KABUL, July 29 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday that Western allies had the ability to strike at Taliban bases in Pakistan, but questioned their willingness to do so.

"The war against terrorism is not in the villages or houses of Afghanistan ...but in the sanctuaries, sources of funding and training (of terrorism) and they lie outside Afghanistan," he told a news conference in the capital.

"It is a different question whether Afghanistan has the ability to tackle this," he said in response to a question about Pakistan support for the Taliban and why the conflict was dragging on, "... but our allies have this capability the question now is 'why they are not taking action'?" Islamabad's covert support for the Taliban resurfaced this week with the publication by the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of classified documents which point the finger at Pakistan's spy agency.

On Tuesday, in its first reaction to the leak, Afghanistan's National Security Council said the United States had failed to attack the patrons and supporters of the Taliban hiding in Pakistan throughout the nine-year-old conflict.

The classified documents show current and former members of Pakistan's spy agency were actively collaborating with the Taliban in plotting attacks in Afghanistan.[ID:nSGE66Q0JH]

Violence in Afghanistan has soared since a troop surge brought to 150,000 the number of foreign forces confronting the Taliban and two other insurgent groups. (Writing by David Fox; Editing by Ron Popeski) (david.fox@thomsonreuters.com; +93 799 335 284) (If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com.


(Source:"Afghan president asks why allies won't hit Pakistan",www.reuters.com, 27 July 2010)