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Militants stream toward Afghanistan
By RIAZ KHAN
Associated Press Writer
10/27/01
TEMERGARAH, Pakistan — As Pakistan's leader cautioned against "excessive'' civilian deaths in U.S. strikes, armed militants streamed toward Afghanistan on Saturday to fight the United States and blocked the fabled Silk Road with boulders and mines.
More than 5,000 men — many armed with heavy weapons — rolled out of a northeastern Pakistan village in all manner of vehicles, bound for the Afghan border. Their vow: to fight a holy war against the U.S. military.
They said they would help the ruling Taliban defend against any ground attacks by U.S. troops. Hundreds crossed into Afghanistan by Saturday evening, Pakistani border police said.
"I am an old man. I consider myself lucky to go — and to face the death of a martyr,'' said Shah Wazir, 70, a retired Pakistani army officer. He carried a French rifle from the 1920s.
Also Saturday, authorities headed to the mountainous north to eject pro-Taliban militants and reopen the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan's portion of the Silk Road that once connected the Roman and Chinese empires.
Both activities were organized by Pakistani militants who oppose U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and the Taliban — and who denounce their government's support of the military action to root out Osama bin Laden's terrorist installations.
The outrage at the military strikes is rippling across Pakistan. More than 50,000 people demonstrated in four cities Friday to denounce the United States and their president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf said on ABC-TV's "World News Tonight'' that if the United States' military strikes on Afghanistan aren't making progress, then the operation "may be a quagmire.''
"There has been, I think, a bit of an excessive collateral damage,'' he said Friday. On Saturday, however, he added: "Any prolongation of the operation is not in the interest of anybody. But on the other hand, everyone does understand that short is related to the achievement of objectives.''
In northeastern Pakistan, volunteers answered a militant cleric's call to enter Afghanistan for what they called Islamic holy war.
Groups hundreds strong were massing in towns across North West Frontier Province, an enclave of ethnic Pashtuns with ethnic ties to neighboring Afghanistan.
"We are in a test. Everybody should be ready to pass the test — and to sacrifice our lives,'' Mohammad Khaled, a brigade leader, told volunteers in the frontier town of Temergarah.
The call for holy war came from Sufi Mohammad, a Muslim cleric who runs a religious school in nearby Madyan. He exhorted "true Muslims'' to help out in Afghanistan.
What they will do there is unclear. But hundreds of vehicles containing more than 1,000 volunteers rolled Saturday night into mountains that separate the countries, said Himdallah Khan, a police official in the border area. Thousands of other volunteers were converging nearby.
In the northern town of Gilgit, along the Karakoram Highway, police described the situation as tense Saturday after tribesmen closed part of the road. Hundreds of traders and tourists were reported stuck.
Riaz Durrani, a spokesman for Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, an influential Pakistani religious party, said the highway was blocked "to participate in the agitation launched against the government's support for America.''
The 750-mile Karakoram Highway, built along the ancient Silk Road that linked Asia with the West, connects Pakistan with Kashgar in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. It is a major trade link between Pakistan and China, though the Chinese all but sealed it after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Also in Pakistan on Saturday:
—The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees began a three-day visit to the border in Pakistan, home to the world's largest refugee population.
Pakistan is concerned about its capacity to handle more fleeing Afghans and has sent hundreds back in recent days. But Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said it had agreed to take the neediest refugees — and not to obstruct U.N. efforts to keep camps running.
"The situation is moving in the right direction,'' Lubbers said.
—Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok met in Islamabad with Musharraf and urged "some patience'' in judging the U.S. campaign, though he acknowledged there are "questions all over the world about casualties and about civil victims.''
"But that does not limit the amount of solidarity with the main purposes and the way in which the military actions are pursued,'' he said.