KABUL, 13 November 2003 — The US military said yesterday it would cease operations in Afghanistan immediately if the Taleban and other militants stopped their attacks.
“We don’t have any timetable, but if the militants decide to give up tomorrow, we will stop tomorrow and if they continue we will continue,” US military spokesman Col. Rodney Davis told reporters in Kabul.
“As long they are committed to committing the acts of violence we will stay here to kill them, capture them and deny sanctuary to them: That’s our mission,” the colonel said.
Davis said Taleban militants, their Al-Qaeda allies and supporters of former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had been weakened but still threatened peace and security two years after the fall of the hard-line regime.
“We are engaged in a war. There is only one major player and that’s the coalition. We are not afraid of the anti-coalition forces, but they’re forces to be dealt with,” he said.
US troops last week launched a fresh offensive against suspected militants in northeast Nuristan province. The US-led coalition’s mission was to eliminate violence and extend the authority of President Hamid Karzai’s government in the provinces, Davis said.
Karzai has struggled to assert his authority beyond Kabul to the provinces, some of which remain under the control of warlords or governors with nominal allegiance to Kabul.
Two years after the fall of the Taleban regime, remnants of the militia continue to launch regular attacks on US-led bases and government targets.
“We have lost many soldiers. Some soldiers have given their lives for the people of Afghanistan to support progress here and we are not going to forget that,” Davis said.
The latest casualty was a Romanian soldier shot dead on Tuesday near the main southern city of Kandahar. Afghan Gen. Said Mohammad said the soldier was killed when a man in military uniform opened fire on a Romanian convoy at a checkpoint.
Mohammad, head of Afghan militia forces at the coalition’s Kandahar airport base, said the attack was not believed to be the work of the Taleban.
Around 1,000 students marched through the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif yesterday to protest at a draft constitution they said discriminated against ethnic minorities.
The rare public show of dissent, organized with the help of the three main parties controlling the north, underlined the challenge facing Karzai and his government to unite the country ahead of presidential elections next year.
A draft constitution was published earlier this month which outlined a strong presidential system, said the national anthem should be sung in Pashto and gave former king Mohammad Zahir Shah the largely symbolic role of “Father of the Nation”.
Karzai, a Pashtun, is from the largest single ethnic group in Afghanistan, and is favorite to win the presidential vote.
The north is inhabited mainly by ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. “We want a parliamentary government,” the students’ 16-point list of demands said. “In this government three languages should be recognized — Persian, Pashto and Uzbek. The national anthem and some military expressions should be written in three languages, not just in Pashto,” it added.
“We do not want a ‘Father of the Nation’.”
The draft constitution names Dari, closely related to Persian, and Pashto as the two official languages and says the national anthem will be in Pashto. Giving the title “Father of the Nation” to Shah was widely seen as placating the Pashtuns, who live mainly in the south and who are broadly supportive of the monarchy.
In another development, two years after the fall of the Taleban, people in northern Afghanistan were yesterday tuning in to a new television station.
Aina (“Mirror”) has started test broadcasts from Sheberghan, 130 km west of Mazar-i-Sharif, station director Sayeed Anwar Sadat said. “This is a totally independent TV and is not linked to any political faction,” he said.
