[NYTr] Afghanistan: Karzai Offers to Meet Taliban Leader after army suicide bomber attack

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

BBC - Sep 29, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7019419.stm


Kabul bus blast kills 27 troops

A powerful suicide bomb attack on a bus in the Afghan capital, Kabul,
has killed at least 27 members of the country's armed forces, officials
say.

The bus was split in two by the blast and witnesses described seeing
several dead bodies around the wreckage.

The Taleban claimed the attack, Kabul's second deadliest since 2001.

Responding to the attack, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he wished
he could ask insurgent leaders why they were trying to destroy the
country.

In June, a police bus was targeted in Kabul, killing 35 officers in the
worst attack in the city since the fall of the Taleban.

Windows shattered

Defence ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi told the BBC that a further
21 people were injured in the bus blast.

He said a man dressed in army uniform detonated an explosive device as
he climbed on to the bus. 

More than 3,000 people have been killed this year as Afghan and foreign
forces battle Taleban fighters.

The BBC's Alastair Leithead, in Kabul, says the sound of emergency
sirens has been ringing across Kabul since early in the morning after
the blast.

The head of the Kabul police, Gen Alishah Paktiawal, said the bomb went
off at 0630 (0200 GMT) on board a bus packed with army staff.

"For 10 or 15 seconds, it was like an atom bomb - fire, smoke and dust
everywhere," a police officer who witnessed the explosion told the
Associated Press.

The bus was ripped apart in the blast, and windows in nearby houses
were shattered.

President Hamid Karzai said he wished he could contact Taleban leader
Mullah Omar and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to ask why they were trying
to destroy Afghanistan.

He said he would meet both men personally, and even offer them cabinet
posts, if it would help to bring about peace.

When similar offers have been made in the past, the militants have
insisted talks could take place only if foreign forces left Afghanistan.

President Karzai once again reiterated he would not agree to any troop
withdrawal.

                              ***

AP - Sep 29, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHANISTAN?SITE=TXMCA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Karzai Offers to Meet Taliban Leader

By JASON STRAZIUSO
Associated Press Writer

 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- President Hamid Karzai on Saturday offered
to meet with the Taliban leader and give militants a government
position only hours after a suicide bomber in army disguise attacked a
military bus, killing 30 people - nearly all of them Afghan soldiers.

Strengthening a call for negotiations he has made with increasing
frequency in recent weeks, Karzai said he was willing to meet with the
reclusive leader Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime
minister and factional warlord leader.

"If I find their address, there is no need for them to come to me, I'll
personally go there and get in touch with them," Karzai said. "Esteemed
Mullah, sir, and esteemed Hekmatyar, sir, why are you destroying the
country?"

Karzai said he has contacts with Taliban militants through tribal
elders but that there are no direct and open government communication
channels with the fighters. Omar's whereabouts are not known, although
Karzai has claimed he is in Quetta, Pakistan, a militant hotbed across
the border from Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

"If a group of Taliban or a number of Taliban come to me and say,
'President, we want a department in this or in that ministry or we want
a position as deputy minister ... and we don't want to fight
anymore,' ... If there will be a demand and a request like that to me,
I will accept it because I want conflicts and fighting to end in
Afghanistan," Karzai said.

"I wish there would be a demand as easy as this. I wish that they would
want a position in the government. I will give them a position," he
said.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has said it does not support negotiations
with Taliban fighters, labeling them as terrorists, although the U.N.
and NATO have said an increasing number of Taliban are interested in
laying down their arms. NATO's ambassador to Afghanistan, Daan Everts,
said this month that the alliance would look into the possibility of
talks.

President Bush met with Karzai on the sidelines of the U.N. General
Assembly in New York on Wednesday where the two discussed the battle
against al-Qaida and the Taliban, but it has not been made public
whether the two talked about negotiations with militants.

A State Department duty officer said he could not immediately comment
on Karzai's offer to meet with Omar, noting that most policymakers were
still in New York.

Saturday's explosion - the second deadliest since the fall of the
Taliban in 2001 - ripped off the roof of the bus and tore out its sides
in Kabul, leaving a charred hull of burnt metal. It was reminiscent of
the deadliest attack since the U.S.-led invasion, when a bomber boarded
a police academy bus at Kabul's busiest transportation hub in June,
killing 35 people.

Police and soldiers climbed trees to retrieve body parts. Nearby
businesses also were damaged.

"For 10 or 15 seconds, it was like an atom bomb - fire, smoke and dust
everywhere," said Mohammad Azim, a police officer who witnessed the
explosion.

Karzai said 30 people were killed - 28 soldiers and two civilians. The
Health Ministry said another 30 were wounded. Two women were among the
dead, and 11 people whose bodies were ripped apart so badly had yet to
be identified.

"It was a terrible tragedy, no doubt an act of extreme cowardice,"
Karzai said. "Whoever did this was against people, against humanity,
definitely against Islam. A man who calls himself Muslim will not blow
up innocent people in the middle of Ramadan," the Muslim holy month.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed the militant
group was responsible for the blast in a text message to The Associated
Press. Mujahid said the bomber was a Kabul resident named Azizullah.

The bus had stopped in front of a movie theater to pick up soldiers
when a bomber wearing a military uniform tried to board early Saturday,
army spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.

"Typically there are people checking the IDs of soldiers who want to
board the bus," Azimi said. "While they were checking the IDs the
bomber tried to get on the bus and blew himself up there."

Karzai earlier this month renewed a call for talks with the Taliban,
and a spokesman for the militant group initially said the fighters
might be open to negotiations. But spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi later
said foreign troops must first leave the country - a demand Karzai said
Saturday he would not meet.

"It should be very clear that until all our roads are paved, until we
have good electricity and good water, and also until we have a better
Afghan national army and national police, I don't want any foreigners
to leave Afghanistan," he said.

He said he still wanted negotiations with Taliban militants of Afghan
origin "for peace and security." He ruled out talks with al-Qaida and
other foreign fighters.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force, meanwhile, said one of
its soldiers was killed in eastern Afghanistan during combat operations
on Saturday. ISAF did not release the soldier's nationality, but most
in the east are American.

Four employees with the International Committee of the Red Cross,
kidnapped earlier this week while negotiating the release of a German
hostage, were also freed Saturday, the ICRC said.

The four men - two Afghans, a Macedonian and a man from Myanmar - said
they were treated well. A Taliban commander said he ordered the four
held hostage because he thought they were spies but let them go once it
was proven they were Red Cross workers, according to a video obtained
by AP Television News.

The four had traveled to Wardak province in hopes of helping free a
German man held since July. The workers said that the German was still
alive and that they had seen him.

The number of kidnappings in Afghanistan has spiked in recent months
after the Taliban secured the release of five insurgent prisoners in
exchange for a captive Italian journalist in March - a heavily
criticized swap that many feared would encourage abductions.

The Taliban kidnapped 23 South Koreans in July, a hostage crisis that
scored the militants face-to-face talks with South Korean government
delegates. Two of the Koreans were killed; 21 were eventually released.

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Associated Press reporters Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah and Alisa Tang
contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Associated Press.