Feb 19, 2008 12:19 pm US/Pacific
Pakistani Refugees Fleeing To Afghanistan On Rise
Around 10,000 Have Fled, U.S. Military Says
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
The number of Pakistanis fleeing to eastern Afghanistan to avoid violence in their country has risen to about 10,000 in recent weeks, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.
Commanders had reported last month that the number was only between 300 and 400 families. But Army Col. Jeffery Johnson, the U.S. command surgeon in eastern Afghanistan, said thousands more had crossed over the border and been taken into the health care systems in Khost and Paktika provinces.
"That was really a response to some of the turmoil that was taking place inside of Pakistan and the people there understood that their lives potentially could be better if they were in Afghanistan," Johnson told a Pentagon press conference via video hookup from Afghanistan.
Pakistan, particularly its northwest, has been wracked by Islamic militant violence, with bombings targeting the military or top officials, and clashes between security forces and pro-Taliban fighters.
Violence also has increased in Pakistan over months of political upheaval, including unrest leading to parliamentary elections that could threaten the rule of President Pervez Musharraf, a key American ally in the war on terror. Final results from Monday's vote had not been announced early Tuesday.
Musharraf in late October declared emergency rule for six weeks -- a move he said was necessary to combat rising Islamic extremism, but was widely seen as a ploy to prolong his own presidency. Thousands of his opponents were rounded up and Supreme Court justices fired.
The emergency order was barely lifted when opposition leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, throwing the nation into chaos as enraged crowds rioted across Pakistan.
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