Taliban remnants still claim role in violence

Vehicles belonging to the International Security Assistance Force patrol Kabul on Wednesday. A top EU official urged the international community on Tuesday to beef up its peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to stop tribal warlords and Taliban guerrillas from disrupting elections set for next year. PHOTO: REUTERS

Two years after the fall of the Taliban, remnants of the ousted regime still claim a role in the violence in Afghanistan -- even taking responsibility for attacks in which the Islamic militia seems to have played no part.

On Wednesday, a senior Afghan military commander, General Said Mohammad, said a veteran Afghan soldier had opened fire on a coalition convoy at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, killing one Romanian soldier and wounding another.

Mohammad said the Afghan soldier, who was not identified by name and rank, escaped from the site of Tuesday's attack, which probably had nothing to do with the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

Still, Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdullah Zabulwal claimed responsibility, not only for that assault but also for a car bomb that exploded Tuesday outside two UN offices in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, wounding an Afghan UN guard and an Afghan civilian nearby.

Zabulwal, who spoke by telephone from an unidentified location in Afghanistan, would not identify the assailant in the Romanian assault, saying only that the men who had carried out both attacks had returned to their hideouts safely.

In Kabul, the capital, Afghanistan's Defense Minister spokesman, General Zaher Azimi, said he could not immediately confirm the attacker was a soldier, but that if he was, it would be the first attack by a member of the coalition-trained military force against its allies.

Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of the day that the coalition-backed Northern Alliance entered Kabul after a US-led invasion forced the Taliban out of the city. The coalition also forced Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terror network to flee deeper into hiding.

At a news conference in Kabul on Wednesday, US military spokesman Colonel Rodney Davis said that despite the mounting terror attacks in Afghanistan, the overall situation in the country has improved.

``Two years ago, there was fighting all around this country,'' he said. ``Now most of the fighting is restricted pretty much to the eastern and southern portion of Afghanistan. You're not hearing much in terms of anti-coalition activity in 80 percent of the country.''

Since the Taliban's ouster, the coalition and UN have helped Afghans draft a new constitution and plan for presidential and parliamentary elections next year. But the current appointed government of President Hamid Karzai wields little power outside Kabul, where some 5,500 NATO-led peacekeepers are stationed.

The government's authority in the north is often undermined by powerful local warlords, and in the south Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents have recently stepped up attacks against the coalition, government loyalists and international relief agencies.

On Wednesday, Karzai said the campaign was an attempt to interrupt the nation's steps toward democracy.

General Mohammad said Tuesday's attack occurred when five Romanian armored cars were stopped at a roadblock about 80km east of Kandahar city, Taliban's former stronghold in southern Afghanistan.