A leader of Afghanistan's ousted Taleban movement has rejected as baseless reports that he held reconciliation talks with President Hamid Karzai's government. Maulavi Abdul Kabir, thought now to be No. 2 in the Taleban hierarchy after its fugitive leader Mulla Mohamad Omar, also dismissed reports of rifts among remnants of the hard-line Islamic movement overthrown by US-led forces in late 2001. Afghan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari said recently that senior Taleban figures, including Kabir, were in touch with him about giving up the insurgency they have waged for the past 3-1/2 years since being driven from power. In an audio message played to Reuters by satellite phone by Taleban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi, Kabir rejected this. "There have been no talks with the Americans or the current government and whoever has said this, it has no basis," he said. "As before, the Taleban are under one leadership," Kabir said, referring to Omar.
Hakimi said the message was recorded on Friday somewhere in Afghanistan. Hakimi said Kabir was now head of the Taleban's political commission, which would make him Omar's deputy. Hakimi also said the Taleban were working on a plan to change their tactics away from guerrilla warfare. He said the focus was now on the training suicide bombers to target government officials, foreign forces and aid workers in major cities and to infiltrate agents into security organs to carry out sabotage. "The change of tactics is an easy way for us to have a longer-term war of attrition and would also not cost many lives for us," he said, while denying that the Taleban would be copying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq. US-led troops toppled the Taleban after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, architect of Sept. 11.