NATO will not hunt Taliban in Pakistan, alliance's chief says

Reserves right to self-defense in militant attack

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (right) spoke to reporters yesterday while NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer looked on. (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images)

KABUL, Afghanistan - NATO will not enter Pakistan to hunt Taliban insurgents, but reserves the right to hit the militants there should they attack alliance troops across the border in Afghanistan, the alliance's chief said yesterday.

NATO says militant attacks along the border in eastern Afghanistan have jumped by 40 percent this year since de-facto cease-fires came into effect between Pakistan's new government and insurgents in the border tribal regions.

Afghan officials say the ousted Taliban and Al Qaeda have bases in Pakistan's tribal areas and President Hamid Karzai last month said he might send troops there to fight them after a series of high-profile attacks by the militants.

Standing alongside Karzai at a Kabul news conference, NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was asked if the alliance was considering a wider mandate from the United Nations to go after militant sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

"My answer is an unqualified no. We have a United Nations security mandate for Afghanistan and that's it. If NATO forces are shot at from the other side of the border, there is always the right to self-defense but you will not see NATO forces crossing into Pakistan territory," Scheffer replied.

He said it was critical for security that the two neighbors had good relations.

"I don't deny the seriousness of the problem but we are not seeking a new mandate. . . . If we want to find a political solution and if we want to see a regional approach, the level of political attention for this problem has to be brought up.

"And point number two. It is of course necessary to involve Pakistan in this process. Only to say Pakistan is the problem or part of the problem might clear your conscience but it will not help solve the problem," he said.

Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since US-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001, said cross-border attacks were mostly hurting Afghans and the answer was to hit the militants in Pakistan.

"The fight against terrorism is not in Afghanistan, and we will not be safe and secure in Afghanistan unless Afghanistan and the international community address the question of sanctuaries in Pakistan," he told the news conference.

Pakistani officials say US forces in Afghanistan have carried out a series of attacks, mostly by pilotless drones, on militants' bases in Pakistan's mainly Pashtun tribal belt.