Mullah Omar vows to defeat Coalition troops

KANDAHAR—Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar called on his fighters to avoid harming civilians in Afghanistan in an anti-government insurgency he said would never accept defeat.
In a message on the eve of Islam’s three-day Eid al-Adha festival, the rebel commander praised his followers’ efforts in the insurgency launched months after the Taliban was toppled from power in 2001. But Omar urged them to be “mindful of not resorting to actions that may result in casualties of innocent ordinary people.” “We must be more cautious and careful in focusing the target. We should have friendly and sincere relations with our own Muslim people,” he said in a statement was circulated in Kandahar city, a Taliban stronghold.
More than 1,000 civilians have been killed in insurgency-related unrest in Afghanistan in the past year, which has been the bloodiest since a US-led alliance ended the extremist Taliban’s five-year grip on power. Scores have been killed in action by Western troops, including air bombardment on rebel positions, but more have been caused by Taliban attacks, mainly suicide blasts against foreign and government targets.
Around another 3,000 people, most of them rebels but also troops, have also been killed. There are reports that factions within the Islamist militia are concerned the high civilian toll is alienating Afghans. Omar, who remains at large despite internationally backed efforts to hunt him down and a huge bounty on his head, vowed the resistance would continue until the “invaders” — foreign forces — were ousted. “They have committed aggression and we will drive them out,” the one-eyed leader said, predicting “imminent defeat”.
He said the Eid festival beginning Saturday was about sacrifice. An ideology based on sacrifice, such as the Taliban’s, “never submits and accepts defeat”, he said. “You can see that present resistance and struggle in Afghanistan has amply proved the point.” Omar is wanted by the United States for harbouring Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda network behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Bin Laden disappeared following the fall of the Taliban. There are about 32,000 foreign troops in the country trying to round up the wanted leaders, stem the violence and help the war-shattered nation rebuild. Foreign troops will be forced out of Afghanistan in the face of Taliban attacks, the Islamic group’s fugitive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was reported as saying in a rare message on Friday. More than 4,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces ousted the hardline Taliban government in 2001.
In the purported message from Omar, sent to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency to mark the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, Omar said “aggressor forces” in Afghanistan and Iraq were facing defeat.
“I am confident that the enemy will run away in degradation and embarrassment ... Afghans have always expelled their enemies by force and no enemy or aggressive force has left Afghanistan at its own will,” Omar said. Omar also said a plan to hold tribal councils, or jirgas, on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border in an effort to find ways to end the violence was a trap.
“Now the aggressor forces in our country want to entangle our valiant nation and tribes in their devilish trap by way of jirgas,” he said, according to an Urdu-language translation of the message, issued by AIP. “But I am sure that no Muslim will participate in something that is created by the aggressors and puppets. Those who attend will only be people who have sold out,” he said.
The Taliban refer to Western-backed President Hamid Karzai and his government as puppets. “Our aggressor enemy has been defeated and now they are hatching new conspiracies for their survival,” he said. Afghanistan and Pakistan are considering how the jirgas can be organized and who will take part. Politicians in both countries have said peace will not be found unless elements of the Taliban are included in talks. Omar, who has a $10 million U.S. government bounty on his head, disappeared shortly after the Taliban were ousted.

—Agencies