Nongovernmental organizations are facing difficulties with their refugee relief efforts in Pakistan due to hostile reactions following the U.S.-led attacks on targets in Afghanistan.

The Tokyo-based Association for Aid and Relief said it had been stopped at Bajaur on the Pakistan border and prevented from directly delivering milk and biscuits to Afghan refugees.

The goods are currently being stored in a warehouse, according to AAR members.

Early this month, AAR member Yukie Osa and a colleague flew to Pakistan but ended up being hindered by Pakistanis holding protest rallies in Bajaur, where the group intended to locate its base for refugee relief activities.

"The majority of people understand the position of the NGOs, but there are extremists who take foreigners as being anti-Islam," she said.

Osa expressed alarm over the state of security for visiting foreigners, noting that even a locally based NGO had been attacked.

The office of a local organization with which AAR cooperates was recently attacked by a mob, which also damaged ambulances the NGO uses to transport land-mine victims.

Medecins Sans Frontieres experienced similar attacks on its office in Afghanistan early this week. Its medical supplies were stolen.

Osa -- who returned to Japan on Oct. 16 -- said that during relief efforts in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1995, Japanese NGOs were welcomed because Japan was viewed as a neutral country.

Islamabad has said it wants to be responsible for collecting and transporting relief goods, but Osa had reservations about this.

"In principle, we should directly hand over relief goods ourselves," she said.

She underscored the importance of continuing relief activities if only to make the Afghan people know that the international community has not abandoned them.