Truce deals may be helping Taliban rebels

KABUL, Afghanistan — As Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf visits the White House today for talks about the war on terror, evidence is growing that his peace deals with Pakistan-based Taliban groups are letting them step up attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Since Pakistan signed a truce in June with the Taliban in its border region of North Waziristan, "we have seen a 300 percent increase" in Taliban attacks in the adjacent Afghan provinces, a U.S. intelligence officer said Tuesday. Most came from Pakistani soil, he said.

This month, Pakistan converted that truce into a long-term pact that Musharraf said bars the Taliban from crossing to fight in Afghanistan. Military analysts in Pakistan and Afghanistan say the deal cannot be enforced and is a surrender to the Taliban. President Bush has defended Musharraf, saying simply, "I believe him."

But new signs suggest the deal is letting the Taliban continue — and escalate — the fight.

North Waziristan residents say the Taliban have set new rules to make their infiltration of Afghanistan less visible to U.S. surveillance. A source close to the peace talks said these provisions were part of an oral agreement with the Pakistani government that accompanied the written peace deal. A Pakistani government spokeswoman denied there was a secret part to the agreement.

Last week, one of the Pakistani Taliban leaders who approved the North Waziristan peace deal was killed battling U.S. and Afghan troops in Afghanistan, Pakistanis and U.S. military sources said. The leader, Mullah Abdul Qalam, was buried in Pakistan, where other Taliban leaders vowed to continue the fight across the border.

In North Waziristan, a mountainous region where foreigners are banned, the Taliban are in control and the mood following the peace deal was buoyantly militant. Residents said there was a general expectation that the peace deal with Pakistan's ruling army will let the extremists step up fighting in Afghanistan.

In one village a few miles from the Afghan border, men said Taliban officials have declared that the jihad now will be more organized and disciplined. Men who volunteer to fight now must cross in smaller groups and stay for longer periods — at least 40 days, according to one source.

The Sept. 5 peace deal, following a similar pact with Taliban in South Waziristan 18 months ago, marks Pakistan's abandonment of a 30-month campaign of blunt military offensives that failed to clear Waziristan of al-Qaida fighters or Taliban. The army attacks destroyed villages, uprooted thousands of the ethnic Pashtun tribe members and inspired legions of local young men to join the Taliban.

Pakistan says the Taliban in Waziristan now are being controlled by the region's tribal leaders. But Waziristan residents and analysts say the Taliban have killed hundreds of pro-government tribal leaders. The Taliban is "too strong to be controlled by the tribes," said retired Pakistani Brig. Gen. Mehmood Shah, a former security chief for the Pashtun tribal zone that includes Waziristan.

For U.S. forces in Afghanistan, there is no doubt the Taliban are mainly Pakistan-based, the U.S. intelligence officer said. "Some of the incidents [Taliban attacks] are generated from inside Afghanistan," he said, "but the financing, logistics, recruiting and safe haven are all centered in Pakistan."

Four-star general to lead U.S., NATO forces

KABUL, Afghanistan — An American four-star general will take charge of both U.S. and NATO forces, boosting the stature of the military mission in Afghanistan and unifying an international operation.

Provided he is confirmed by the Senate, Army Gen. Dan McNeil will assume joint command in February, said Maj. Luke Knittig, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force. He said the posting was made in consultation with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

The move appears to elevate the importance of the Afghan war for the Pentagon, because four stars is the U.S. military's highest rank, and both the U.S. and NATO forces now are led by three-star generals.

Also

A Taliban suicide bomber killed 18 people outside a provincial governor's compound Tuesday, including several Muslim pilgrims set to travel to Mecca — another in a series of attacks directed at senior figures in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government. The blast at the doorstep of Helmand Gov. Mohammed Daoud Safi's compound came on the same day a bombing against a NATO patrol in the Kabul area killed an Italian soldier and a child, and two weeks after extremists assassinated a Karzai confidant.

Additional information from The Associated Press