DAR AL ISLAM - AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN: TRIBAL LEADRS TO MEET IN ORDER TO 'COMBAT TERRORISM'

Pakistan, Afghan Tribal Leaders to Meet to Combat Terrorism
By Paul Tighe

Tribal leaders from Pakistan and Afghanistan will meet to devise a strategy for combating terrorism and preventing gunmen operating in the border area, Pakistan's government said.

The Grand Jirga will be held in Kabul on Aug. 9, Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said in the capital, Islamabad, late yesterday, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan.

Each country will send 700 delegates to the meeting that is aimed at removing misunderstandings and strengthening cooperation, APP cited Cheema as saying at a briefing.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are trying to repair relations soured by accusations that each side is failing to secure their 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border. The Taliban, ousted from power in 2001, stepped up its insurgency in Afghanistan's southern and eastern provinces last year in response to military operations led by NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

Al-Qaeda has gained strength in the ``safe haven'' it has established in Pakistan's tribal region, 16 U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report published last week. The terrorist network is forming a stable leadership with new lieutenants, the agencies said.

The jirga will try to agree on steps to prevent terrorists being given sanctuary, attending training camps and receiving financing, Cheema said, according to APP.
Presidents Meet

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai agreed to hold the Grand Jirga at a meeting in Washington in September hosted by President George W. Bush, Cheema said.

Musharraf and Karzai met in April in the Turkish city of Ankara and agreed to boost cooperation in fighting terrorism.

Karzai has criticized Pakistan for failing to stop Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters using camps in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Musharraf rejects the accusation and points to the 80,000 soldiers Pakistan has deployed in the region and the 1,000 military posts it has established on the frontier.

Musharraf has said that, while controls on the Afghan- Pakistani border need to be improved, Afghan and international forces must support the effort from inside Afghan territory.

The Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan remains a ``capable and resilient threat to stability,'' the U.S. State Department said in an April report issued by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

The Taliban are receiving ``reliable streams'' of financing, in part from working with drug traffickers, and have havens in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the office said.

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