Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has called on supporters to put aside differences and continue their war against the government and foreign forces in Afghanistan, the Taliban said on Monday. Omar made the call recently in a message via field radio to the Taliban's leadership council, which has been expanded to 18 members, Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said. A recording of the message purporting to come from Omar was handed over to Reuters in the southern city of Kandahar on Monday by a man who did not identify himself. In it Omar said: "Unite, and do not disagree, continue your jihad (holy war) and victory will be yours."Hakimi, who spoke himself from an undisclosed location, did not say where the message was recorded. He said the leadership council, which previously numbered ten men, now had eight new members, based on a decision by Omar. Neither he nor the message named the new members.
In the message, Omar told Taliban guerrillas not to harass people while waging war against President Hamid Karzai's government and U.S.-led foreign forces. "Carry out your works quietly," he said. Omar did not elaborate on the disagreements he referred to in the call for unity, or the reference to harassing people.
The message is one of only a few from Omar issued to the media. In a written message in March, he dismissed U.S. military claims that he was no longer in control of the insurgency and vowed to step up attacks attacks on Afghan and U.S. forces. Hundreds of people have died, many of them guerrillas, but also many local government officials, police officers and Afghan and foreign troops.
| I guess killing them doesn't count as harassing them |
Most of the violence has been in areas near the border with Pakistan and Afghan officials have repeatedly complained that Taliban attacks are mostly organised in Pakistan. Pakistan was the Taliban's main supporter until Sept. 11, but became a major U.S. ally in its war on terror. Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited Kabul on Sunday and pledged that Islamabad would do all it could to stop infiltration of militants ahead of the elections. Last week, however, Pakistani police said security forces arrested a handful of Taliban officials from a refugee camp northwest of Islamabad.
Pakistani newspapers quoted unnamed sources as saying that Mawlavi Abdul Kabir -- a deputy of Omar -- was among them, but senior Pakistani officials were unable to confirm this.