More Than 5,000 Pakistani Mujahedin Join Taliban Cause

More than 5,000 Pakistani mujahedin have arrived in Afghanistan since the beginning of the US military operation against the Taliban regime, the Dawn, a Pakistani English newspaper, reported on Monday. The newspaper adds that notwithstanding the promises of Pakistani officials to arrest anyone who infiltrates Afghanistan, an 800-strong unit of Pakistani fighters, allegedly, activists of the Tehrik-Nafaz-Shariat-Muhammadi religious party, crossed the border this week-end in order to join the Taliban force. The fundamentalists used trucks to cross the Ghani pass and arrived in the city of Asadabad, the capital of the Kunar province in Eastern Afghanistan. According to the Dawn, approximately 10,000 armed "volunteers" are currently deployed in the Bajaur territory, the Pakistani Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The overwhelming majority of these people originate from the Pakistani Northern territories inhabited by Pushtuns and other tribes. The newspaper claims that the largest Tehrik-Nafaz-Shariat-Muhammadi's units arrived in the Kunar from the Bajaur on Thursday and Friday, numbering more than 2,000 men.