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Afghan Minister Says Taliban
Leader Alive And Active
By Sayed Salahuddin
9-15-2


KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is alive and regrouping his supporters to destabilize the central government of Afghanistan, an Afghan minister said on Sunday.
 
Mohammad Arif Noorzaye, minister for tribal and frontier affairs, also rejected a U.S. military report that said its warplanes attacked four villages in July killing dozens of people only because they came under fire from the ground.
 
The Afghan government said 48 people were killed and 117 wounded in the incident, many of them attending a wedding party near the village of Deh Rawud, located in the home province of Mullah Omar.
 
"According to the information I have Omar is alive and is operating to reorganize his people against the government," Noorzaye told Reuters in an interview.
 
"He is still financially supported by one of our neighboring countries and works there now."
 
Noorzaye did not specify any country. But many Afghans remain deeply suspicious of Pakistan, which was the main backer of the Taliban government until abandoning them in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
 
Thursday, the Arabic al Jazeera television station said it had received a statement from the one-eyed Omar, in which he vowed his movement would not rest until it had ousted U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
 
The hard-line Islamic Taliban militia sheltered the al Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden, wanted by Washington for masterminding the September 11 attacks.
 
Omar vanished from his key stronghold in the southern city of Kandahar following intense U.S. bombing late last year.
 
Since then, the 48-year-old cleric was reported to have been on the run in a broad swathe of mountainous territory running through his birthplace of Deh Rawud in central Uruzgan province.
 
Noorzaye said Omar moved from the area recently following a meeting among some of his former ministers "in the neighboring country," where they decided to regroup and fight President Hamid Karzai's government and foreign allies led by the United States.
 
Dismissing the U.S. military report earlier this month that said the warplanes attacked the villages because they came under hostile fire and that they had acted properly, the minister said:
 
"If they were really fired at from Deh Rawud, then why did they bomb the other four villages?
 
"Omar was not there. All people killed and wounded were civilians. We have not officially been informed about the latest report or the so-called outcome of the investigation."
 
He also urged Washington to fulfil promises made to the victims of the U.S. air attack, which officials said included 22 members of a wedding party.
 
Noorzaye said the United States had not given any aid to the villagers, despite promising to provide some $2 million for rebuilding areas affected by the bombing raid.
 
"If America ignores the rights of people then they automatically join the enemy's ranks. Be it al Qaeda, Taliban or whoever. We should not disappoint people, and I hope that America abides by its promise."
 
Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.





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