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.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion