SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, 28 July 2003 — Fugitive Taleban leader Mulla Omar approved a new deputy military commander for southern Afghanistan on Saturday and ordered him to intensify guerrilla attacks on US and government forces, a Taleban official said. Saturday’s announcement follows stepped-up activity by suspected Taleban guerrillas in southern Afghanistan which saw nine soldiers of the 11,500-strong US-led coalition in Afghanistan wounded in several attacks last weekend.
Omar spoke to Mulla Sabir, alias Momin, by radio on Saturday after his appointment by a Taleban leadership council and tribal elders, said Mulla Abdul Samad, an intelligence officer in the hard-line Taleban regime ousted in 2001. “He (Omar) directed him to intensify jihad (holy war) against the forces of the United States and the Afghan government,” Samad told Reuters, speaking by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
Samad said Momin would assist the Taleban military commander for southern Afghanistan, Hafiz Abdur Rahim. Samad said Taleban officials and tribal elders met for three days in southern Afghanistan to devise a strategy to step up attacks on foreign and Afghan forces. He said the meeting concluded on Saturday but did not give further details. The whereabouts of the shadowy Omar and Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden remains unknown more than 18 months since the start of US-led operations in Afghanistan.
A senior official in southern Afghanistan’s volatile Zabul province yesterday urged US forces to step up operations against the Taleban there after the guerrillas named a rival provincial governor. The deputy governor of Zabul told Reuters Taleban officials, meeting in the Pakistani city of Quetta, had named Mulla Abdul Jabar as the rival governor and that hundreds of Taleban roamed freely in several districts of the province.
The deputy governor, Mulla Mohammed Omar, a namesake of the elusive Mulla Omar, said many Taleban were living in the Deh Chopan, Shamol Zai, Ata Ghar and Now Bahar districts. “There are about 500 Taleban in Deh Chopan district,” he said. “The district is under our control, but they are walking freely in the bazaar.”
He said provincial forces were not able to do anything as they have not received sufficient support from the US-backed central government. “If coalition forces do not launch a big operation here, it will be a big problem,” he said. Zabul province was once part of the heartland for the Taleban regime overthrown in 2001. The province has seen repeated attacks on government soldiers, district officials and deminers this year which have been blamed on Taleban guerrillas.
Residents of a town close to the Pakistani border woke yesterday to posters threatening death to 25 “informers” accused of collaborating with US and Afghan government forces. The posters, in the local Pashtu-language, appeared overnight in mosques in Spin Boldak and nearby villages and were attributed to Taleban, residents said.
“These people will be killed at the appropriate moment,” said one of the posters signed “Taleban Mujahedeen”. “These people have played important role in the massacre of Taleban Mujahedeen, it said. “These people have been cooperating with the American forces and their agents despite Taleban warnings.”
Mulla Samad said the list contained the names of “informers” hired by the Afghan government. “They have been given privileges and facilities by the government for spying on the Taleban activities,” he told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. The posters also appeared in the Pakistani town of Chaman on the other side of the border.
The United Nations, meanwhile, yesterday welcomed the naming of an election commission in Afghanistan and said it hoped it would speed up arrangements for national polls due to held next year. State-run Kabul Radio reported on Saturday that US-backed President Hamid Karzai signed a decree for the formation of a six-member interim election commission. It will have the task of advising the government on elections and helping the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in voter registration from next March.
Another decree ordered the setting up of a 10-member Joint Electoral Coordination Office, which will comprise five members of the election commission and five nominated by the UN special representative in Afghanistan. “It is a very, very important step for the election process,” UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva told a news briefing. “Now it will hopefully gain momentum and move forward faster.”
