Pakistani holy warriors abandon fleeing Taliban

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Pakistani holy warriors are deserting Taliban ranks and streaming home in large numbers, tribal leaders said Friday, while in the streets of Peshawar, portraits of Osama bin Laden go unsold.

Here where it counts, just across the Khyber Pass from the heartland of Afghanistan, the Taliban mystique is waning.

"It was shameful to us to see them run away from Kabul," said Syed Rais ul Hassan, a business executive who is a Pashtun like most of the Taliban. "Our way is to stay and fight."

Fazal Ullah, son of clan leader Maulana Sufi Mohammed, said a main force of 10,000 to 11,000 Pakistanis had been routed and at least half of them have come home over the past few days.

Ullah, reached by telephone in the autonomous tribal areas east of here, said he feared hundreds of those still missing may have been killed or captured. He said he had lost contact with his father in Afghan-istan.

"This retreat was a war tactic of the Taliban because they could not resist both bombing and a ground attack," he said. But, he added, the Pakistanis chose not to follow the Taliban into their Kandahar stronghold.

One Pakistani tribal group claimed they had sent more than 12,000 people to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Of that, 6,000 to 7,000 have returned in recent days, they said, while 600-700 others who went to Mazar-e-Sharif have not been heard from.

Other leaders confirmed that Pakistani fighters had returned, leaving many casualties behind, although some had lower estimates.

The reports could not be confirmed with precision since neither foreigners nor uninvited non-Pashtun Pakistanis are allowed into the swath of tribal land that adjoins the unpatrolled mountainous border.