Thursday, March 31, 2005
Ex-Taliban commander takes up reconciliation offer
Associated Press
Kandahar, March 31, 2005
A former Taliban commander once suspected of helping the hardline movement's chief, Mullah Omar, escape capture by U.S.-allied troops has pledged his loyalty to the Afghan government, an official said Thursday, a boost for a Washington-backed reconciliation drive.
Abdul Wahid, a powerful tribal leader from southern Helmand province, delivered his pledge at a ceremony on Wednesday before 250 elders and officials, provincial spokesman Mohammed Wali told The Associated Press.
"He said that while it had been his duty to fight the Russians" when Soviet forces occupied the country in the 1980s "now he had decided to join with the government for the sake of the country and its reconstruction," Wali said.
The spokesman said Wahid had been in hiding for about two years because of "false" allegations that he was involved in the insurgency still dogging the war-weary country.
"There have been misunderstandings on both sides," Wali said. He said Wahid had agreed to try to persuade other Taliban figures to match his step, but didn't identify them.
Afghan officials say dozens of former Taliban officials and fighters have approached them about a reconciliation drive touted by U.S. military commanders as a way to undercut militants and allow them to reduce their 17,000-strong force.
However, few have come forward publicly to join a program which the central government has yet to formally announce. Better known as Rais-e Baghran, or 'Chief of Baghran' after his mountainous home district, Wahid joined the Taliban as they entered the civil war which followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and seized most of Afghanistan.
He commanded thousands of fighters against rival militias in the far north of the country, though it is unclear if he resisted U.S. forces and allied Afghan factions which quickly routed the Taliban at the end of 2001 for sheltering al-Qaida.
In January 2002, Afghan and U.S. officials suggested that Mullah Omar had fled the former Taliban capital of Kandahar to Baghran, prompting a manhunt by anti-Taliban fighters from which he was rumored to have escaped on a motorbike.
Wahid and his men were allowed to go free in exchange for handing in their weapons. U.S. troops mounted several more operations in the area but without finding any trace of the one-eyed Taliban supreme leader.
Wali said officials had not asked Wahid if he knew Omar's current whereabouts.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.