NWA fighting reverses flow of refugees, stirs unease in Afghanistan

KHOST: Thousands of refugees fleeing an offensive by army have poured across the lawless border into ramshackle camps on rugged hills in Afghanistan, stirring unease that Taliban militants may be hiding among them.

The mass departures over the porous border, which many in any case do not recognise, mark a change. For the first time in more than 30 years beleaguered residents are escaping into Afghanistan and not out of it, an irony not lost on local officials or refugee agencies.

Authorities in Khost province are offering a warm welcome and what little they have to shelter the newcomers. But intellgence officers and the army are uneasy - some refugees from North Waziristan province could be Islamist activists of the Pakistani Taliban, the target of Pakistan's offensive.

"These communities for decades have been the ones benefitting from support from tribal communities in North Waziristan when they had to flee," said Bo Shack, the top official in Afghanistan of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "Today they want to provide these families with equal help."

Refugees poured over the border in the other direction after Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979. More followed after Moscow's pullout a decade later sparked mass disorder and still more fled after Afghanistan's own Taliban took power in 1996.

Some 3.8 million Afghans have returned to Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition of forces in 2001, while 1.6 million remain there as refugees.