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Rumsfeld denies any mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees
Wednesday January 23, 5:41 AM AFP
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied that the unlawful combatants from the war in Afghanistan detained at the US naval base in Cuba were being poorly treated, calling reports of mistreatment "just plain false."
"Allegations that they are not receiving proper treatment are just plain false," Rumsfeld told reporters at the daily Pentagon briefing, calling media reports of alleged cruelty to the captured Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba "uninformed, misinformed or poorly informed."
The "more than 150" detainees who were shackled and hooded as they were transported to Camp X-Ray on the US naval base are housed in open-air cells and for an indefinite period of time, which has evoked concern worldwide about their mistreatment.
But Rumsfeld, who noted he had spent a good amount of time at the base, implied that being incarcerated in an open cell in "beautiful, sunny, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba" was not troubling.
"They have been found to be engaging in battle on behalf of the al-Qaeda or the Taliban and have been captured. And we have decided as a country that we'd prefer not to be attacked... and that having those people back out on the street to engage in further terrorist attacks is not our first choice," the secretary said.
"They are being detained so they don't do that. That is what they were about. That is why they were captured, and that is why they're detained."
Rumsfeld said legal concerns about assigning prisoner of war status to people who fought in support of an organization, not a country, were behind the decision to term the detainees unlawful combatants, but reiterated that their treatment was still consistent with international standards.
The secretary did say that "American Taliban" John Walker, who is considered a prisoner of war, was receiving the same treatment and was being handed to the custody of the US Justice Department ahead of his facing charges in a Virginia federal court.
"America is not what's wrong with the world," Rumsfeld said. "What's going on down there is responsible, humane, legal, proper and consistent with the Geneva Convention."
Rumsfeld said that though the detainees had not been legally charged, they had been "found to be people shooting in Afghanistan who have been captured."
He professed ignorance as to when and with what they would be eventually charged in US courts, noting that many could conceivably be released, perhaps to their own countries' authorities.
A challenge to the federal treatment of the detainees at Camp X-Ray, which is to house up to 2,000 prisoners indefinitely, was to open in a Los Angeles court Tuesday afternoon.
Wednesday January 23, 5:44 AM AFP
John Walker Lindh, the American accused of fighting for the Taliban, has been flown from the USS Bataan to Afghanistan on the first leg of a journey back to the United States to face terrorism charges, a US defense official said.
The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Walker had left the amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea for the US base at Kandahar, the first stop on his return trip to the United States.
The Pentagon would make not comment on Walker's movements, citing security concerns.
"We're not going to be commenting on specific movements for security reasons. We're not going to discuss whether he's on the ship or not," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
Walker was charged January 16 with conspiracy to kill US nationals overseas and with supporting al-Qaeda, the terrorist group accused of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The 20-year-old Muslim convert was captured in northern Afghanistan and then survived a bloody uprising by Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Mazar-i-Sharif before coming to the attention of US authorities
Buoyed by a promised 4.5 billion dollars in aid, Afghanistan's fledgling government got down to business but faced the challenge of how to disarm a war-weary country and end factional fighting.
As Afghan leader Hamid Karzai left Tokyo after an international donors' conference, his interim regime began paying civil servants for the first time in seven months and planned to receive returning refugees.
But Karzai warned the cash promised by some 60 nations and 20 international organizations would have to arrive quickly, amid reports of looting and factional fighting in his shattered homeland.
"We are happy with the result of the conference," Karzai told the Japan National Press Club. "I also hope the pledges are made true in the coming days so we can take on the process of reconstruction."
Officials cautioned that with only five months of Karzai's mandate left, the task of building stable Afghan institutions and accommodating returning refugees had barely gotten underway.
The urgency of the reconstruction effort was underlined Monday by reports of weekend skirmishing between factions that were once allies against the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.
The Afghan defense ministry played down the clashes, insisting that they were a local dispute between commanders that had been quickly resolved by a more senior officer in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Zabit Salih Mohammad Registani, of the ministry's foreign liaison department, said the fighting Sunday in Sar-e-Pul province lasted only 20 minutes and "some people" had died but he did not know how many.
As part of its effort to stabilize the country, the interim administration was discussing with the United Nations and others ways of disarming a nation awash with firearms, a defense official said Tuesday.
Kabul has floated the idea of a temporary national army of up to 250,000 men to ensure security in the post-Taliban era but many other former fighters need to be disarmed and given new livelihoods.
"Giving a piece of land or job could persuade people to hand over their arms," said Registani.
More pressure will be heaped on the shaky post-war settlement by the return of thousands, perhaps millions, of refugees who fled Afghanistan over 22 years of warfare, from the Soviet occupation to US air strikes.
The UN refugee agency estimates that already this month 35,000 Afghans have returned from camps in Iran and Pakistan to a country where around 700,000 people are already reliant on food aid.
Some four million Afghans are living in the foreign camps, and many others are displaced inside the country.
"They will need land, houses, agricultural equipment and seeds so they can restart their lives," said deputy planning minister Salam Jan.
Karzai will have to oversee the rebuilding process even while laying the political foundations of Afghanistan's future, which will see a tribal council appoint a new administration in five months.
"From now until five months, we need to lay the foundation politically and economically for the Afghan people to lead a normal life ... we are almost starting from scratch," Karzai said before leaving Tokyo for China.
Karzai's interim government took power last month after US-led forces routed the Taliban militia and Afghan opposition factions struck a power-sharing deal brokered by the United Nations.
Hundreds of US troops are still inside Afghanistan, searching for remnants of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda network of Islamic radicals that Washington blames for the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
Four months later, the US-led coalition has broadened the conflict to include police action in Europe and Southeast Asia, a US-backed drive against Filipino rebels and a financial clampdown on "terror funding".
But as Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz prepared to visit Moscow, Russia warned the United States about taking its war on terrorism to Baghdad.
"It will be the worst-case scenario that would lead to catastrophic consequences for the region," senior foreign ministry official Nikolai Kartuzov told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Concern mounted Tuesday over the condition of 158 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters held as what Washington terms "illegal combatants" at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called allegations of mistreatment "just plain false" and the result of "uninformed, misinformed or poorly informed" media reports.
But France and Germany urged Washington to ensure the detainees were treated lawfully. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose rights record has been criticized by the United States, accused the Americans of failing to heed their own strictures.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the fact that Washington has linked the prisoners to the September 11 terror attacks that killed more than 3,000 people should make no difference.
"Maintaining our values, our principles and our behavior is fundamental for the ultimate battle against fanaticism and terrorism," Solana said.
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the prisoners' rights should be respected but added he did not think it necessary for the EU to take an official position.
Washington came under attack on another legal front as a senior UN official accused the Bosnian and US governments of acting illegally when Sarajevo handed over six Arab terror suspects to US authorities last week.
Meanwhile, about 30 Pakistani and 10 Afghan Taliban members captured in northeastern Afghanistan two months ago were to go on trial soon in Kabul, deputy intelligence chief Abdullah Jan Tawhidi said.
Tensions in south Asia were further heightened Tuesday when four unidentified gunmen attacked an American Centre in Calcutta, India, killing four policemen and injuring 20 other people -- none of them Americans.
Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani condemned what he described as an attack by "armed terrorists" and said it had been claimed by a group with alleged links to Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence agency.
Pakistan denounced the attack and rejected the Indian claim as "totally baseless".
Two groups claimed responsibility: the Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, a Muslim militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, and the Asif Raza Commandos, blamed for a spate of kidnappings in Calcutta.
Wednesday January 23, 1:42 AM AFP
Boosted by a promise of 4.5 billion dollars in aid, Afghanistan's fragile new government got down to business but warned the money would have to arrive quickly to head off further strife.
As interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai left Tokyo after an international donors' conference, his Kabul regime began paying civil servants who had not seen pay cheques in seven months and planning to receive returning refugees.
But Karzai warned that the cash promised by some 60 nations and 20 international organisations would have to arrive quickly, amid reports of looting and faction fighting in his war-battered homeland.
Afghan officials cautioned that with only five months of Karzai's mandate left to run, the task of building stable Afghan institutions and accommodating returning refugees had barely got underway.
Deputy Public Works Minister Wali Mohammed Rasoli pointed to the reopening of Kabul international airport and the Salang tunnel, a key north-south road link, as evidence of early progress since the fall of the Taliban regime.
But both projects were largely carried out by UN organisations and foreign agencies, and Rasoli acknowledged that having inherited a bankrupt state the interim government had got off to a slow start.
The urgency of the rebuilding effort, reflected in the generosity of the Tokyo donors, was underlined Monday by reports of skirmishing between Uzbek and Tajik factions -- once anti-Taliban allies -- near the northern city Kunduz.
The World Food Programme also complained that gunmen had hijacked a 40-tonne aid shipment and beaten lorry drivers as the government struggles to impose its authority outside Kabul, where it is backed by 1,500 British-led peacekeepers.
More pressure will be heaped on the shaky post-war settlement by the return of thousands, perhaps millions, of refugees who fled Afghanistan during 22 years marked successively by Soviet occupation, civil war and US air raids.
The UN refugee agency estimates that already this month 35,000 Afghans have returned from camps in Iran and Pakistan to a country were around 700,000 people are already reliant on food aid.
Some four million Afghans are living in the foreign camps, and many others are displaced inside the country.
Karzai will have to oversee the rebuilding process even while laying the political foundations of Afghanistan's future, which will see a tribal council apoint a new administration in five-months time.
"From now until five months, we need to lay the foundation politically and economically for the Afghan people to lead a normal life ... we are almost starting from scratch," Karzai said, before leaving Tokyo for China.
Karzai later escaped unhurt from a multiple-vehicle collision on Tokyo's high-speed Shuto expressway, Jiji news agency said, citing police sources.
Tokyo police were not immediately available to confirm the reports.
Yemen's ambassador to Cuba said he was waiting for US permission to visit 17 Yemeni prisoners being held at Guantanamo, after President Ali Abdullah Saleh instructed him to do so.
Britain, which has three nationals among the detainees, has also expressed concern, although Prime Minister Tony Blair's office has insisted that his US allies are treating the detainees "humanely".
A junior foreign office minister on Tuesday recognised the United States' right to pursue those responsible for the September 11 attacks, but added that London would oppose the use of the death penalty against British citizens
Wednesday January 23, 12:43 AM
KABUL (Reuters) - One month after taking office, Afghanistan's post-Taliban administration has been doing as well as could be expected considering it had no money, no well-known leaders and only shaky control of the country.
The capital, Kabul, is calm, there is little fighting in the provinces and interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai has just won pledges of $4.5 billion in reconstruction aid at an international donors' conference in Tokyo.
The first government salaries for six months were even paid on Tuesday to overjoyed central bank employees.
But the interim authority, which has only six months to get state services working and call an assembly to pick a successor government, faces a race against time it is not sure to win.
Rising crime, highway robbery and feuds among power-hungry warlords cry out for a strong central authority, but Karzai has no real army or police force yet to do that, diplomats say.
An initial groundswell of public goodwill for Karzai, a Pashtun tribal chief who impresses Afghans with his eloquence and sincerity, could dissipate if he fails to get a grip on security and start major reconstruction projects.
"He's got good marks so far, but the hard part is just starting now," one diplomat said. "When he comes home from Tokyo after being promised these large sums of money, people may get impatient to see results he can't produce quickly."
MONEY SLOW IN COMING
The Tokyo donors' conference pledged $4.5 billion in aid to Afghanistan, more than $1.8 billion of which is due to reach Kabul this year to help it rebuild after 23 years of war.
But Kabul's first experiences with the many aid pledges being made these days has not been promising.
The United Nations has received only half of an earlier $20 million "start-up fund" pledged in December as immediate help for the new leaders struggling to restore the state after five chaotic years under the radical Muslim Taliban.
Disbursement of the new funds could depend on a working bureaucracy to administer them, a project that has a long way to go considering that one key ministry, the Reconstruction Ministry, only moved last week into permanent offices.
A question mark remains over the issue of security. The government has made it a top priority to form a national army of up to 250,000 men but the Tokyo meeting focused more on civilian issues such as education, health and infrastructure.
Crime has been on the rise in Kabul and fears of possible attacks from underground al Qaeda fighters rose after a freshly laid landmine was found near the U.S. embassy.
Out in the countryside, bandits have hijacked two U.N. food convoys and broken into a food warehouse in northeastern Afghanistan in the past week. The U.N. says southern Afghanistan is particularly insecure for its staff.
A serious confrontation looms between Kandahar-based Pashtun tribal fighters and Tajik warlord Ismail Khan, whom they accuse of letting Iranian fighters into Afghanistan and preying on truckers near his western stronghold of Herat.
AUTONOMOUS PROVINCES
"There are enormous difficulties...the issue of security, the relationship between the interim authority and the provinces, the issue of weapons in the hands of very many people, the issue of drugs," Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, told journalists in Kabul last week.
"The interim authority does not have a great deal of resources...to have leverage vis-a-vis the provinces," he said after talks with leaders around the country.
The resulting provincial autonomy has hampered some central projects such as forming a national army, he said.
"Provincial military forces should have come under the control of the Ministry of Defence. Practically, this has not occurred yet."
Choosing his words carefully, Khalilzad said he was cautiously optimistic that the "warlordism" that has divided the country into rival fiefdoms over the past two decades might now give way to a more representative political system.
Some former warlords who are now governors or hold other senior posts in the provinces seem tired of war and ready to try their hand at politics rather than war, he said.
"The challenge they face is to convince the Afghan people that indeed they have changed. If they can convince the Afghans that things will not go back to the bad old days, this will increase people's confidence."
Tuesday January 22, 10:34 PM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Afghanistan's fledgling government came away from a Tokyo conference on Tuesday with promises of more than $4.5 billion in aid and urged donors to move quickly to translate their good intentions into action.
Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai said after the two-day meeting that his penniless administration needed aid urgently to make sure it did not lose credibility with suffering Afghans.
"We are happy with the result of the conference we had today and yesterday and I hope we can go back to our people and give them the good news," he told a news conference.
"And I also hope that the pledges made by the international community are made true immediately," said the 44-year-old Karzai, clad, as usual, in his green and purple Uzbek robe.
Donors stressed that the flow of funds would depend on whether Karzai's month-old administration could prove itself capable of creating a democratic society and preventing corruption from diverting funds into the wrong hands.
"The important things are not donors' conferences and swell hotels and thick carpets," said Chris Patten, the European Union's Commissioner on External Relations. "The important things are what happens on the ground."
More than $1.8 billion of the total pledged will be provided in the first crucial year -- broadly in line with estimates by the United Nations and others of how much is needed early on.
"For now, the next five months, we need to lay the foundations politically and economically and in terms of reconstruction for the Afghan people to begin to lead normal lives," Karzai said.
The World Bank and U.N. estimate that $15 billion will be needed over the next decade to rebuild Afghanistan.
Afghan Finance Minister Hedayat Amin Arsala dismissed suggestions that the sums promised were too small, noting that the $4.5 billion did not include some countries' future aid.
"This $4.5 billion is only a very partial indication, in our view, of these five-year commitments or the 10-year commitments."
ACT QUICKLY, HIT THE TARGETS
Donors agreed that the money had to be dispatched quickly or the entire reconstruction process would be at risk.
"It's extremely important that we work very quickly to translate promises made on paper to real cheques and real projects and real action on the ground," the EU's Patten said.
Afghanistan was one of the world's poorest countries even before a U.S.-led bombing campaign, launched in retaliation for the September 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Life expectancy is 43 years, one in four children dies before age five and only three in 100 girls are enrolled in primary school. Clean water is a luxury.
Karzai's government lacks money to pay its civil servants and even buildings for its ministries, so simply getting the government to function will be one of the donors' priorities.
Others singled out by conference participants were health and sanitation, infrastructure, reviving the economic system, and developing agriculture and education -- especially of women and girls, who were oppressed under the Taliban government ousted during the U.S.-led campaign.
Karzai said he wanted to rebuild the two giant statues of Buddha destroyed last year by the Taliban in the Bamiyan region, but he knew that had to wait.
"It's like you lose a member of your family every day. It's a loss that we have not been able to reconcile," he said.
On the sidelines of the meeting, donors committed another $27.2 million to efforts to remove land mines from Afghanistan.
The United Nations estimates that up to 10 million land mines litter the country, killing or maiming 10 people every day.
Re-establishing security in a country where warlords are feuding and roving bands of thieves still roam is also vital.
"Security is a basic need," Arsala said. "Without security, of course, reconstruction might not be possible."
ASSURANCES, CONDITIONS
Donors want assurances that the money will not be wasted or funnelled by corrupt officials into the hands of rival warlords.
"I think there is a very strong recognition that funding is going to stop unless it goes to the sorts of programmes we are trying to reach," World Bank President James Wolfenshon said.
"None of us think it's a utopia," he said. "We all know it's going to be tough to make sure that the money gets to the place it should go. I think with proper transparent systems, with a lot of auditing, with accounting, there's a fair chance we'll get most of the money to where it's supposed to go."
Donors also want proof the government has a plan for a viable economy and a democratic society and that women will have equal rights in the new Afghanistan.
"We won't be able to get our parliaments' approval unless there is progress," Patten said.
The donors will want to see the new government move to stamp out the production of poppies used to make heroin, on the increase since the Taliban, who banned it in 2000, were ousted.
"The last thing international donors need is to commit (money), only to discover it has nurtured opium-cultivation and drug trade," one U.S. government official said.
Tuesday January 22, 8:20 PM AFP
Singapore will offer a special five-year technical assistance package to Afghanistan.
Second Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lee Yock Suan announced this at the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan held in Tokyo on Monday.
Mr Lee said the package will help train Afghans to assist the most vulnerable groups in their society, particularly women and children.
It consists of training in nursing and early childhood education.
Mr Lee also stressed that the international community should make a sustained effort to assist the Afghan people to rebuild Afghanistan.
The two-day Tokyo Ministerial Conference ends on Tuesday.
Tuesday January 22, 8:12 PM AFP
Victims of the September 11 terrorist strikes in the United States handed over compensation claims to US officials here on behalf of Afghan civilians who lost family or homes in Washington's retaliatory bombing campaign in Afghanistan.
The handover was the culmination of an eight-day visit to Afghanistan by a group of four Americans who lost family members when terrorists rammed jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, killing more than 3,000 people.
Kelly Campbell, 29, whose brother-in-law Craig Amundson was killed in the Pentagon attack, said the group had met dozens of Afghan victims since they arrived in the country.
"We've met with people who have lost their loved ones to the US bombing, we've met children who've lost limbs to US cluster bombs, people whose homes were destroyed, who have no income, nowhere to go ... and do not know what to do next," she told reporters.
"The United States government needs to take responsibility for the direct effect on these people's lives," she added.
"We have looked at pictures of their families, they have looked at pictures of ours, we have talked with them, we feel the same grief, but they have nothing.
"We owe it to them to do what we can to help them rebuild their homes and give their children health care and an education so they can get on with their lives."
Among those making a claim was Harafa Ahmad, who lost eight members of her family when her home was hit by a wayward bomb on November 7.
She told reporters she had arrived on her own at the gates of the embassy but had been turned away by officials.
"They treated me as a beggar," she said.
The US began waging war in Afghanistan on October 7 to flush out Osama bin Laden, the Saudi dissident believed to have masterminded the September 11 atrocities, and to help topple the Taliban regime which sheltered him.
The head of the Global Exchange non-governmental organisation which organised the visit, Medea Benjamin, handed over claims from 12 families to the commanding officer of the US Marines in Kabul, Captain Ferral Sullivan, at the US embassy here.
She said there had been precedents in Lebanon, Grenada and Panama for Washington paying compensation to families of people accidently killed in US bombing campaigns.
The 12 families making the claims, she added, were not angry at the United States and accepted the bombings of civilians had been unintended. They were also pleased the campaign had resulted in the Taliban's ouster.
"But they feel they were ... (also) innocent victims of September 11 and they have such great need and nowhere to turn."
She said one study had indicated that at least 4,000 civilians were killed in the bombings, which are still continuing, but believed this figure was vastly underestimated.
Tuesday January 22, 7:05 PM
TOKYO (Reuters) - Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, was unhurt after the car he was riding in was involved in an accident on a Tokyo expressway on Tuesday, police said.
"He was absolutely unhurt," a police spokesman said.
Describing the accident, which took place on one of Tokyo's notoriously crowded expressways, as "mild", the spokesman said that Karzai's car was struck lightly from behind.
Police are still investigating the cause.
Karzai was in Tokyo for an international donors conference, where countries and organisations pledged more than $4.5 billion in aid for his war-ravaged nation.
He is due to leave Japan for China on Wednesday
By Raz Mohammad
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Southern Afghan tribal leaders have decided to send a force to clear a neighbouring province of what they say are hostile fighters backed by Iran, a Kandahar government spokesman said on Tuesday.
"The scope and timing of the operation in Helmand province will be considered by the Kandahar military shura (council) tonight or tomorrow," said Abdul Ali, head of the office of information and culture in southern Kandahar, once the powerbase of the defeated Taliban.
He played down bellicose statements a day earlier by the head of Kandahar's intelligence service, Haji Gullalai, who said 20,000 troops were poised to attack Herat warlord Ismail Khan.
"It makes no sense to launch an operation in Herat to the north before clearing up (neighbouring) Helmand province to the west," Ali told Reuters in an interview.
He said Iranian influence from across the western border of Afghanistan was behind much of the unrest in the region.
An official in Herat said talks were under way with officials in Kandahar to try to ease the tension and dismissed the reports of Iranian interference in the region.
The rivalry threatens to undermine Kabul's fragile interim government, installed in the wake of Washington's declaration of war on terrorism following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The decision to clear Helmand of guerrilla rivals was taken by senior officials in Kandahar late on Monday, Ali said.
On Monday, Gullalai accused Ismail Khan of working with dissident Afghan guerrillas led by former mujahideen group leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as well as with members of Iran's Pasdaran militia, saying they were arming and funding opposition groups in the west and northwest.
He said Iranian and Russian arms as well as cash had been distributed to sympathisers in Helmand by Ismail Khan's followers.
Abdul Ali said there was substantial, direct Iranian involvement in fomenting unrest among Afghans unwilling to submit to the interim government, but he did not give details.
FRAGILE MIX
At a donors' meeting in Tokyo, the new Kabul administration has secured aid pledges worth billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, battered by 24 years of war, revolution, invasion, anarchy and six years of Taliban rule.
The September 11 attacks triggered a U.S. declaration of war on terrorism, including a massive air offensive against Afghan targets -- strongholds of the Taliban and hideouts of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
The new government is a fragile coalition of southern Pashtuns and northern peoples who formed the backbone of the Northern Alliance that helped bring the Taliban to its knees.
The crisis in western Afghanistan risks upsetting the ethnic tightrope act.
Many Afghans, including Kandahar governor Gul Agha, say they are uneasy about the dominance of northerners -- Uzbeks, Tajiks, Aimaq and Hazaras -- in the Kabul cabinet.
Some northerners distrust Pashtuns for having formed the bulk of Taliban manpower, and especially Pashtuns from Kandahar, the origin of the Taliban leadership and their last stronghold.
In the southwest, the Kandahar authorities have thrown out a network of outposts and checkpoints to gather up arms, and to try to persuade their opponents to surrender.
The Kandahar administration is widely believed to be divided between a hawkish pro-war faction and a pro-peace lobby. So far the approach has been one of reconciliation and persuasion.
Security sources said the policy was gradual, slowly but steadily extending the interim government's grip on the rugged countryside and provincial towns.
For example, talks were under way to persuade a wealthy, well-armed and close Taliban associate, Haji Bashar, to submit to the new government, give up his weapons and disperse his private army, the sources said.
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