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Pakistan Says Uzbek, Chechen Fighters Aiding Taliban in Swat

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By Michael Heath and Khalid Qayum

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistani authorities said fighters from

Uzbekistan and Chechnya are among foreign forces helping the
Taliban battle the army in the northwestern Swat Valley.

“There is no doubt that some Uzbeks, Chechens and people of

other nationalities were found involved with their designs to
create an insurgency in Swat,” Information Minister Qamar
Zaman Kaira told reporters yesterday in the capital, Islamabad,
according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan.

The Russian region of Chechnya and Central Asian nation of

Uzbekistan were wracked by violence after the 1991 collapse of
the Soviet Union and fighters from both were reportedly trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan
is fighting about 4,000 militants in Swat and neighboring districts who reneged on a peace accord and
last month advanced toward the capital, even after the government agreed to introduce Islamic law in
the area.

Pakistani troops arrested three Uzbek “militant commanders” who crossed from Afghanistan this week
and were headed toward Swat to join the Taliban, the Daily Times newspaper said yesterday, citing a
state security agent.

Fighting between the military and the Taliban in the northwest has forced 2 million people to flee since
last month in what Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has described as the biggest exodus since
Pakistan was founded in 1947.

The government has called for international aid to help cope with the refugee crisis and donors pledged
about $224 million at a conference yesterday in Islamabad.

‘Hearts and Minds’

Gilani told foreign ambassadors at the conference that Pakistan has to demonstrate “visible” assistance
to win the support of the refugees for the battle against the Taliban. “We have to win the hearts and
minds of the people,” he said.

Pakistan may need $1 billion for reconstruction of property damaged in the fighting, Hina Rabbani Khar,
junior minister for economic affairs, told reporters in Islamabad yesterday.

The Pakistani government has announced it will pay grants of 25,000 rupees ($310) to each displaced
family from an 8 billion rupee fund.

The 2 million displaced people in the northwest join about 500,000 refugees who fled earlier fighting,
according to the North West Frontier Province administration.

President Barack Obama has said an aid package to Pakistan worth $1.5 billion a year would be
conditional on the government tackling Islamic extremists. The U.S. says the militants threaten the

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stability of the nuclear-armed nation and endanger American security.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net; Khalid
Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 21, 2009 23:41 EDT

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&sid=a_Dh7ZyHByps 5/22/2009