Taliban vow attacks after Mullah Omar meeting
( 2003-09-25 09:11) (Agencies)
Islamic Taliban commanders secretly met elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar last week and vowed to step up attacks on Afghan government and U.S.-led allied troops, a commander said on Wednesday.
Taliban guerrilla commander Mullah Sabir, alias Mullah Momin, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location that Omar appeared "delighted" by a recent spate of Taliban attacks.
At the meeting on September 17, held somewhere in southern Afghanistan, Omar urged around 50 top military commanders and former governors not to slow their activities, Mullah Momin said.
"I salute my Taliban mujahideen (holy warrior) brothers and the Afghan people. They have courageously carried out their jihadi (holy war) responsibilities for the last two years to defend Islam," Omar was quoted as saying.
"All the Taliban commanders should carry out the duties entrusted to them as a personal responsibility," he added.
Mullah Momin said he had started spreading Omar's message to other Taliban commanders who were not present at the meeting, adding that the leaders had agreed to "accelerate" attacks.
The U.S.-led military force in Afghanistan said a total of 10 rockets landed near its bases at Shkin and Asadabad in the southeast Tuesday night, but caused no casualties.
Military spokesman Major Richard Sater said U.S.-led forces fired mortars at the suspected launch site in Asadabad, but gave no other details.
Such attacks, an almost daily occurrence in the past year but generally ineffective, have been blamed on Taliban guerrillas.
TALIBAN CAPTURED
In another incident Tuesday, Afghan forces captured four Taliban guerrillas in the Suri area of Zabul province and captured a cache of arms, Commander Haji Mohammad told Reuters.
Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali dismissed the Taliban call as "psychological warfare" after maulings by Afghan and U.S.-led forces in recent fighting in Zabul province.
"After their heavy defeats in Dai Chopan and some other attacks were foiled in other areas, probably they want to express themselves again, that they are still there," he told Reuters.
"I would just dismiss it as psychological warfare. I don't think I want to take it seriously."
The United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan for providing a safe haven to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
But in the last few months the Taliban has carried out a spate of attacks and Afghan government officials blame their resurgence on support from neighboring Pakistan.
Since early August, more than 280 people have been killed across Afghanistan, among them civilians, Afghan aid workers, police and militiamen, three U.S. soldiers and many guerrillas.
The 12,500-strong U.S.-led force launched Operation Mountain Viper last month in response to the presence of hundreds of guerrillas and their allies in Uruzgan and Zabul provinces.
President Hamid Karzai told President Bush Tuesday he was concerned some people in the border regions of neighboring Pakistan were preaching support for the Taliban.
During the 45-minute meeting, Bush promised to raise the issue with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf Wednesday.
Pakistan strongly supported Mullah Omar's Taliban regime but abandoned him after the September 11 attacks, and is now a key ally in the U.S.-led "war on terror."
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