- 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.
|