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| Afghanistan | |
| Taliban boss makes retreat offer | |
| 2008-09-30 | |
| TALIBAN supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar today offered international forces a safe retreat from Afghanistan if they agree to withdraw from the war-torn country. If US and NATO troops battling the hardline militia failed to take up the offer, they would suffer a defeat like Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said the message posted on the Internet. "I say to the invaders: if you leave our country, we will provide you the safe context to do so," Omar said in the statement marking the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr. "If you insist on your invasion, you will be defeated like the Russians before you." There was no immediate reaction from the US-led coalition, which invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban after 9/11, or the separate NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
"The Americans, with their advanced technology, could not have predicted their defeat but now, with God's help, every day they welcome their soldiers' dead bodies and are facing severe losses of lives and finance," he said. "Several years ago, no one thought that Americans and their friends would face such hard resistance, that today the (Afghan) President and his ministers would beg for money, weapons and soldiers while no one gives a positive answer". "They came to our country seven years ago and they have not succeeded in their targets - and they will never succeed, even in a hundred years," he added. This year has been the deadliest yet for international forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion, with at least 221 troops dying in the first nine months of 2008, most of them Americans. | |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #4 As they say in Kabul - this guy is all turban, no camel. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2008-09-30 13:24 |
| #3 Omar, who has been in hiding since the fall of the Taliban Government in late 2001, said in the message that he offered his support to all those fighting foreign troops in Afghanistan. I'm with yas all the way, boys. To the last drop of blood! I'll order up room service in honor of you... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-09-30 11:27 |
| #2 Methinks that the fighting is fiercest now because this is becoming the only game in town for AQ and their pals. The party's about over in Iraq. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-09-30 11:02 |
| #1 Seven years, huh, Blinky? And your Pakistani hosts are beginning to tire of you. And those pesky drones keep knocking off your buddies. Then there's always the chance that somebody will rat you out. You talk a good fight but my guess is you'll be dead before another seven years go by. |
| Posted by: treo 2008-09-30 10:37 |