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Taliban could move from Afghanistan: NATO chief

* Experts concerned violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan can spread to Central Asia

ASTANA: NATO forces in Afghanistan cannot prevent insurgents from moving to Central Asia as their fight against the Taliban intensifies, outgoing NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Wednesday.

In an interview on the eve of a regional security conference, Scheffer said it was unclear if a spate of recent Taliban attacks in Central Asia were linked to the escalated military operations in Afghanistan or Pakistan. “It might well be that as we take on the Taliban in more places, they’ll move elsewhere,” the secretary general said. “If people want to cross borders, NATO cannot prevent that. If extremists want to cross borders into Central Asia to continue their horrific work there, NATO cannot possibly stop that.”

Experts have long been concerned that the violence that has convulsed Afghanistan and Pakistan could spread into the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia, with their volatile ethnic and religious divisions. Indeed, the weeks since intense fighting between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban began have seen attacks here that local governments have blamed on extremists. On Tuesday, five members of a radical group and a special-forces officer were killed when a “counter-terrorism operation” in Kyrgyzstan turned into a running gunbattle with Taliban, officials said. The operation came just weeks after officials in neighbouring Uzbekistan said a suicide bomber had detonated himself in the Uzbek city of Andijan, killing a police officer.

Scheffer said NATO, which does not have a mandate to conduct operations in Central Asia, had no information linking the attacks here to coalition operations in Afghanistan. On Afghanistan, he said a military review currently being undertaken by US General Stanley McChrystal would not result in drastic policy changes. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has long complained about civilian casualties resulting primarily from strikes by unmanned Predator drones that operate both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. afp

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