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Taliban official warned U.S. of al-Qaida in 1999
A senior Taliban official said he approached U.S. representatives three years ago for help in replacing the hardline Islamic leadership, but was told Washington was leery of becoming involved in internal Afghan politics, the former official said Sunday. Mullah Mohammed Khaksar, a former Taliban intelligence chief and later Afghan deputy interior minister, said he met with U.S. diplomats Gregory Marchese and J. Peter McIllwain in Peshawar, Pakistan, in April 1999 and told them he wanted to oust Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar because of his support for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. Interesting story. Did anything ever come of it?... The two Americans promised to contact Washington, Khaksar said. Later, he received a letter - which he showed to The Associated Press - from Marchese saying the United Sates was nervous about backing Afghan factions because of its experience supporting hardline Islamic movements during the war against the Soviets. "We don't want to make mistakes like we made in the holy war," Marchese said in the letter, written in Afghanistan's Pashto language and translated by Khaksar. "We gave much help and it later went against us." Marchese added that "my boss is interested" - without identifying him by name. However, Khaksar said that was his last contact with the Americans. Marchese, now posted in Washington, confirmed the meeting with Khaksar but refused to say what was discussed. "I can confirm that I met Mullah Khaksar, then the Taliban regime's deputy interior minister, at my home in Peshawar in April 1999," Marchese said in an e-mail. "I can't get into the content of the meeting, however." This particular tale has a ring of truth because of several factors. Marchese admits to the meeting, though he can't go into the content because it's probably classified Top Secret. Khaksar's got the letter. And most importantly, when the Talibs left Kabul in the dead of night with everything they could carry, Khaksar stayed put. No one seemed to turn a hair and there was never much of a splash afterward. This is the first time I've seen the guy's name in the press since. It's an opportunity the Clinton gang passed up. It was unclear whether Khaksar's overture was relayed to the highest levels of the Clinton Administration. Nor is it clear whether the United States lost an opportunity to neutralize bin Laden and his Taliban protectors before the devastating attacks of Sept. 11. The State Department on Sunday said it had "no immediate comment" on Khaksar's comments. We can pretty well bet that it was relayed to the undersecretary level, and probably to Albright... Khaksar, a founding member of the Taliban, said he contacted the Americans because he feared the Islamic movement had been hijacked - first by Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency and then by bin Laden and his al-Qaida group. Khaksar said he and others in the Taliban wanted to "keep Afghanistan for Afghans" but found themselves marginalized because of bin Laden's influence over Mullah Omar. Bin Laden donated suitcases full of money to finance the Taliban's war-effort against the northern-based alliance led by the late guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massood. Mullah Omar, meanwhile, had fallen under the influence of bin Laden and a clique of Afghan clerics who were graduates from Pakistani religious schools with links to Pakistani intelligence. "They told him he could be the leader of all the Muslims, bring all Muslims together," said Khaksar, who lives in Kabul. "What were they doing? It wasn't Afghanistan anymore. My thinking was that they would destroy my country." Seems like Khaksar had come to recognize the al-Qaeda thugs as an occupying power, just like the Sovs were, only more arrogant because they were so holy. As intel chief and then an interior ministry muckety-muck, he had to deal with the Paks and their proxies and didn't like it — bad enough to have an occupying power, but it must have galled him to have two of them. He couldn't have known for sure the Talibs were going to crash, must have doubted it, in fact, so our hats should be off to him for trying to do what he could under the circumstances. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-06-09 |
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