Taliban attacks into Afghanistan curbed: Aurakzai

Taliban attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistan have virtually stopped since Pakistan imposed stringent controls on its border, a senior aide to President Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday.
Cross-border militant incursions have long been a bone of contention between Islamabad and Kabul, and US and Afghan officials said attacks increased several fold after Pakistan struck a pact with militants in the North Waziristan region last September.
But Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, governor of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) bordering Afghanistan, said Pakistan had sent in more troops, set up more check-posts, started some selective fencing and imposed night curfews to stem infiltration.
"These measures have virtually stopped cross-border movements," Orakzai told Reuters in an interview in his British colonial-era offices set in a sprawling garden in Peshawar, capital of NWFP. "Now there are no reports of any cross-border movement ... Our friends have admitted and acknowledged our efforts," he said, referring to the United States.
Orakzai is a former lieutenant-general who commanded forces in NWFP and its semi-autonomous tribal belt from just after September 11, 2001, when militants flooded into the area from Afghanistan, until March 2004.
Orakzai is seen as the architect of the Waziristan deal which critics say has created a sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants in a region where the central government's writ barely reaches. But Orakzai said the pact had helped reduce militant attacks into Afghanistan and also brought down violence in the region where hundreds of people were killed in battles between security forces and militants.
"I am very satisfied with the accord ... there has been tremendous improvement in law and order. The writ of the government is quite effective now." Referring to a month of bloody clashes in South Waziristan between tribal forces and al Qaeda-linked foreign, mostly Uzbek militants, Orakzai said the foreigners had violated the pact, forcing the tribesmen to act.
The two sides traded intermittent fire on Thursday, a day after about 50 people, most of them Uzbeks, were killed. Orakzai said Tahir Yuldashev, head of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was reported to be in South Waziristan. But he said there was no clue to the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
"Frankly speaking, after 9/11 nobody knows where Osama bin Laden is. There are speculations, everybody is making his own guess," he said. "Somebody says he is in Afghanistan. Somebody says he is in Pakistan, so the exact location is not known. It is not even known if he is still alive or dead."