Afghan Insurgency Said Won’t Slow

By PAUL GARWOOD

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Taliban militants and other armed anti-U.S. groups will continue their violent opposition to Afghan and American-led forces until a genuine dialogue is held to solve Afghanistan’s problems, the former hard-line regime’s ambassador to Pakistan said.

But Afghan and U.S. officials on Friday rejected the idea of dealing with extremists who have blood on their hands, stressing the military option was the only way to bring them to justice.

Abdul Salam Zaeef, who returned to Afghanistan in late 2005 after spending more than three years held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, also called for fair trials to be afforded to the roughly 500 people being held at the Cuba-based facility.

I don't want these people to be released without having a fair trial, because only then will the world see that America doesn't have any evidence to justify holding them for four years,'' Zaeef told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from his heavily guarded house on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul. During recent months, Afghanistan has witnessed an increase in bombings and shootings targeting U.S.-led coalition troops and Afghan forces across the country, particularly inside former Taliban strongholds in the south. To try to counter the bloodshed, more than 9,000 NATO-led forces will be deploying across volatile southern provinces like Kandahar and Helmand by the end of July. At least 18,000 U.S. soldiers are currently in Afghanistan. But Zaeef, who says he is keeping to himself nowadays after becomingfed up’’ with his country’s continued bloodshed, doubted whether continued military action against Afghanistan’s opposition groups'' will lead to an end of the violence.I think the problem (of violence) is increasing and people have to decide whether they will solve it through use of power or negotiation. Afghanistan needs reconciliation but I don’t think the Americans want to negotiate,’’ he told the AP.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins ruled out coalition forces entering into dialogue with insurgents. He said the United States was instead supporting Afghanistan’s legitimate government and the building of a new security force.

We don't negotiate with terrorist organizations and the Taliban extremists have committed themselves to violence,'' Collins said. Khaleeq Ahmed, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said his government has formed a peace and reconciliation commission that has encouraged more than 1,000 ex-Taliban members to embrace the new constitution and government and reject violence.But there are exceptions,’’ Ahmed said. There are those who have burned schools and killed doctors, nurses and many other innocent Afghans.'' In January, Karzai told the AP in an interview that Taliban leader Mullah Omar shouldget in touch’’ if he wants to talk peace. A statement purportedly issued by Omar rejected the offer and warned the Taliban would increase attacks.

Zaeef, a soft-spoken former Taliban envoy fluent in Arabic and English as well as his native Pashto language, was arrested in January 2002 and handed over to U.S. authorities. He refused to cooperate with the tribunal at Guantanamo, where he said interrogators had accused him of being linked to the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen and the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

More than six months after returning home, Zaeef says he has finished a book on his experiences in Guantanamo, which he hopes to publish in English later this year. He said he does not want to become involved again in politics and is tired of his country’s constant instability.

Now I am here under observation of the government, I have been away from my family for almost four years, and 47 people have been killed in my village in Kandahar (since 2001),'' he said.I have no interest in being involved in politics. I am very tired of Afghanistan and its three decades of war and killing, which is still continuing.’’

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