http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa015.html
Posted on 12/10/2003 12:00:04 PM PST by HAL9000
IN a video recording released today, renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar urged Afghanistan's people to join a jihad, or holy war, against the US-led coalition and to drive "the occupying infidel forces" out of the country.The compact disc, containing a 22-minute speech by Hekmatyar, appeared to be authentic and recently made, since it mentioned current events such as US President George W Bush's visit to Iraq last month and last month's political unrest in Georgia, the former Soviet state.
Wearing a simple wool hat and a black jacket, and sitting in front of a gray background in an unknown location, the former Afghan prime minister claimed that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan had failed to return peace and security to the capital, Kabul, or any other part of the country.
"The resistance has reached a stage where it is not possible to be crushed," he said, speaking in Afghanistan's Pashtu language. It was his first known public statement since one he made by fax last month, and his first by video recording since July.
A copy of the latest video, on a compact disc, was handed by a militant of Hizb-e-Islami, the group of fighters led by Hekmatyar, to journalists at the Afghan-Pakistan border and then viewed by The Associated Press in the capital Islamabad.
Hekmatyar has repeatedly issued calls for a holy war against the foreign troops in Afghanistan and eluded US efforts to arrest or kill him.
Yesterday, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington that he could not confirm a news report that American representatives had met with four commanders under Hekmatyar to persuade them to disarm and form democratic political parties. But Rumsfeld did say the renegade warlord continues to cause "a whale of a lot of trouble" in Afghanistan.
Two years after the fall of the Taliban regime in Kabul, 11,700 soldiers - mainly Americans - remain in Afghanistan on combat missions against pro-Taliban insurgents, remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, and followers of Hekmatyar.
Recently, attacks by the Taliban and their allies against aid workers, US soldiers and Afghan government officials, especially in the south and east, have undermined American claims that the coalition is winning the war to stabilise the country.
The insecurity is especially important now that a loya jirga, or grand council, is preparing to meet in Kabul this week to debate and approve a new national constitution.
Hekmatyar did not mention the loya jirga in his long statement, but he called US-approved President Hamid Karzai and the officials under him in Kabul "a puppet government" and said "Afghans want elections, but in a sovereign nation and not under occupation".
"We will agree to talks for solving the crisis if the American forces leave Afghanistan and Afghans are given the opportunity to decide their destiny," he said, condemning what he called "the American's war against Islam and Muslims". Urging Afghans to join the holy war, he said: "Do not put your arms to the ground and give up resistance."
Hekmatyar claimed that US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq were becoming demoralised, but he said the coalition's non-stop efforts to capture him had come close several times. Once, he said, US soldiers had come within 400 metres of him in a mountainous area of Afghanistan. Another time, they had fired rockets that fell 70 to 80 metres from him.
What this tells me is that Bin Laden no longer holds any sway there IF he's still alive.
Why cant OBL mention recent events? You guessed right.
Hm. Maybe don't bother trying to "arrest" him....
There are a lot of insipid twits in that end of the world declaring jihad on us every day. We have a very tight schedule to keep so he will just have to wait his turn like everyone else.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa015.html
Is THIS the sunufab*tch???
Let's KILL THAT MOFO!
These people are gutless cowards who don't think twice about someone else dying for their cause.
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