CHAMAN, 25 September 2003 — Taleban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar has vowed to intensify attacks against Afghan and US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, a militia official said yesterday. At secret meeting with commanders of his ousted militia, Omar directed his men to step up the Jihad in Afghanistan, a Taleban official told journalists in the southern Afghan town of Spin Boldak, across from the Pakistani border town of Chaman.
The reclusive chief of the hard-line Taleban distributed a message written in Pashtu language to some 50 commanders at the meeting so they could forward it to their comrades elsewhere in Afghanistan, he said.
“All commanders of Islamic movement (of Taleban) are informed that considering Jihad their personal duty, they should act on their own,” Omar said in his message. “All Taleban and ordinary Muslims are informed that without further wait and patience they should continue their responsibilities.”
Omar deserted his headquarters in Kandahar in December 2001 after the Taleban surrendered their last stronghold in the country in the wake of US-led military operations in Afghanistan.
The meeting, at an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan, was also attended by 10 members of the Taleban’s central shoura (council), the official told an AFP reporter in the area.
He said Omar’s message had been distributed to other commanders in Kandahar by Mullah Sabir, alias Momin, who is an assistant to Taleban’s Kandahar commander Hafiz Abdul Rahim. Momin also attended the shoura meeting.
Omar also asked the Afghan people to look for “traitors” and warned that their failure to do so could seriously hurt the movement. “Taleban should not make new mujehideen organizations like the one set up during Jihad against Russian occupation because Taliban movement is sufficient (for the purpose),” he said.
Meanwhile, eight rockets landed near a US-led coalition base in the southeastern Afghan province of Paktika, a US military spokesman said yesterday. In a written statement issued at Bagram military airbase, 50 kilometers north of Kabul, spokesman Maj. Richard Sater said the attack occurred on Tuesday evening in the Shkin district of Paktika province.
“There were no injuries to coalition soldiers or damage to equipment or property,” Sater said. In the eastern province of Kunar, Sater said coalition forces fired mortars at the suspected launch sites of two rockets that impacted near the coalition firebase in Asadabad on Tuesday night.
That rocket attack also caused no coalition casualties or damage, the spokesman said.
