Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The U.S. military insisted yesterday that airstrikes on a southern village, which killed at least 16 Afghan civilians, were a legitimate attack on scores of Taliban militants. In addition to the civilian deaths, as many as 80 members of Taliban militia were killed by the bombardment in the early morning darkness yesterday in the village of Azizi, in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, a U.S. military statement said. Only 20 of the Taliban deaths were confirmed, the statement added, and five Taliban members were detained for interrogation.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A Pakistani Taliban leader who is waging a government-backed campaign to evict Central Asian militants from Pakistan's tribal regions said yesterday that he would give Osama bin Laden sanctuary in his area if he sought it. "Bin Laden has never come to this area, but if he comes here and seeks our protection, then according to tribal laws and customs we will protect him," the Taliban commander, Mullah Muhammad Nazir, 32, told journalists...

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants seized a civilian bus in volatile southern Afghanistan and executed at least two dozen passengers, beheading some of them, officials said yesterday. The attack took place in Kandahar province, the home base of the militant Islamic movement before it was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001. The incident illustrated the extreme danger of travel in the Afghan countryside, even along main roads such as the one where the bus was commandeered. Many of those aboard the bus were women and children.

KABUL - -Days after President Barack Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin deploying to southern Afghanistan to renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that stalled earlier this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government, senior U.S. officials said. The extra Marines - the first to move into the country as part of Obama's escalation of the eight-year-old war - will double the size of the U.S. force in the southern province of Helmand and provide a critical test for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's struggling government and Gen. Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- In this paradise of conspiracy theory, a country that has been the plaything of great powers for more than a century, a new rumor is making the rounds: that the United States is behind the stunning rise of the fundamentalist Taliban.From the Foreign Ministry to internationally funded charities, among United Nations officials and the clientele of Kabul's bazaars, many believe the Clinton administration is covertly supporting the Taliban, the victorious Islamic militia.

GHAZNI, AFGHANISTAN -- Afghan voters defied insurgent threats and elected their parliament for the first time in more than 35 years yesterday as a large-scale security operation foiled Taliban attempts to disrupt the poll. There were 19 attacks across the country, but they were "very minor," said Peter Erben, chief operations officer for the U.N.-Afghan election commission. Three voters were injured in separate incidents in eastern Kunar province, he said. While Erben said turnout appeared strong, some foreign and Afghan observers monitoring the polls said the participation rate appeared lower than in October's presidential election.

MUQOR, Afghanistan -- This town was once a success story, where girls attended school and the Taliban had no sway. But on a recent night, enemy soldiers surrounded the district headquarters, fired rockets and bullets at the few men guarding the place and kidnapped seven people. "Son of Bush," they shouted. Three days later, U.S. Army Capt. Erik Schiemann looked at the damage, the smoke-blackened rooms, the bullet-pocked walls, the caved-in roof. He told the new police chief, away during the attack, that the government and the military had failed Muqor.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan government has a message for Taliban members hiding in the mountains or other countries: Come home. Taliban members who are not criminals are welcome in the new Afghanistan, officials say. The government's goal is to weaken the Taliban insurgency, especially before the crucial parliamentary elections this fall. "Every Afghan who has not returned because of fear, they should no longer have that fear," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said. "They should come back."

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai said for the first time yesterday that he had held meetings with members of the Taliban as part of a reconciliation effort, but he ruled out talks with the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, or foreign militants who are fighting along with the Taliban. He made the comments as the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the capital that killed six people, and as NATO battled Taliban forces for control of an important town in southern Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Fears of a military clash between Iran and Afghanistan rose to new levels yesterday as the Afghan Taliban militia announced it had taken control of an opposition stronghold with strong ties to Iran.Mullah Wakil Ahmad, chief spokesman for the Taliban, said its forces had seized Bamian, a town in central Afghanistan that is the capital of the country's Shiite Muslim minority.Afghanistan's Shiite community, which numbers more than 600,000, maintains strong spiritual and political ties with Iran, whose population is predominantly Shiite.