Taliban join forces to fight US

Three rival Taliban groups in Pakistan are uniting to fight western forces in Afghanistan, just as thousands of extra US troops begin pouring into the country as part of Barack Obama's surge plan.

According to the Guardian, the warlords in Waziristan have come together under the name Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen, or Council of United Holy Warriors, and will join the battle against the Nato forces across the border in Afghanistan

The union comes after calls from Mullah Omar, the cleric who leads the Afghan Taliban, telling Pakistani militants to stop fighting at home in order to join the battle to "liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces".

The Pakistani Taliban movement had been split between a group led by Baitullah Mehsud and those led by rivals, Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur. Mehsud has targeted Pakistan in the past and is accused of being behind the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Nazir and Bahadur sent men to fight alongside other insurgents in Afghanistan.

Nato officers fear that the new partnership will lead to a massive increase in the number of fighters and suicide bombers flooding into the region - jeopardising the US president's Afghanistan strategy before it gets underway.

"It's a concern to us when we see a grouping like that," a western security official told the Guardian. "This can't be ignored."