Blair vows to back Afghans

8 Jan, 2002 08:40 AM4 mins to read

BAGRAM AIRBASE - British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Afghanistan yesterday and promised its war-weary people the world would not abandon them again.

Speaking at Bagram airbase north of Kabul, Blair said the world had learned how high a price was paid for neglect.

"Afghanistan has been a failed state for too long and the whole world has paid the price - in the export of terror, the export of drugs and finally in the explosion in death and destruction on the streets of the United States."

Blair was the first Western head of government to visit Kabul since the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11.

He said "extraordinary progress" had been achieved by the US-led war against the Taleban regime that harboured Osama bin Laden, suspected of ordering the attacks.

"We are always on the side of the Afghan people against the Taleban. And we remain on the side of the Afghan people today."

Blair flew into Bagram at night on a British Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules with his wife Cherie and around a dozen British Government officials for a three-hour visit.

They were met by Hamid Karzai, leader of Afghanistan's interim Government.

He said the destruction of the Taleban had opened up vast possibilities for Afghanistan to regain stability and address its political and humanitarian crises.

"There has been a huge increase in the flow of humanitarian help to Afghanistan and extraordinary progress on the diplomatic front, too," he said.

The establishment of Afghanistan's new administration was a tribute to the United Nations and also to the Afghan people.

"The international community is here to help in the long term, but Afghanistan's future is in the hands of the Afghan people, and it is exactly as it should be," he said.

Blair's visit was the final leg of a tour that also took him to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, under pressure from Britain and the US, yesterday made his strongest statement yet against terrorism and hinted at further action on Islamic militants.

But with India demanding the handover of 20 militants after a December 13 attack on its parliament, there was little sign of an early end to a tense military standoff between the nuclear rivals.

Musharraf, speaking after talks with Blair, said final decisions still had to be taken in connection with the crackdown on militants based in Pakistan and all would be revealed when he addressed the nation in a few days.

"Pakistan rejects terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and has fully co-operated with the international coalition against terrorism in that spirit," he said during a joint news conference with Blair.

It was the first time that he has explicitly rejected all forms of terrorism and Blair welcomed his words as a step towards cooling tempers on the border.

In other developments yesterday:

* Tribal elders in Afghanistan suspect a 14-year-old boy of firing the weapon that killed the first US soldier to die under enemy fire since the war began, and say he has now vanished from his home near the eastern town of Khost.

Sergeant Nathan Ross Chapman, a 31-year-old member of the US Special Forces, was killed in an ambush last Saturday. Four other suspects are being sought.

* US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz told the New York Timesthat, after Afghanistan, the US will probably focus on denying terrorist groups sanctuary in places like Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia and the Philippines.

"Obviously Somalia comes up as a possible candidate for al Qaeda people to flee to precisely because the Government is weak or nonexistent." But American options were limited in Somalia, where, "by definition you don't have a Government you can work with".

In the Philippines, the US "might include direct support of Philippine military operations" against the Abu Sayyaf group, which the US says has links with al Qaeda.

Wolfowitz also expressed concern about the situation in Indonesia where Islamic militants have fought with Christians on Sulawesi Island and in Maluku Province.

"You see the potential for Muslim extremists and Muslim terrorists to link up with those Muslim groups in Indonesia and find a little corner for themselves in a country that's otherwise quite unfriendly to terrorism," he said.

He said the US was prepared to provide assistance to Indonesia and spoke in favour of reviewing restrictions about conducting joint exercises with the Indonesian military, accused of rights abuses.

- AGENCIES

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