International
U.S. wants Taliban leaders turned over
KANDAHAR, Jan. 10. Seven high-ranking Taliban officials including the former Justice Minister surrendered to Afghan commanders but were set free by local officials, the Afghan Government said, even though the U.S. wants these leaders turned over.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Omar Samad, said the Government was determining whether the Taliban officials were "war criminals." They included Nooruddin Turabi, the one-eyed, one-legged former Justice Minister, who drew up the militia's repressive version of Islamic law _ including restrictions on women _ and created the religious police to enforce it.
Obaidullah, the former Taliban Defence Minister who had authority to approve Al-Qaeda's terrorist training camps, was originally reported to be among the officials, but it appeared the main question was Ubaidullah, a front-line Taliban commander.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said senior Taliban officials should be in U.S. hands. "We would expect that to be the case with these individuals," Richard Boucher said in Washington. Negotiations on the surrender of former Taliban figures have recently frustrated the U.S.-led coalition as it pursues the remnants of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terror network. The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, reportedly escaped during surrender negotiations after being surrounded in the mountains north of Kandahar.
Mr. Boucher said: "We have said before that we believe that senior Taliban officials should be taken into custody. We would expect that to be the case with these individuals. And I'm sure we'll be looking into this matter further. These people ought to be in custody ... on the basis of their support for Al-Qaeda and the terrorists that have operated in Afghanistan''. Earlier, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, said, "Individuals of that stature in the Taliban leadership are of great interest to the United States, and we would expect that they would be turned over.''
The interim administration in Kabul said it understood that seven former Taliban officials had surrendered to local authorities and been released after they handed over their weapons and vehicles. Washington has twice called for the former ministers to be taken into custody so they can be interrogated about the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda network.
"'We don't have any sympathies for the Taliban,'' a spokesman for the Kandahar Governor, Khalid Pashtoon, said, adding local authorities had been trying to disarm former Taliban by offering an amnesty if they turned in their weapons. "We are trying to correct them in this way,'' he said.
The surrender of the Taliban leaders took a confusing twist on Thursday as Mr. Pashtoon, who originally said they had surrendered ,changed part of his story.
With Washington wondering what happened to the Taliban leaders, Mr. Pashtoon said only one minister had surrendered and he was now in Pakistan. The other two were cases of mistaken identity.
The confusion over the ministers and a possible local deal in releasing them raised questions over the control Kabul's interim administration exercises outside the capital and the role local warlords play in the hunt for leaders of the vanquished militia.
Mr. Pashtoon said Mr. Turabi was the only ex-minister to surrender. "Turabi came to us and then we released him,'' he said. "He is in Pakistan now. If we want, we can call him back or fetch him, and we are ready to hand him over to the United States.''
Asked about his earlier statement that the former Defence Minister, Mullah Obaidullah, and the Mines and Industry Minister, Mullah Saadudin, had also given themselves up, he said: "I withdraw my statement.'' They were a case of mistaken identity, he added.
— AP, Reuters
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
International
|
