Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged the Taliban Monday to lay down their weapons and stop fighting his US-backed government, telling them to take heed from Osama bin Laden who "paid for his deeds". Karzai insisted bin Laden's death in Pakistan "proved" the war on terror was not rooted in his troubled country, where about 130,000 US-led troops have been hunting for remnants of al Qaeda and their Taliban allies since 2001.
"Again and again, for years and every day we have said that the war on terror is not in Afghan villages, not in Afghan houses of the poor and oppressed," he told a gathering of tribal elders at his palace. "The war against terrorism is in its sources, in its financial sources, its sanctuaries, in its training bases, not in Afghanistan," Karzai added, alluding to militant bases in neighbouring Pakistan.
"It was proven that we were right," he said to applause. Karzai called on the Taliban, the main militant group fighting a 10-year insurgency aimed at toppling his government and evicting Nato troops "to learn from what happened yesterday and stop fighting".
"Talib, come to your country and stop the fighting and leave the weapon that the foreigners have put on your shoulders," he said. He also called on his Western backers, the United States and Europe, to acknowledge what he called the "sacrifices" of his war-weary people caught in the crossfire between al Qaeda-financed militants and foreign forces. While he spoke of appreciation for the sacrifices and assistance from the West, "we also want them to acknowledge the patience, resolve, tolerance and sacrifices of the Afghan people," he said.
"So far they haven't." Karzai said he hoped bin Laden's death at the hands of US forces would bring an end to the violent insurgency led by remnants of the Taliban, who sheltered the terrorist mastermind when they were in power between 1996 and 2001. "May God stop the terrorists' actions with this, with Osama having paid for his deeds," he said.
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