Reuters, 23 January 2008
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday that violence was engulfing his region and called on countries to confront militancy with action not rhetoric.
"While Afghanistan is still a critical battlefield, a rapidly spreading war is engulfing the wider region," Karzai said in a speech to the World Economic Forum.
"Our strategies in this war have often been short-changed by a host of deceptive rhetoric," he said. "Governments in the region need to move beyond rhetoric and cease to seek the pursuit of interests in the use of extremist politics".
Karzai did not accuse any country by name, but his relations with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf have at times virtually broken down over Afghan complaints that Taliban insurgents operate from Pakistan's side of their common border.
Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants took refuge in the border areas after U.S.-led troops drove Afghanistan's Taliban government from power after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Afghanistan is now battling an intense Taliban insurgency while Pakistani forces are confronting pro-Taliban militants in different parts of the northwest, near the Afghan border.
Listing a series of attacks in both countries, including the assassination in December of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Karzai said the "mutant of extremism" had been unleashed across the region.
"By all indications, the wildfire spread of terrorism across our region bodes terribly badly for the whole world".
Karzai called for a crackdown on militant sanctuaries and destruction of their infrastructure, finance and recruiting networks.
Afghanistan and Pakistan, both U.S. allies, have vowed in the past to work together against militancy but have taken few concrete steps.
Pakistan sent reinforcements on Wednesday to the South Waziristan border area where government forces are trying to wipe out the strongholds of a militant accused of being behind Bhutto's killing.
Citation: "Karzai says war "engulfing region" around Afghanistan," Reuters, 23 January 2008.
Original URL: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL2382700020080123