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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| US cable reveals 1998 contact with Mullah Omar |
| 2004-09-11 |
| Reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar told an American diplomat in a rare conversation that the August 1998 U.S. strikes against Afghanistan would lead to increased terrorism, according to a recently declassified document released on Friday. "Omar warned that the strikes would be counterproductive to the U.S. They could spark more, not less, terrorist attacks. And they would further increase Islamic solidarity against the U.S.," the State Department cable said. It was written on Aug. 22, 1998, by Michael Malinowski, then a State Department official who dealt with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The cable was released by The National Security Archive, a nongovernment research institute that collects and publishes declassified documents. Omar surprised Malinowski by coming on the phone during a conversation the American diplomat was having with a Taliban aide. It was the first known contact between the Taliban leader and a U.S. government official, the document said. The conversation occurred just days after U.S. cruise missile strikes on suspected al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan in reprisal for the Aug. 7 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa, which killed 224 people. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |