Deep splits emerged Thursday between rival Afghan opposition groups as a large gathering of southern commanders and politicians warned against a role in government for the Northern Alliance.
A rare meeting in Peshawar of 1,000 key figures, largely drawn from the dominant Pashtun tribe, agreed to convene a grand assembly, or loya jirga, to decide a future administration for Kabul.
"Military operations carried out by the US and its allies may cause the fall of the Taliban regime at any time, which will create a political vacuum," the group said after their two-day meeting.
A resolution also said that Osama bin Laden and his Arab mercenaries -- "those foreigners who add more to our miseries" -- should be ordered out of Afghanistan.
But the movement, led by the patriarchal religious leader, Pir Syed Ahmad Gailani, made it clear the Northern Alliance, which is principally composed of Afghan's ethnic minorities, would not be involved.
"If that vacuum were filled by a particular group through military operations, it would turn to a new phase of bloodshed and disorder," they said. The emerging divisions among opposition figures will be deeply worrying for western governments and the UN.
When the international community last tried to put together a broad-based government in Kabul in 1992, similar splits quickly deteriorated into four years of bitter civil war which killed more than 50,000 people and left most of the capital in ruins.
Few doubt that Thursday's meeting was sanctioned by the Pakistani authorities in an effort to create a bulwark against support given by the US to the Northern Alliance. In the past Pakistan has chosen to back Pashtun groups from outside the country, like the unloved warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, rather than turning to the tribal base in the south.
No senior emissaries from the alliance, the former Afghan king or other important factions were present at the meeting.
Instead the men being courted were Pashtun commanders living mainly in Taliban-controlled areas who Gailani hopes will be encouraged to rise up against the hardline regime.
"There are a large number of Taliban who want peace in Afghanistan," said Haji Atta Mohammad, a Pashtun commander. "When the situation is critical they will break from the Taliban movement."
He once served as a commander under Gailani in the mujahidin war against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
For the past seven years he has sided pragmatically with the Taliban. At times like this he insists on his "neutrality." Commanders such as Mohammad will be crucial to attempts by former mujahidin Pashtuns to overthrow Taliban hardliners.
Pakistan, which has firmly allied itself to the Pashtuns for decades, appears ready to support this and has already shown its willingness to invite "moderate" Taliban into the next government.
For now the only point on which Afghan opposition leaders can agree is that Zahir Shah, the deposed king, should be the figurehead for the next government.
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