By Sardar Ahmad, AFP
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders that both nations could defeat a resurgent Al-Qaeda and Taliban if they worked together.

Karzai's remarks came as he opened three days of talks on rising Islamist extremism in the absence of his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf, who abruptly pulled out of the meeting the day before.

He was joined by Musharraf's replacement, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, in calls for unity at the meeting, called a "peace jirga," but both leaders also repeated often-traded accusations on the roots of the unrest.

With 700 delegates and elders on hand from tribal areas straddling the rugged border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan -- an area said to be rife with militants -- Karzai said the two nations shared a common destiny.

"I am confident. I believe... if both Afghanistan and Pakistan put their hands together, we will eliminate in one day oppression against both nations," he said.

"If the problem is from the Afghanistan side, we should seek ways to solve it. If the problem is in Pakistan, we should find solutions for it," he said in Kabul, where thousands of police and soldiers were on patrol for the meeting.

The jirga has been billed as an opportunity for the tribal leaders, most of them men with large turbans and long beards, to thrash out a strategy to deal with the escalating terrorism threat.

Along with elements from Al-Qaeda, the Taliban have been able to regroup since being ousted from power in Kabul by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Karzai and Musharraf have traded recriminations about the root of the unrest, while the Pakistani leader has been angered by US accusations that his government is not doing enough to counter the militant threat.

The Afghan leader said he had often asked Pakistan: "Why from your soil and administration is this evil coming to us. Why is it bothering us?"

Islamabad had denied involvement, he said, and now it was the task of the the jirga to answer these questions.

"Who are they who bother Pakistan and Afghanistan?" he asked. "Who is training them? By whose money are they being trained?"

Karzai said he did not consider the Taliban-linked violence in Afghanistan to be the work of Afghans, but enemies of the country and Islam.

Aziz said, however, it should not be forgotten that "first and foremost the Taliban are Afghans." And Afghanistan cannot blame others for the lack of reconciliation among its people, he said.

He strongly condemned Al-Qaeda, which he said had to be dealt with firmly and mainly through military means.

"Terrorism, militancy, the violent creed preached by Al-Qaeda, extremism and Talibanisation represent pain, intolerance and backwardness in our societies and a phenomenon that has maligned our great and noble faith, Islam."

"They are not the future of Pakistan or Afghanistan. We must fight these dark forces with determination and resolve," he said.

Nearly 100 Pakistani delegates from tribal areas where Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists are said to be most active have boycotted the meeting, mainly in protest at the Pakistani military presence in their areas.

But one of the Pakistani delegates who did attend, Malik Zarin Khan from Mohmand Agency, said he hoped the meeting would go some way towards halting the spread of Taliban-linked violence.

"This fire, either months later or a year later, will reach us too," he told AFP. "We are hoping this jirga helped solve the problem."

The jirga is being held in a huge tent in the grounds of a college on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.

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