Taliban to step up resistance
2009-12-02 18:14
Kandahar - The Taliban vowed on Wednesday to step up resistance and fight against the extra 30 000 American troops US President Barack Obama has ordered to Afghanistan, a spokesperson said.
"Obama will witness lots of coffins heading to America from Afghanistan," spokesperson Yousuf Ahamdi told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.
"Their hope to control Afghanistan by military means will not become reality," he said, reading from what he described as a statement issued by the Taliban's Islamic Emirate.
"The extra 30 000 troops that will come to Afghanistan will provoke stronger resistance and fighting," he added.
"They will withdraw shamefully. They cannot achieve their hopes and goals," the rebel spokesperson said.
The statement said the Americans would face the same fate as Russian and British soldiers previously - during the 19th century British invasion of Afghanistan and that by Soviet troops in the 1980s.
The Taliban was in power between 1996 and 2001 before it was ousted in a US-led attack that was backed by most members of the Nato alliance. Remnants of the Taliban have been leading an insurgency to regain power since then.
The insurgency, which includes an increasing number of suicide bombings once unheard of in the destitute nation, has gained pace every year, with 2009 now the deadliest since US and Nato troops deployed.
The Taliban accuse the Western troops of trying to take over the conservative Muslim country and is fighting to topple the Western-backed government in Kabul.
"This is a colonising strategy which is securing the colonising interests of American investors and it shows that America has dirty plans not only for Afghanistan but for the region," the Taliban statement said.
Currently there are around 113 000 Western, mainly US, troops in Afghanistan. They are fighting against the Taliban and helping Kabul train its security forces, which Afghans hope will eventually take responsibility for security.
- SAPA