U.S. Urges Pakistan to Use Force in Tribal Region

May 3, 2004

KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military urged Pakistan on Monday to kill or capture foreign militants holed up near the Afghan border and expressed concern over Pakistan's recent amnesty for several tribal militants.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Barno, said foreign fighters -- including some from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda -- were still launching attacks from Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt near the Afghan border.

"We clearly still see significant elements of foreign fighters there. There are Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks, others who are not Pakistanis, who are not part of the tribes, that are still using that area to advance their terrorist aims," Barno said.

He said it was too early to say whether Pakistan's amnesty to five tribal leaders suspected of sheltering al Qaeda members would help clear the area of insurgents.

"We have some concerns that could go in the wrong directions, but we're watchful and we're most interested in how that is going to develop here," he told a news conference in Kabul.

Pakistan has mounted its biggest campaign yet to pacify the lawless tribal region and clear it of foreign fighters, following two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf in December which he linked to militants hiding in the area.

To avoid further bloodshed, five tribesmen turned themselves in late last month to a "jirga," or tribal council, and pledged loyalty to Pakistan in return for clemency. But Barno said insurgents living in the desolate area still posed a threat.

"We very much see that the Pakistani military will continue to need to put the pressure on them, to conduct combat operations to search them out and to eliminate them as a threat," he said.

"KILLED OR CAPTURED"

The five fugitives are expected to hand Pakistan authorities a list of foreign militants harbored in South Waziristan, a rugged region where bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri have been pursued in the past.

"Our view is that there are foreign fighters in those tribal areas who will have to be killed or captured," Barno said. "It's very important that the Pakistani military continue with their operations to go after the foreign fighters in particular, who in my judgment will not be reconciled," he said.

Pakistan has 25 senior al Qaeda and Taliban suspects on a most wanted list but has offered to let other foreign mujahideen, or Islamic warriors, who have made homes with the tribes in the past two decades stay on if they register their presence.

Many Arab and Central Asian veterans of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, who later backed the Taliban, married into families of tribesmen they had fought alongside.

On the other side of the border, the United States is leading a force of 15,500 troops in a search for al Qaeda and remnants of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia concentrated heavily on eastern Afghan border with Pakistan.

More than 120 people were killed in March when Pakistani forces fought a fierce battle with al Qaeda fighters and their tribal supporters in South Waziristan.