Karzai Feed Up With Pakistan's Double Games

Finally world leaders are starting to realize Pakistan's double game. Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, has threatened to send Afghan troops into Talistan to destroy the taliban. NY Times

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened Sunday to send Afghan troops after notorious Taliban leaders inside Pakistan in an angry warning to his eastern neighbor that he will no longer tolerate cross-border attacks.

The threat -- the first time Karzai has said he would send forces into Pakistan -- comes only days after a sophisticated Taliban assault on Kandahar's prison freed 870 prisoners, and six weeks after Karzai survived his fourth assassination attempt.

Karzai has long pleaded with Pakistan and the international community to confront tribal area safe havens, and U.S. officials have increased their warnings in recent weeks that the sanctuaries in Pakistan must be dealt with.

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Speaking on the grounds of his fortified presidential palace, Karzai told a news conference that Afghanistan has the right to self defense, and because militants cross over from Pakistan ''to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to do the same.''

Then, Karzai warned Pakistan-based Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud that Afghan forces would target him on his home turf. Mehsud has been accused in last year's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

''Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house,'' Karzai said.

''And the other fellow, (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar of Pakistan, should know the same,'' Karzai continued. ''This is a two-way road in this case, and Afghans are good at the two-way road journey. We will complete the journey and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years.''

In Pakistan, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said his country is a sovereign state that wants good relations with its neighbors. But he said the Afghan-Pakistan border is too long to prevent people from crossing, ''even if Pakistan puts its entire army along the border.''