Taliban Volunteers Joining Resistance

Emboldened by the spate of attacks on the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan in recent weeks, more and more Taliban are volunteering to join the resistance movement building up in Pashtun-populated areas in the war-ravaged country.

Other Afghan groups such as the one led by former mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar are also regrouping. Hekmatyar's call for "jehad" against foreign forces in Afghanistan is gradually winning recruits.

Taliban sources said their supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, on the run after the ouster of his government by the US military in December 2001, had conveyed to his die-hard supporters to organise resistance cells to attack American and other foreign troops in Afghanistan. He reportedly asked his followers not to harm Afghans fighting for the government or the warlords because they may have been forced to do so.

One report said Omar had named former Taliban interior minister and army chief, Mulla Abdul Razzaq, as the commander of the Taliban resistance force. Razzaq is high on the US list of wanted Taliban leaders. Mulla Biradar, one of the five founders of the Taliban Islamic movement and a close friend of Omar, was appointed as head of the council of ministers in place of Mulla Mohammad Hasan. Both Biradar and Hasan went underground after the fall of the Taliban regime and their whereabouts are unknown.

Denying any link-up with Hekmatyar, Taliban sources told The News that there has been no formal agreement of collaboration between the two anti-US groups. However, the sources said the Taliban, Hekmatyar, and other genuine Islamic groups shared the same objectives despite operating separately. "We all want to expel foreign forces, especially non-Muslim, from our homeland. Our resistance will continue until we achieve our objective," declared a Taliban spokesman.

The Taliban declaration came in the wake of growing attacks on US and Afghan government targets. Last Saturday, reports filtered out of the remote Nimruz province bordering Iran and Pakistan about a landmine explosion that killed five Afghan soldiers, including their commander. A day earlier, at least 18 people were killed when a passenger bus was blown up by another remote-controlled landmine blast near Kandahar.

Some reports said Afghan government troops using the route and operating in the area were the
intended target of the attack.
 

Source : Rahimullah Yusufzai for Jang