The Northern Alliance unveiled their prize defector on Saturday -- the former Taliban deputy interior minister, still wearing a black turban but insistent he never belonged to hardline Taliban circles.
Mullah Khaksar appeared at a packed late-night news conference, flanked by aides also sporting turbans typical of the Taliban and under the watchful gaze of Northern Alliance officials in the floppy brown pacole hats favored by the late scourge of the Taliban, Ahmed Shah Masood.
"I want to participate in the peace process," said Khaksar, who defected to the Northern Alliance just before they marched into the capital Kabul on Nov. 13. "I ask all ethnic groups and tribal chiefs to help in this process. We want to be five fingers on one hand, united."
Khaksar said he abandoned his former comrades and their implementation of a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law because he realized they were not working toward peace.
"I am not a Talib, I never left the Taliban. I never left Kabul, I was here working for the peace process," he said in the Pashto language mostly spoken in the south of the country.
Switching sides at the last minute has a long and honorable tradition in Afghanistan, where a decade of civil war has been marked by swift changes in allegiance between four main ethnic groups and countless warlords.
When it swept to power at the end of 1994, the Taliban took advantage of the habit, paying off warlords as it charged up the country from its heartland in the south.
But one warlord, Masood, fought them tooth and nail, and was forced into the extreme north of the country, where the United Front of anti-Taliban forces adopted their alternative name, the Northern Alliance.
Khaksar, however, insisted he had maintained a dialogue with Masood during the height of Taliban rule.
"I did not change my mind due to the fall of Kabul," he said. "Before the fall I held discussions with Ahmed Shah Masood, I held talks with him for many years and our discussion was only that we would work together for the peace process."
Masood, a legendary commander, was assassinated by Arab militants only two days before the Sept. 11 plane attacks in the US.
As if to prove the depth of his political change of heart, Khaksar even had kind words for the US-led coalition's bombing of his country.
"As far as the Americans are concerned, they attacked terrorist camps because of Osama bin Laden," he said. "They bought a new political process to Afghanistan."
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