AS AL QA’EDA FAILED TO SURRENDER, DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS INCREASES
KABOL 12 Dec. (IPS) As Al-Qa’eda militias failed the give up themselves and their weapons to forces of "Eastern Alliance" on Wednesday morning local time, resulting in heavy bombing of their hideouts in the "White Mountains" and "Tora Bora", the sidelined Afghan leader Borhaneddin Rabbani lashed out at the United Nations for "interfering" in Afghanistan’s interior affairs.
Commander Hazrat Ali, an Eastern Alliance (EA) warlord said that he had extended a deadline for their surrender by 24 hours -- until 0800 (0330 GMT) on Thursday -- to give rank-and-file fighters an opportunity to consider the offer.
His offer to Al Qa’eda, the organisation the United States considers as the mastermind behind the 11 September terrorist operations in New York and in Washington D. C. came as other commanders said they would continue their advance on the last positions held by the group in the snow covered mountains near the Pakistani borders.
Noting that Al Qa’eda fighters did not honoured their promise made to Ali and other anti-Taleban commanders, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that military operations against the terrorist organisation and its leader, Osama Ben Laden would continue unabated.
The Pakistan-based pro-Taleban Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said Al-Qa’eda fighters were insisting on surrendering to United Nations officials and with the presence of foreign observers, a pledge that many experts said was a "ploy" to buy time for escaping to neighbouring Pakistan.
One unconfirmed report from BBC suggests that the Americans intervened when they discovered that local Commander Haji Zaman had offered to let Al-Qa’eda slip over the mountains to Pakistan.
Haji Zaman is one of the Eastern Alliance commanders who on Monday negotiated the surrender of Al Qa’eda forces for Wednesday morning.
Both neighbouring Iran and Pakistan denied press reports suggesting that the Saudi anti-American and Western crusader might have fled to either nation, observing that they have sealed their borders with Afghanistan. But US intelligence services said on Tuesday there were indications he was still in the Tora Bora region.
About 1,000 Al-Qa’eda fighters are believed to be trapped in a canyon after Afghan militias overran a network of caves and tunnels and cut off a crucial supply route on Tuesday.
On the political and diplomatic scene, the nominal president of the defunct Islamic Government of Afghanisan Borhaneddin Rabbani, accused foreign powers on Wednesday of imposing an "unrepresentative government" on Afghanistan.
A visibly angry and humiliated Rabbani, sidelined by the Agreement reached a week ago in Bonn by four Afghan groups on the formation of an interim post-Taleban Administration, said the way the deal was struck was "an affront to both the leaders of the Mojahideen"—who defeated the mighty Soviet Red Army that had occupied Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989-- and a "humiliation of the nation".
"When we sent the delegation to the Bonn conference, we did not send them to sign an agreement, just to discuss and negotiate...They signed the agreement just because they were pressured by the international community."
Rabbani denied there was a split between him and younger Northern Alliance generation of "modern Islamists" such as Abdollah Abdollah, Yoones Qanooni, who headed the Alliance’s delegation at Bonn talks and General Mohammad Qasem Fahim, respectively the Foreign Affairs, Interior and Defence ministers.
His comments, however, left no doubt that he felt wounded at having been eclipsed by the outcome of the negotiations.
However, he said he fully supported the choice Hamid Karzai, a Pashtoon tribal leader, to head the new interim government and expected to transfer power to him on schedule on December 22.
"I fully support Mr Karzai and I will cooperate with him", Rabbani pledged, adding that the new Premier should have been left free to appoint his ministers rather than have been "imposed" by foreigners.
"We hope this will be the last time foreign countries interfere in Afghanistan's affairs", Rabbani told a news conference in Kabol, referring to the United Nations supervised Bonn Agreement.
"Past interference caused the establishment of terrorism inside Afghanistan", Rabbani said, warning: "If the interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan continues in this way, it will increase the problems of Afghanistan in the future".
"Any government which is going to be formed abroad will provoke the feelings of the people", Rabbani said.
"There is no pressure from the U.N. on the Afghans, there is no pressure from the Afghans on the U.N...We are not going to impose anything on the Afghans", Mr. Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesman for Mr. Brahimi told journalists in Kabol.
Despite opposition from Rabbani, representatives from the Northern Alliance, the Rome Process, the Pakistani-supporter Peshawar Group and the Irianian-backed Cyprus Group named a 30 members interim government and an interim Council to govern Afghanistan for six months, to be followed by the convention of a Loya Jira, or Assembly of Afghan elders, to be presided over by former Afghan Monarch Mohammad Zaher Shah.
Rabbani said to have told U.N’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi in Kabol on that "leaders of the jihad who struggled mountain by mountain against the aggressors in Afghanistan have been forgotten", a clear reference to himself being sidelined against Zaher Shah, considered as the symbolic chairman of the future Loya Jirga.
Rabbani is staunchly opposed to any role for the 87 years old former King.
Other factional leaders, including ethnic Uzbek northern warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Governor of the Western region of Heart Esma’il Khan and Karim Khalili, the leader of the Hazaras in Bamiyan, have also criticised the accord but have said they will not stand in its way.
"One of the things about this agreement is that everybody complains about it", Mr. Fawzi said. "It's not a perfect agreement and we said that from the very beginning. However, it's a good first step."
Brahimi was in Kabol and met and discuss the future of the war-ravaged nation with the Northern Alliance officials, including Dr. Abdollah, Mr. Qanooni and General Fahim.
He was also expected to meet Mr. Karzai on Wednesday before leaving for Islamabad, but the meeting did not took place, as Mr. Karzai was still busy in Qandahar, working a truce between warring Pashtoon commanders fighting for the control of the historic city, the last stronghold of the now "evaporated" Mollah Mohammad Omar, the supreme leader of the defeated Taleban.
Meanwhile, French and German cabinet ministers and an Italian deputy minister, the most senior Western officials to visit the Afghan capital since the Taleban fled last month, landed in Kabol late Wednesday.
U.N. spokeswoman Christine McNab confirmed separate visits by French Co-operation Minister Charles Josselin, German Overseas Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul and Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Margherita Boniver.
As both France and Germany offered several hundred troops for a peacekeeping force Britain is set to lead, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he hopes he could get the Security Council to approve of the force "the soonest possible"
European Union’s Security and Foreign Affairs "super minister" Xavier Solana has suggested that the force be composed of soldiers from Muslim nations. ENDS QA’EDA SURRENDER 121201