PAKISTAN - Musharraf's Promise.

Gen. Musharraf has promised that Islamabad will not allow Islamic militants to disrupt the Afghan election from Pakistan. But The New York Times (NYT) on Aug. 25 reported Western diplomats in Kabul as saying Pakistan was, in fact, a sanctuary for Afghan militants.

Musharraf, who was host to President Karzai in Islamabad on Aug. 23-24, vowed that anyone seeking to act against Afghanistan from Pakistan would be stopped. For his part, Karzai said in an interview broadcast on Aug. 24 he was "happy" with Pakistan's efforts against Al-Qaeda. If the terrorists are not eliminated, Pakistan and Afghanistan might face disaster, so Kabul is pleased with what Pakistan is doing to fight Al-Qaeda, he told Khyber, a Pakistani TV network.

The NYT, however, quoted a Western diplomat in Kabul as saying: "There is evidence from people who have been picked up in Afghanistan that they are receiving training in Pakistan". The paper said Western intelligence agencies had concluded that the Taliban planned major attacks to disrupt Afghanistan's presidential election, including spectacular attacks in Kabul. According to The NYT, these agencies called on Pakistani officials to rein in Taliban operations immediately. The paper quoted one diplomat as warning: "If these attacks do take place, the responsibility will be shared" - referring to Pakistan. "Our process is being attacked from the territory of Pakistan. That is the responsibility of Pakistan". The blunt comments appear to be the first public step in a US-led effort to press Pakistan on the Taliban before the Afghan election.

The diplomats said Taliban operations in Pakistan, particularly in Baluchistan, appeared to be so extensive that Pakistan's military intelligence service (ISI), which has a sprawling network along the Afghan border and across Pakistan, must be aware of it. They said security in Afghanistan's south and east was not going to improve unless Pakistan dealt with the Taliban inside its borders.

Pakistani officials dismissed the allegations and said their forces were doing all they could to apprehend Taliban members. The NYT quoted Maj-Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for the Pakistani military, as saying the Taliban were thriving inside Afghanistan, not Pakistan. "This is totally absurd", Sultan said of the accusations.

(The Taliban, a hardline Islamic religious movement made up of Afghans, was financed and equipped by the ISI when it won control of most of Afghanistan in 1996. Its leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, later gave shelter to Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, who were mostly Arabs and other foreigners. Pakistan's military backed the Taliban in the 1990s as a means to give Pakistan "strategic depth" if it were attacked by India. After 9/11, Musharraf announced that Pakistan had severed all ties with the Taliban and was siding with the US in the fight against terrorism. But when American forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, thousands of Taliban fighters fled into Pakistan).

At the centre of the debate lies the question of Musharraf's intentions and his control over his intelligence and military leaders. The NYT quoted a senior US military officer in Washington as saying: "Musharraf does not have complete control over everybody. But he's trying methodically to do what he can. When he kicks over a rock and the cockroaches scurry, he tries to kill them".

Other US officials say it is difficult for Musharraf to control isolated tribal areas along the border because of alliances built up between the tribesmen and the Taliban. Still others argue that he is playing a double game with the US. He hopes to keep the Taliban alive to influence events in Afghanistan, particularly if the US should capture Bin Laden and abandon the region. The NYT quoted one Western diplomat in Kabul as saying of Musharraf and his allies: "They think we don't have the staying power to stay here indefinitely. There will be another play for Afghanistan, and they would like to have some horses". A debate is going on in Washington over how much to press Musharraf on the Taliban issue.