ISLAMABAD, 4 December 2004 — Afghanistan’s Taleban militia rejected an amnesty offered by US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on condition the hardline fighters lay down their arms, a report said.

They ruled out any reconciliation and no Taleban would accept the olive branch, Latifullah Hakimi, who claims to speak for the group, was quoted as saying by the Afghan Islamic Press yesterday.

“We consider this as an attempt to divide the Taleban,” Hakimi said in a statement to the Pakistan-based private news agency.

Khalilzad on Thursday said that his offer was aimed only at “non-criminal” Taleban and would not include “international terrorists” or those who have committed crimes against humanity within Afghanistan.

The US envoy called on Taleban fighters to contact tribal elders and the US-led coalition “and declare their allegiance and lay down their arms and in return they will not be targeted.”

Hakimi said the Taleban would continue their “armed struggle.”

“Since US troops have invaded Afghanistan, there can be no reconciliation,” the Afghan Islamic Press quoted him as saying. “I am confident no Taleban will lay down arms,” he said.

Taleban Fighter Killed

A bomb exploded in a home in Qandahar yesterday, killing one suspected Taleban fighter and injuring two others, police said.

The bomb went off in Qandahar’s Jai Khoja neighborhood while the militants were handling it, said Gen. Salim Khan, deputy chief of police of Qandahar province.

There were four fighters in the home when the bomb exploded. When police searched the house after the blast, they found a “very large number of grenades,” Gen. Khan said.

There was no indication whether any of the fighters was a senior figure in the militia.

Qandahar was the stronghold of the Taleban militia, which US-led forces ousted from power in late 2001.

Discovery of Weapons

The US-led Afghan military has discovered thousands of weapons and large stocks of ammunition hidden at various sites across the country, a military official said yesterday.

The arsenal was found in eastern Nangarhar, Zabul, Paktia and northern Parwan provinces over the past two days, military spokesman Major Mark McCann told reporters.

He did not say who had hidden the weapons but added that they were now “out of the hands of the anti-coalition militia” and could no longer be used against the people of Afghanistan.

In Nangarhar, one of the caches consisted of more than 400 mortar rounds and some 200 rockets while nearly 300 mortar rounds were confiscated in Zabul, the major said.

Most of the weapons were discovered during military operations while some were turned in by “local nationals”, he added.

Small-range rockets and mortars have been frequently used by Taleban fighters as they continue attacks against coalition and government targets three years after their regime was toppled.