DVD role in Afghan insurgency

[ECH1969]

In remote areas, more than $5,000 (£2,865) in bounty money has been offered to local men to kill senior government workers, one administrator said.

"It is big money. It is al-Qaeda money and it is from the Gulf," he said, referring to Arab supporters of al-Qaeda. Khost's beleaguered local government blames Pakistan for this situation.

One recently distributed DVD shows an Afghan man confessing to being a spy for the US. He is then beheaded in front of a photograph of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

While President Karzai stopped short of accusing Pakistan of supporting the attackers, the governor of Khost province, Mirajudin Pattan, did not. "The Taleban and al-Qaeda militants have training camps inside Pakistan and the Pakistani government is helping them," he told the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4733704.stm