Herat commander sees no need for any foreign forces in Afghanistan

By HASAN SARBAKHSHIAN
Associated Press Writer

HERAT, Afghanistan – Ismail Khan, who recaptured his old bailiwick of Herat province this week, said Friday that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban have no role to play in Afghanistan – and the American forces who helped rout them don't need to stay, either.

"We believe we must cleanse Kandahar of the Taliban, and we will pursue this with all our might," said Khan, a legendary guerrilla commander who is part of the northern alliance that ousted the Taliban from most of northern and western Afghanistan in the past week.

"We see no need for foreign forces like from the United States and Britain, but the presence of the Americans was effective here because it weakened the Taliban," Khan told journalists who traveled to this western provincial capital from Iran, 75 miles away. "The liberation of Afghan territory has been the result of the people's uprising."

Khan, one of the most effective guerrilla commanders in the fight against the Soviet troops who occupied Afghanistan in 1979-89 and against Moscow's old Afghan client regime, spoke a few hours before reports emerged in neighboring Pakistan that the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was ready to pull out of Kandahar and hand over the key southern city to leaders of the local Pashtun tribes.

In Herat city, more than 200 Taliban officials have been arrested in the past three days, northern alliance officials said. Khan himself escaped from a Taliban prison in Kandahar in March 2000 after more than two years in captivity.

Speaking about the future of Afghanistan now that the northern alliance has entered the capital city of Kabul, Khan said: "We don't see any place for Mullah Omar and bin Laden or their supporters. They were the main causes of the Sept. 11 attacks (on America), and we consider them terrorists."

The U.S. military attacks on Taliban strongholds began Oct. 7 in an attempt to nab or neutralize bin Laden, the Saudi exile whom Washington blames for the suicide jetliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As for what shape a future Afghan government might take, Khan acknowledged that "this is a great problem because there is no coordination among the different groups."

Khan himself is from a Persian-speaking ethnic minority that is not likely to be palatable to Pashtun-majority Afghanistan. His own traditional base is in the Persian-speaking areas of western Afghanistan.

"But we have all reached the conclusion that we must have a broad-based government here that is acceptable to all of the Afghan people," he said.

He said that Afghanistan's last king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, who has lived in exile in Italy since he was overthrown in 1973, deserves respect – but no role in government.

"Because Zaher Shah is Afghan and respected by Aghans, we too respect him, but the matter of governing is something that should be decided by the people and vote of the people," Khan said.

In response to a question, the guerrilla commander denied having any American military advisers.

He also called for a reopening of schools for girls and women, which the Taliban closed within days of taking power in Kabul in 1996.

"There must be special attention paid to women," Khan said. "There has been great injustice against women. Their presence in society and in the homes is very important. In the past 23 years they have been deprived."

He was referring to 1978, the year of the coup by Afghan communists against another secular government. According to U.N. reports, only 2 percent of Afghanistan's women were literate in 1970 and the figure had reached only 15 percent by 1995, the year before the Taliban took over most of the country.

AP-WS-11-16-01 1549EST