International
Karzai botches up Taliban surrender
By Hasan Suroor
LONDON, DEC. 8. After the initial euphoria at the fall of Kandahar which effectively marked the end of the Taliban era in Afghanistan, concern was growing today over reports of lawlessness and chaos in the region after a rather messy Taliban surrender.
Mr. Hamid Karzai, the head of the interim Afghan government, who negotiated the surrender was seen to have either misled his western allies into expecting a smooth transition of power, or messed up the deal with the Taliban many of whom were reported to have reneged on their promise to hand over their weapons.
The surrender , observers said, appeared to have turned into a farce as apparently ``thousands'' of Taliban simply fled with their weapons and were ``thought to be planning to regroup for a guerrilla war'', according to a report in The Times. A spokesman for an influential Kandahar warlord, Mr. Ghul Agha Sherzai, admitted to Channel Four News that it was impossible to capture the fleeing Taliban.
``They are all suicidal. They all have handgrenades. If they are caught, they will let them off,'' he said.
His remarks, widely reported in the British media today, were seen to cast doubts over Mr. Karzai's authority-and indeed his credibility. One report said questions were being raised about Mr. Karzai's ``tactics'' even as Afghanistan's new boss blamed Mullah Naqibullah, a former Mujahdeen leader to whom the Taliban were supposed to surrender, for letting them escape.
``The Taliban ran away with their weapons. Basically, they have just run away - leaders and the soldiers,'' Mr. Karzai was quoted as saying helplessly.
Mr. Karzai was perceived to have dented his image by the way he handled the surrender, and his ``contradictory'' stance towards Mullah Muhammed Omar - first offering him an olive branch and then backing down under U.S. pressure which, according to The Times, included a ``threat'' to withdraw the offer of billions of dollars of aid to Afghanistan unless Mullah Omar was brought to justice. There was deep disappointment as hopes of a peaceful transfer of power, raised by Mr. Karzai's hyped-up surrender deal, seemed to be collapsing, and reports from Kandahar spoke of infighting among tribal warlords.
A BBC report said that though a tribal council was being formed to sort out the differences, the crisis was far from settled. The Sky TV spoke of ``lawlessness'' and ``fighting'' in the area even as confusion continued over the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. A screaming front-page report in The Times that Mullah Omar had been ``captured'' and was ``near the city (of Kandahar) in the ``custody of a warlord sympathetic to the fundamentalist regime'' was denied, and nor was there any confirmation of media reports that Osama had been sighted in the Melawa Valley, riding on a horseback.
Media-bashers criticised some of the ``yarn'' coming out of Afghanistan, and said that a lot of wild speculation was being dressed up as serious debate on news channels. Mr. Ben Bradshaw, a Foreign Office minister and himself a former BBC reporter, questioned the very premise of a long BBC Newsnight debate on what Mr. Karzai planned to do with Mullah Omar were he to surrender. Despite persistent U.S. and Northern Alliance claims that both Osama and Mullah Omar appeared to be still in Afghanistan, television channels continued to speculate that one or both may have ``slipped'' into Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Britain remained undecided on leading a multinational peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. ``If we were asked we would like to know what the nature of the mission was and how long it would last,'' a defence source told The Guardian after the head of the U.N. peacekeeping, Mr. Jean-Marie Guehenno, called for the deployment of such a force before the interim government in Kabul assumes office.
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