Editorial: Terrorism and Pakistani policy

Afghan president Hamed Karzai, accompanied by a high-ranking delegation, left Kabul for an official two-day visit to Islamabad on February 15. This is not the president’s first trip to Pakistan, but this visit is quite different from earlier ones. It is taking place against a backdrop of increasing hit-and-run attacks by anti-government insurgents, and there are concerns that they are trained, equipped, and sent to Afghanistan from border areas of Pakistan. The insurgents recently apprehended in the southern province of Kandahar admitted that had been trained in Karachi and were sent from there via Quetta to Kandahar. The achievements of the Afghan government over the past four years have encouraged the international community to extend its assistance and cooperation to the war-ravaged country. Donors at the London Conference, which was held on January 31 to February 1, pledged more than 10 billion US dollars to Afghanistan for the five next years. Britain will deploy more than 3,000 troops in the southern province of Helmand as NATO expands its mission to volatile provinces. All these facts indicate that the international community, particularly the United States and NATO, are still seriously committed to Afghanistan. Under such conditions, Pakistan must make its own policy clear with regard to terrorism. Pakistan cannot on the one hand call itself a close ally of the international community in the war on terror, while on the other it harbours terrorists on its soil.