also delay national election, slated for June next year, causing further confusion and chaos.
This situation will further encourage Pashtun dissidents, who already say that the Afghan government is afraid of the Pashtun majority, to further denigrate Karzai. Some of them are already saying that the tribal council has been postponed to prevent Pashtuns from proving their majority in Afghanistan.
Such feelings can enhance the support for the Taliban in the Pashtun belt, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban are already trying to exploit the situation and have increased their activities after the Karzai government announced that it was postponing the council.
During the last 10 days U.S. and coalition forces have killed more than 100 Taliban in another southern province of Zabul. One U.S. special operations soldier and an unknown number of Afghan troops also died in the fighting.
In this situation, the last thing the United States would want is a clash between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it appears that America's two regional allies are slowly moving towards it.
Recently, Afghanistan demanded re-demarcation of the 100-year old border that separates it from Pakistan, saying that it wants to re-negotiate the border determined by the British colonizers. The Afghan government also has invited Pashtun nationalist leaders from Pakistan to visit Kabul for discussing this and other similar issues.
Pakistan claims that its old regional rival, India, "has setup shops in all major Afghan cities, is orchestrating such moves." By this they mean that Indian consulates in Afghanistan are stirring up trouble in Pakistan. India denies the charge.
India, which once had close ties with Kabul but was ousted by the Taliban, has re-established those links after the Taliban's defeat and is not willing to let Pakistan expand its influence to Afghanistan again.
And it is not just India and Pakistan who are interested in Afghanistan. Russia, Iran and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors have also supported various Afghan groups in the past and are still maintaining their contacts with them.
At this stage, further deterioration of ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan could drag other neighbor nations into the conflict as well and can lead to a major regional war that could see the area's two nuclear nations - India and Pakistan - fighting each other.
