|
Taliban issues message from Omar
 TALIBAN guerrillas have issued a statement purportedly from leader Mullah Omar in which he dismissed reports that members of his radical Islamic movement were willing to lay down arms. The message was faxed to reporters by Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi and was aimed to mark the start of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.The message attributed to Omar said holy war was the only way to ensure the rights of Muslims and that talk of dialogue with the US-backed Government of President Hamid Karzai was false. "We want to make it clear to the aggressor forces and their puppet (Karzai) Government that the Taliban are not ready for any dialogue while there is even a single aggressor soldier in the country," the message said. The governor of the south-eastern Afghan province of Paktia said this week that hundreds of Taliban fighters could abandon their insurgency as a result of talks under way between local commanders and the government via tribal intermediaries. Assadullah Wafa declined to identify those he said were willing to stop fighting, but said the group he was in contact with consisted of both senior and ordinary Taliban members. The report came after US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad last month pledged an amnesty to rank and file guerrillas if they were to lay down their arms, but ruled out compromise with hardline leaders guilty of major crimes. On Sunday, US forces freed 81 suspected Taliban fighters from military jails across Afghanistan in an apparent bid to encourage the peace initiative. Posted by: tipper 2005-01-20 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=54172 |