Taliban ridicules Karzai as 'puppet'

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1124601 [headline] => Taliban ridicules Karzai as 'puppet' [abstract] => The Taliban has rejected an olive branch extended by Hamid Karzai, ridiculing the Afghan president as a "puppet" of the West after he was handed another five years in power.
[keywords] => Afghanistan, Karzai, Taliban, snub, puppet [content] =>

The Taliban has rejected an olive branch extended by Hamid Karzai, ridiculing the Afghan president as a "puppet" of the West after he was handed another five years in power.
  
In his first public appearance since being declared president for a second term, Karzai reached out to the Islamist militia who have waged an increasingly virulent insurgency since being toppled from power in 2001.
  
"We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land," Karzai told a news conference a day after organisers declared him the winner of the country's second presidential election.
  
But his offer was slapped down by the Taliban. They accused Karzai of being in hock to Western powers who helped sweep him to power eight years ago and are still struggling to defeat the movement on the battlefield.
  
The president has repeatedly appealed to the Taliban, offering an amnesty to its fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, but has made little headway in dividing the shadowy movement's ranks.
  
"This is not the first time Karzai has made such statements," Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
  
"We do not attach any value to these offers of peace by Karzai as we know they are empty words.
  
"He is a puppet and his government is a puppet government. He is in no position to make such decisions or stand by them."
  
In a statement issued in their spiritual capital Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban said the 10-week election saga, which ended with organisers scrapping a scheduled run-off, showed the West dictated policy.
  
"The cancellation of the second round of the election showed that decisions on Afghanistan are made in Washington and London, while the announcements are made in Kabul," the Taliban statement said.
  
"What is astonishing is two weeks ago they were arguing that the puppet president Hamid Karzai was involved in electoral fraud... but now he is elected as president based on those same fraudulent votes, Washington and London immediately send their congratulations."
  
The Taliban had called for a boycott of the electoral process and carried out scores of attacks in the build-up to the first round and on election day.
  
It had also threatened to intensify attacks ahead of the run-off, carrying out a deadly attack on a guesthouse for UN workers in Kabul last week.
  
UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who congratulated Karzai, said the mission would not be forced out of Afghanistan by violence, after Taliban gunmen stormed into a UN-approved guest house killing at least five expatriate UN staff.
  
"We will not be deterred, cannot be deterred and must not be deterred and the work of the United Nations will continue," he said on a visit to Kabul.
  
But the Taliban said Karzai could not be considered legitimate as president without winning over 50 percent of votes in the first round.
  
"How and based on what principles will the United Nations consider this a legal administration now that the so-called 'war on terror' and 'democracy' have been shown to be empty slogans?," said the militia.
 

[start_date] => 04 November 2009 | 08:24:26 AM [comments_allowed] => 1 [source] => AFP [commentCount] => 0 [video] => [image] => [audio] => [reporter] => [relatedLinks] => Array ( [1] => Array ( [id] => 1124146 [label] => Karzai offers olive branch to Taliban 'brothers' [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) [0] => Array ( [id] => 1123856 [label] => US vows to get tough on Karzai [display_order] => 0 [type] => Article ) ) [relatedArticles] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [article_id] => 1123856 [headline] => US vows to get tough on Karzai [abstract] => US President Barack Obama has signalled a tough new approach to Afghan leader Hamid Karzai amid warnings of hard talks ahead. [content] =>

US President Barack Obama has signalled a tough new approach to Afghan leader Hamid Karzai urging him just hours after his re-election to wipe out corruption amid warnings of hard talks ahead.

"This has to be point in time in which we begin to write a new chapter based on improved governance," Obama said he had told Karzai in a telephone call, just after the Afghan leader was declared the winner of the fraud-tainted poll.

Obama congratulated Karzai, but told him to make "a much more serious effort to eradicate corruption.

"He assured me that he understood the importance of this moment. But as I indicated to him, the proof is not going to be in words.

It's going to be in deeds," Obama warned. Karzai, installed as the Afghan leader after the US forces ousted Taliban Islamic militants in 2001, was Monday declared the winner of August's presidential elections marred by widespread fraud and ballot-stuffing.

"Although the process was messy, I'm pleased to say that the final outcome was determined in accordance with Afghan law, which I think is very important not only for the international community that has so much invested in Afghan success, but most importantly is important for the Afghan people," Obama said.

The announcement, handing Karzai a second five-year term, cancelled a run-off that had threatened to descend into farce and further destabilise the country.

It followed intense diplomatic pressure and sought to draw a line under two months of political chaos in a war-torn nation where 100,000 NATO and US troops are battling an increasingly virulent Taliban resurgence.

Obama, who is mulling a wide-ranging review of US policy in Afghanistan, said he also wanted to see "joint efforts to accelerate the training of Afghan security forces so that the Afghan people can provide for their own security."

But he gave no indication on when his keenly-awaited announcement on whether to deploy more troops to the conflict would come.

General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has called for an extra 40,000 US forces to fight an increasingly deadly insurgency by the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda linked forces.

But the conflict, which has claimed the lives of more than 400 coalition troops this year, is growing increasingly unpopular among the American public as it drags into its ninth year.

"Now begin the hard conversations," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said earlier, signalling the administration intended to take a firmer stand with Karzai who has slipped from US favour amid persistent questions over corruption.

Gibbs said talks now had to begin on "governance, civil society, and corruption... to ensure that we have a credible partner in our efforts to help secure the country."

He said any decision by Obama on whether to commit more troops to the conflict would "be made in the coming weeks."

"The president is working with the national security team to evaluate... how best to formulate a strategy that supports the goal of disrupting, dismantling, and ultimately destroying Al-Qaeda," Gibbs said.

Now that Karzai had been declared the winner of the August elections, there is "no question it illuminates the situation going forward," he said.

But Gibbs stressed it was not the "single" question that had to be resolved.

US officials recently said it would be irresponsible to deploy more troops -- with the US military already stretched from fighting in Iraq -- before the election crisis was resolved.

But Karzai's only challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, quit the second round contest on Sunday charging there were no safeguards to prevent repeat of massive fraud that threw out nearly a quarter of votes cast in August.

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 3 November 2009 [articletime] => 3 November 2009 [display_order] => 0 ) [1] => Array ( [article_id] => 1124146 [headline] => Karzai offers olive branch to Taliban 'brothers' [abstract] => Afghan President Hamid Karzai has handed an olive branch to his Taliban 'brothers', urging them to come home, after he secured a new five-year term in office. [content] =>

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has handed an olive branch to his Taliban 'brothers', urging them to come home, after he secured a new five-year term in office.

"We call on our Taliban brothers to come home and embrace their land," Karzai said at a press conference a day after organisers declared him the winner of the country's second presidential election.

The Taliban, many of whose fighters are based along the porous Afghan-Pakistan border, were driven out of Kabul in late 2001 by US-led coalition forces, paving the way for Karzai to take power.

Karzai also said it would have been better for Afghanistan to have had a run-off election and bemoaned his only challenger's withdrawal, after organisers declared him the winner.

"We were hoping, and it would have been better for our country, for the democratic process and for us, if our brother Dr Abdullah had participated in the second round and the second round had taken place," Karzai said.

Run-off election cancelled

"That was what we wanted," he told a press conference.

Karzai was declared winner of the election by the country's electoral commission on Monday in the light of former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah's withdrawal from a run-off scheduled for November 7.

Following his reappointment to the presidency, Karzai vowed to "eradicate the stain" of corruption in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan has been defamed by corruption. Our government has been defamed by corruption," Karzai said.

"We will strive, by any means possible, to eradicate this stain."

He spoke just hours after US President Barack Obama said he had told Karzai to step up efforts "to eradicate corruption" and called for a "new chapter" in cooperation between their countries.

 

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