Reuters Posted online: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 at 1051 hours IST
Islamabad, March 23: Pakistan on Monday angrily rejected comments by the US ambassador to Afghanistan that senior members of the ousted Taliban were hiding in Pakistan.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in comments published at the weekend, said several key Taliban figures, as well as some Al-Qaeda leaders, were on the Pakistani side of the border.
"Ambassador Khalilzad is clearly out of his depth. He should desist from making such statements that can only cause misunderstandings," Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan told a news conference.
"If the ambassador has any specific information or intelligence, he should have shared it with us instead of making these generalised insinuations through the media," he said.
Afghanistan's US-backed government has long complained that Taliban remnants are launching attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan from the safety of Pakistan.
Pakistan, an important supporter of the US-led war on terror, denies that top Taliban members are on its soil.
Until recently the Pakistani government held little sway in its largely autonomous tribal lands along the border with Afghanistan but in recent months the military has sent tens of thousands of men into the area to root out foreign militants.
Pakistani forces have been locked in battle with several hundred suspected Al-Qaeda fighters and their Pakistani tribal allies near the border for the past week.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Pakistan last week and announced it would soon be made a major non-NATO ally, which will pave the way for closer military ties.
