No support for Taliban in opposition jail
KHOJA BAHAWUDDIN, (Afghanistan), Oct 19 (Reuters) Kamals career as a fighter for the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan lasted just one night.
His forced recruitment, brief service with a gun and current status as a prisoner in a filthy cell spell a familiar history to his captors in the opposition Northern Alliance.
The 32-year-old, his face drawn and thin above his ripped, dusty shirt, says he was forced to fight and does not support the hardline Islamic movement and their prolonged fight against the Northern Alliance.
That is a familiar story to the opposition.
"The Taliban forced US to go to the front line, about 70 to 80 men from our village were brought to fight," says Kamal, who comes from baglan, about 200 km north of the war-torn Afghan capital Kabul.
"I dont support the Taliban...
The Taliban says every person must go and help them or pay two million Afghanis (about 20 Dollars) every month.
I only fought for one night," Kamal said.
It is a story prison governor Imam Kol says he hears all the time but one which does not mean freedom from the prison, a grim warren of corridors and rooms guarded by soldiers with Kalashnikovs.
Both the Taliban and opposition accuse each other of forcing poor villagers to pay up or fight, and international aid groups say both use teenage boys on the front line.
There are few metal bars on the prison windows, fewer doors, and the inmates are free to roam the grounds that lead to the towns central square.
But not one has escaped, says Kol.
"We have soldiers guarding them and they will shoot to kill the prisoners if they try to escape," the governor said.
"They are all Taliban.
I know they all say the same thing that they do not support the Taliban but all of them are lying," he said.
"Some of them are Taliban commanders, but here they are told they are nothing more than workers.
And they must work," Kol added.
The Taliban militia is hated in Khoja Bahawuddin, a Northern Alliance stronghold where opposition troops are trained and sent to fight in a civil war that has lasted more than five years.
Two men Sawed Wood, another chopped up a tree with an axe in the courtyard, while a lone face peered through a window.
Piles of shoes lay outside rooms.
Kol says he does not know how long the captured fighters stay in his prison.
Some have been at the jail for a year, others for a month.
Formal sentencing does not apply.
"Some of them are dangerous, some of them are killers, so why give them freedom?" he said.
He would not say what their fate would be.
The prisoners, one after the other, repeat that they are treated well, saying the food is good and the rooms meet their needs.
Fayed Naszeem, who wears a bright pink and green silk Kaftan with a long green cape, says he wishes the Taliban had never come to his village.
"They forced us all to fight," he says, repeatedly stroking his long, grey-speckled beard.
"When will I leave here? I leave that in the hands of Allah." Too soon to plan future Afghan govt : US UNITED NATIONS, Oct 19 (Reuters) Washingtons diplomatic pointman for Afghanistan has said the top US goal was to crush Osama bin Ladens Al Qaeda network and it was too early to discuss nation-building proposals for the Central Asian nation.
Richard Haass, named by US secretary of state Colin Powell as his special representative on Afghanistan, yesterday said after talks with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan that he saw no differences between Washington and the United Nations on how to proceed in the Central Asian country.
"It is too early for people to be presenting plans though we did discuss various aspects of the evolving situation that would have to be addressed," Haass told reporters.
Asked whether Washington, in its second week of bombing raids on Afghanistan, could declare victory there or let the capital Kabul fall without a provisional government in the wings, Haass said it was too early "to get into those kinds of questions about scenarios and how they may unfold." "Our goals in Afghanistan are clear," he said.
"We are obviously most concerned about the Al Qaeda network, about making sure that Afghanistan is never again a country that harbors terrorism or provides a sanctuary for terrorists.
And that is essentially our focus here." Washington blames bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network for September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and is bombing Afghanistan to punish its Taliban rulers for harboring them.
A senior UN official confirmed the talks between Haass, Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, Annans special envoy for Afghanistan, but did not go into specifics.
"Its the first run over the ground and I am sure they will be coming in with much more detail in Washington," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Laden aide killed by own grenade ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (Reuters) An aide to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden has been killed in Afghanistan when a grenade exploded in his hands, and did not die in a US bomb attack, the private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said today.
Abu Baseer Al-Masri, an Egyptian, died in a Jalalabad hospital on October 13, two days after a grenade that he was holding exploded, causing extensive arm and chest injuries, AIP said.
Earlier reports had said the aide to bin Laden was killed by US bombing around the eastern city that is known as a centre for guerrilla training camps in Afghanistan.
Pak allows US forces to use third air field ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (Reuters) Pakistan has given permission to US forces to use a a third air field, at Dalbandin, a small town in Southwestern Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan, a pro-Taliban Islamic religious party leader said today.
Pakistani government officials were tightlipped about whether Dalbandin, 270 km Southwest of the provincial capital Quetta and about 70 km from the Afghanistan border, was being used by US forces for logistical support.
However, sources close to the military said the air field was being used by US forces.
"According to our reports from the area, they have given Dalbandin to the Americans," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, vice-president of Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam Party told Reuters by telephone.
East Afghan commanders unite to challenge Taliban PESHAWAR,Oct 19 (Reuters) A group of veteran Afghan Mujahideen, or holy warrior, commanders have challenged the ruling Taliban movement to give up power now or face attacks around the main eastern city of Jalalabad.
At a strategy session also attended by five fighters linked to the Islamic fundamentalists now ruling Afghanistan, the commanders denounced the presence in Afghanistan of Arab and other foreign Muslim followers of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, their concluding declaration said.
The meeting, at the Peshawar home of anti-Taliban commander Mohammad Zaman on Thursday, was the first open threat of military action posed by a group supporting the return of ex-king Zahir Shah.
The commanders also urged the United States to stop its daily bombing raids, saying only Afghans could resolve the crisis brought on by the Talibans unswerving loyalty to bin Laden, Washingtons prime suspect in the September 11 suicide plane attacks in the United States.
"We call on the United States to stop its attacks and on the Taliban to quit the government and transfer power to a Loya Jirga," their declaration said, referring to the grand assembly that Zahir Shah wants to convene to pick a broad-based government to succeed the Taliban.
"We condemn the activities of foreigners inside Afghanistan," it said, referring to more than 10,000 Muslims mostly Arabs who have been trained in bin Ladens Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.
Speaking at the meeting of about 80 commanders, Zaman, who like the others is a veteran of the war against Soviet forces in the 1980s, said the commanders did not want to fight against the Taliban but would do so if needed.
"We are asking them to give the Afghans the right of self-determination," a participant quoted him as saying.
"We will send a delegation to bring this message to the Taliban.
" "If the Taliban refuse, we will take any steps necessary to reach our goals," he said.
"We will come up with a military strategy." T the commanders all hail from Nangarhar, the province at the western end of the Khyber pass whose capital, Jalalabad, has been the target of repeated US airstrikes to flush out Taliban and Al Qaeda bases.
Nangarhar controls the main road route from Pakistan to the capital Kabul.
One disillusioned Taliban commander told Reuters this week that people in the area were fed up with the hardline movement, which has tried to introduce the worlds purest Islam state with policies that include banning women from work and staging public executions.
They were especially angered by the mostly Arab and Chechen fighters who were brought in after September 11 to defend the city and now act as if they, and not the ruling Taliban, were the real masters of Afghanistan, the tribal militia commander Malik SAhhzad Khan said.
Speaking to Pashto-language journalists at the meeting, Zaman said the commanders from once competing Mujahideen parties had now agreed to work together and would accept Taliban turncoats in their ranks.
Convincing Pashtun tribesmen to switch loyalties from the Taliban to the movement supporting Zahir Shah is a key element in the opposition strategy of isolating the Taliban government to ensure it crumbles from within.
"I dont say that all Taliban are terrorists or all Taliban are clean," Zaman said.
"Many of them are patriotic and peace-loving.
If such people want to join us, we will welcome them." Herat to fall soon : Northern Alliance DUBAI, Oct 19 (UNI) Afghanistans strategic city of Herat, the capital of Herat province in Western Afghanistan, is likely to fall to the Northern Alliance forces soon, former governor of the province Mohammed Ismail Khan has said.
In an exclusive interview to the Dubai-based Gulf news, Khan said his forces were 20 km from the ancient city.
Over 90 per cent of the province was under the control of his forces following defections by dozens of Taliban commanders, he asserted.
Khan, who was a guerilla commander during the ten-year Soviet occupation, said during the last fortnight about 33 Taliban commanders, along with their 840 fighters, have joined the Northern Alliance ranks.
He claimed in the interview that his forces have captured 80 per cent of the Badghis and they were set to capture its capital Qila-e-Nao.
"Both Farah and Ghor provinces are fully under our control, and the battle is on with the Taliban to capture other provinces such as Fariyab, Jauzjan and Sar-e-Pul in the north," he said.
Herat is one of the four important cities that support Kabul.
The others are Mazar-e-Sharif in the North, Jalabab in the east and Kandahar in the south.
No Taliban leader killed in US airstrikes ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (UNI) Taliban education minister Amir Khan Muttaki has said no Taliban leader and none of "our guests", including Osama bin Laden, had been killed or injured in the United States strikes on Afghanistan.
Muttaki, in an interview to NNI news agency, said all Taliban leaders, including Mulla Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden, were "alive and kicking".
The minister denied the reports of a split among the Taliban leadership, saying that foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil had not gone anywhere and was still in Kandahar.
According to the frontier post, the Taliban leader Mulla Omar held a conference with field commanders in Kandahar at which Herat provinces governor Mullah Hairullah participated.
A curfew was imposed in Herat and soldiers were ordered to fire without warning at anyone who would go out after sunset.
According to the paper, the participants in the Kandahar conference also decided to broadcast Mullah Omars speeches and exhortations over the radio to "keep the morale of the Taliban army waging a holy war against the US".
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