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Bid to Head Off Taliban Recruits
Thursday, October 25, 2001
By Mark Bake / Correspondent
The Sidney Morning Herald

Afghan exiles pray during speeches by tribal and religious leaders and representatives of former mujahideen factions at a meeting in Peshawar.
Photo Credit: AFP.

Many of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda militants - predominantly Saudi Arabians and Egyptians - are believed to have been sent to reinforce Taliban combat units.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Sidney Morning Herald
Pakistan has announced it will step up border patrols to stop growing numbers of militant Pakistanis and Afghan émigrés crossing into Afghanistan to join the Taliban forces.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Riaz Mohammed Khan, said "large numbers" of young men linked to outlawed militant groups based in Pakistan had fled into Afghanistan. Pakistan had appealed to the Taliban to repatriate those who had crossed and to prevent Pakistanis joining their forces, he said.

An allied air strike on a house in Kabul this week killed at least 22 members of the Harakat Mujahideen, a Pakistani group that the United States recently declared a terrorist organisation. The bodies of eight of the militants were smuggled back into Pakistan across a remote mountain pass late on Wednesday after vehicles carrying them were refused entry at the Torkham border post, near Peshawar.
(More: smh.com.au News Source)
2001 © The Sidney Morning Herald.

Dan