New Delhi, November 8
Continuing with its familiar double game, Pakistan now a frontline state in the US-led war against terror, is secretly supplying arms and ammunition cleverly hidden in food and relief trucks being sent on a daily basis to Afghanistan.
Well-placed sources here today said at present small arms were being smuggled through food trucks to Afghanistan.
These armaments include light machine guns, Kalashnikov assault rifles, mining equipment and ammunition. This process is understood to have been on for the past 10 days or so. Every day scores of trucks carrying food, medicines, blankets and tents enter Afghanistan through Pakistan’s two provinces -- Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The USA is understood to be aware of such clandestine arms smuggling from Pakistan to Afghanistan but is probably waiting for an appropriate opportunity to confront Islamabad with this problem. Significantly, Washington’s official position on the matter has been that it does not rule out the possibility of some neighbours of Afghanistan still supplying arms and armaments to the Taliban government.
The United Nations has its observers deployed at all the Afghan relief camps but they have no authority to check the trucks carrying "relief material".
Reports indicate that the Pakistanis are also creating problems and hampering relief work. They are insisting that UN refugeee camps should be set up just on the Pak-Afghan border on Afghanistan territory — a move that would obviously lift whatever semblance of inspections or restrictions may be in place now.
The UN is, however, requesting Pakistan to allow the refugees to cross over into Pakistan where they are making arrangements for more camps.
UN relief agencies have
warned
that more than two million people may die of starvation in Afghanistan if adequate food is not sent there within the next three to four months.The UN agencies say the situation inside Afghanistan, having a population of 20 million, is nearing a catastrophe. It is compounded by the fact that the Taliban is not cooperating. The Taliban troops have impounded their vehicles, closed their offices and detained their staff.
Besides, the law and order situation in Afghanistan has collapsed which has made it difficult for hundreds of UN personnel to carry out aid deliveries.
The mining equipment which the Taliban regime is getting smuggled form Pakistan is required for mining the areas where the Northern Alliance (NA) troops are posing a military threat to them.
The Americans have over the past few days increased pressure on Taliban by para-dropping bombs from C-130 airplanes which detonate over the battlefield with a devastating force. The fact that these powerful bombs are attached with parachutes gives the pilots tactical advantage.
There are four separate areas where the US forces are directing their strikes against Afghanistan. These are around Mazar-e-Sharief, Badakshan, Kunduz and Kandahar. To provide quicker support to the Northern Alliance, American teams have already arrived in Tajikistan to use three old Soviet airfields which would give the US bombers access from the north and would cut down distance by as much as nearly 1,000 km.
If Tajikistan gives permission to the Americans for using their airbases it would be a major relief to the Americans who now have to fly their fighter planes from the Arabian Sea.
