Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar called on Afghanistan's neighbors to help his militants oust the government of President Hamid Karzai and force foreign troops out of the country.
A roadside bomb, meanwhile, struck a police vehicle in southern Afghanistan on Friday, leaving four officers dead and six others wounded, NATO said.
Omar's message -- the authenticity of which couldn't be immediately confirmed -- said "neighbors should help Afghans drive Western forces from Afghanistan as they helped them during the Soviet Union invasion."
"They should abandon any kind of support and understand that they [Western forces] are a danger to the whole region," said Omar's statement, posted on a Web site that previously carried militant messages.
It was unclear when it was posted, though it included greetings for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which was expected to start on yesterday.
Afghanistan is going through its most violent period since the Taliban's ouster in the US-led invasion in 2001. More than 5,100 people -- mostly militants -- have died in insurgency-related violence so far this year.
The Taliban often compare their struggle to the war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when neighboring Pakistan and Iran -- helped by the US and Saudi Arabia -- armed the anti-communist mujahedeen.
Some observers accuse rogue elements in Pakistan's security forces of supporting today's Afghan rebels, and US officials recently raised the alarm about Iranian weapons reaching the Taliban.
Karzai has offered peace talks with the militants and even positions in the government. But the Taliban and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the militant group Hezb-i-Islami, have rejected the overtures, saying international troops must first leave the country.
In his Internet statement, Omar said Karzai's offers were the result of the Taliban's resilience on the battlefield. He said Western forces should end "satanic" policies, including airstrikes that kill civilians, and withdraw.
But he also called on his fighters to be mindful of civilians during combat, suggesting the bloodshed is sapping support also for the militants among ordinary Afghans.
Insurgents often launch attacks from civilian homes and a constant stream of suicide attacks are killing far more civilians than Afghan or foreign troops.
Omar went into hiding after a US-led invasion toppled his Taliban regime in Afghanistan six years ago. Afghan officials have said he is hiding in the Pakistani city of Quetta. Pakistan says he is in Afghanistan.
In southern Afghanistan, meanwhile, a roadside blast targeted a police patrol in Helmand Province's Gereshk district, killing four officers and wounding six other people, including civilians, NATO said in a statement.
In eastern Kunar Province, three rockets struck a house in the provincial capital of Asadabad, killing one young girl and wounding two other children, said Mohammad Jalal, the provincial police chief. He blamed the Taliban for firing the rockets.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS