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Taliban reject Karzai's offer of talks

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said yesterday that there is "serious debate" among some Taliban fighters about laying down arms, though a spokesman for the group said the insurgents will "never" negotiate with Afghan authorities until foreign troops leave.

Meanwhile, clashes and airstrikes have killed 16 people, capping a week that saw more than 270 people dying in insurgency-related violence.

Karzai said on Saturday he would be willing to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and give militants a position in government in exchange for peace. Karzai spokesman Humayun Hamidzada stressed yesterday that the militants would have to accept Afghanistan's Constitution.

However, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi repeated a position he had announced earlier this month, saying there would be no negotiations until US and NATO troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

"The Taliban will never negotiate with the Afghan government in the presence of foreign forces," Ahmadi said. "Even if Karzai gives up his presidency, it's not possible that Mullah Omar would agree to negotiations. The foreign forces don't have the authority to talk about Afghanistan."

But Karzai's spokesman said the government has information of a "serious debate" among some groups of Taliban about how long militants want to keep fighting.

"They want to live in peace and have a comfortable life with their families," Hamidzada said. "There is serious debate within their ranks, but this is a process that takes time."

He said Karzai and US President George W. Bush also spoke generally about the Taliban reconciliation process and said Bush also supports such initiatives, though it was not clear if that would include broader Taliban peace talks beyond the individual reconciliation process.

Karzai's latest peace overture came as insurgency-related violence continued. Thirty people, mostly army soldiers, were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a military bus on Saturday in Kabul.

In the latest violence, insurgents ambushed a convoy of foreign troops in eastern Paktia Province on Saturday. After a brief gunbattle, airstrikes were called in that killed 11 militants, a provincial police official said yesterday on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak publicly.

Meanwhile, Taliban insurgents on Saturday freed four staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) they had kidnapped a few days ago, an ICRC statement said.

"The unconditional release of our four colleagues is a great relief to us and their families," Franz Rauchenstein, deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul, said in a statement.

The four men, two Afghans, a Macedonian and a citizen of Myanmar, were seized by the Taliban in Wardak Province, southwest of Kabul on Wednesday. One of the hostages said they had been well treated by their captors.

"The treatment was fine. There was no interrogation, no questioning, we lived in the same condition as the Taliban. There was food and water," the Macedonian hostage told an Afghan reporter shortly before his release.

"It was a long journey on foot in the mountains and then we spent the night in one house -- two nights -- and then this morning we came down," he said in recorded comments.

"We were not afraid. We have contacts with the Taliban, we know the Taliban," he said.

The ICRC team was seized as they were returning from a failed mission to facilitate the release of a German engineer kidnapped by the Taliban in July.
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