Pakistani alliance opposes UN monitors

The UN wants to stop weapons reaching the Taleban

By Susannah Price in Islamabad

An alliance of religious and militant groups in Pakistan has called on the government to reject the United Nations team due to monitor the flow of arms across the border into Afghanistan.

Last month, the UN agreed to send a team to countries bordering Afghanistan to report on any violation of the sanctions against the Taleban.

A statement issued after a meeting in Islamabad of the Afghan Defence Council, set up earlier this year to support the Taleban, said the monitors would threaten the integrity of Pakistan.

The arms embargo is part of the sanctions imposed against the Taleban for refusing to hand over the Saudi dissident, Osama bin Laden.

Daunting task

The UN's monitoring mechanism appears extremely limited given the scale of the task.

A team of up to 15 people will be divided among the countries bordering Afghanistan to report back to New York on violations of the arms embargo.

The UN's monitoring mission looks extremely limited given the scale of the task

Foreign observers believe weapons are still being transported from Pakistan, which has the longest border of all Afghanistan's six neighbours, and which is seen as the Taleban's strongest ally.

Islamabad says that as a UN member state, it is complying with the arms embargo, although it has criticized the sanctions as being one-sided and unfair.

Suspicions

The Pakistani groups in the Afghan defence council have come out strongly against the idea of the enforcement team and accuse them of having a far wider purpose.

The chairman of the council, Samiul Haq said it was a conspiracy which would affect Pakistan's sovereignty.

He appealed to the government to reject the monitors as an interference in Pakistan's affairs.

The monitors, who are also supposed to check whether the Taleban is complying with demands to close what the UN calls terrorist training camps, will work alongside the Pakistani border forces.

The 2,500-kilometre-long border between the two countries is extremely porous, and people, and smuggled goods, pass freely.

In the north-west frontier province, only the roads are controlled by the government, and the rest of the land is a semi-autonomous tribal area, hostile to outsiders.

The Taleban have already made it clear that they will see the monitors, who will be customs, border security and counter-terrorism experts, as enemies.