Key tribal opponent hunted by Taliban
Luke Harding in Pakistan
Friday November 2, 2001
The Guardian
Taliban troops claimed last night that they were closing in on a key opposition tribal leader who had entered the country on a secret pro-US mission.
A week after executing Abdul Haq, the senior Afghan opposition commander, the Taliban said they are now on the brink of capturing Hamid Karzai, a supporter of Afghanistan's former king Zahir Shah. They are pursuing him in the mountains of Oruzgan province, according to the news agency Afghan Islamic Press.
The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, last night claimed that four American helicopters had mounted a desperate but futile attempt to rescue Mr Karzai and others with him after Taliban soldiers attacked their hideout in Dehrawad district in the province.
"The leader of the group is Hamid Karzai," the ambassador declared. "The group has gone into the mountains, and the Taliban are still following them."
Mr Karzai, the Quetta-based leader of the Popolzai tribe in southern Afghanistan, was rumoured to have entered the country two weeks ago. His mission has not been revealed, but there seems little doubt that he was trying to encourage his followers to rise up against the Taliban and support a new government under the deposed king.
A tribal leader like Mr Karzai is essential to Washington's increasingly frustrated bid to create a post-Taliban administration because he belongs to the dominant Pashtun ethnic majority, from which the Taliban are almost exclusively drawn. The opposition Northern Alliance is made up of minority Tajiks and Uzbeks.
He slipped into Afghanistan before the Taliban captured Haq last Friday. Taliban troops ambushed Haq, together with his nephew and several other followers near Jalalabad. After an abortive attempt by the US to rescue him, he was convicted of treason and hanged. Mr Karzai can expect similar treatment if captured.
The second execution of an anti-Taliban leader within a week would leave the White House's floundering attempts to create a broad-based government in Afghanistan in disarray. Haq and Mr Karzai are the only two significant Afghan tribal leaders to have publicly embraced the US's anti-Taliban project.
In Quetta, Mr Karzai's brother, Ahmed, last night confirmed that a gun battle with Taliban fighters had taken place, but he claimed that his brother was safe. He refused to give more details.
The BBC reported last night that Mr Karzai had telephoned them to say he was safe and well. He said he had been surrounded by Taliban forces, but had managed to fight them off.
He claimed to have recruited another Pashtun tribal leader, Mahalem Abdul Ghader, who also spoke to the BBC, saying he his men had fought Taliban troops earlier in the day.
A close aide of the exiled 87-year-old king, Zamai Rassoul, said last night in Rome that he had no information about an attack on Mr Karzai or a US helicopter attempt to rescue him. But he added: "We know that he is safe.
If he is stranded in Oruzgan province, his chances of escape appear slim. The remote region is a Taliban stronghold, and is where the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, grew up. Osama bin Laden is also known to have a small base in Oruzgan, where he has hidden in the past. ><
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