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Karzai challenges Taleban ‘brothers’ over attacks
KABUL: President Hamid Karzai called the Taleban "brothers" on Tuesday and reached out to them to do more for the good of the country after the insurgents carried out multiple attacks in Kabul and elsewhere at the weekend.

The deadly strikes on parliament, Kabul's diplomatic quarter and three provinces, had only prolonged the foreign presence in Afghanistan reviled by the Taleban, and hurt economic and security confidence, Karzai said.

"You did nothing for Islam, you did not work for Afghanistan's independence and you did not work for its people, freedom and development," he said in a speech commemorating almost 150 years since the birth of an Afghan reformer, but aimed squarely at the insurgency.

"You worked to prolong a foreign presence, you gave foreigners an excuse to stay," Karzai said.

But in an effort to keep alive reconciliation with the Taleban and hopes of a peace deal before most foreign combat troops leave the country in 2014, Karzai said he would not stop calling the Taleban "brothers.” "Some criticize me in the Afghan government and media for saying the Taleban are brothers, but I won't give up," he said to loud applause from officials and university students.

Karzai has laid most of the blame for the Taleban assault on NATO and his government's Western backers for the failure of intelligence agents to prevent it.
As opposed to the hard boyz who attacked...
"Washington is calm and quiet and their people are safe. London is the same ... But Afghans were panicking and suffered religiously and economically," he said in veiled criticism of the West, whose continued presence many Afghans now blame for the country's ongoing troubles.
Posted by: Steve White 2012-04-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=343021