The Hindu : Kabul to prepare list of Afghan war criminals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 24, 2003

International

International

Kabul to prepare list of Afghan war criminals

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD APRIL 23. The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, said here today that his country would soon prepare a list of Afghan nationals who had committed war crimes and who could have found their way into Pakistan. At the end of his two-day visit to Pakistan, Mr. Karzai told reporters that the subject figured during his meeting with the Prime Minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

Cooperation on terrorism and hunting down the remnants of the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban was one of the main items on the agenda of his meetings with Pakistan leaders. He held discussions with Mr. Jamali and the President, Pervez Musharraf, among others.

``In a meeting with the Pakistani Prime Minister, we spoke of some people, in general terms. We are going to come up with a more specific list of names that will be considered criminals of war against the Afghan people. There are people who are definitely terrorists,'' Mr. Karzai said.

He named Akhtar Mohammad Usmani, a deputy of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's intelligence chief, Mullah Biradar, the militia's internal security chief, and Hafiz Mujeeb, a lower-ranking commander, as possible persons who could have escaped from Afghanistan.

``These people are criminals. Yesterday, they were in Afghanistan. They created havoc. Today, if you allow them a place in Pakistan, they will probably cause the same trouble here,'' he said without saying that they were in Pakistan.

``We want terrorists, whether in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, arrested and tried ... for the benefit of both the countries. It is not that only Afghanistan will get hurt. Pakistan will get hurt equally,'' he said.

Mr. Karzai said terrorists lurking along the mountainous border "and their occasional acts of terror inside Afghanistan", were the biggest challenge facing his war-shattered nation. "If Afghanistan and Pakistan can adopt a proper operational strategy to curb extremism and terrorism on both sides of the border, there is no chance for anybody to emerge in any form in Pakistan,'' he said.

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