KABUL, Jan. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Taliban movement's leadership has rejected President Hamid Karzai's offer for talks and called on its loyalists to intensify attacks against the interest of government and the U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan, a spokesman of the outfit said Monday.
"The leadership of Taliban considers Karzai as an American puppet and so we are against any talks with him as he has been serving the American interest in Afghanistan," Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said.
Afghanistan's head of state in a good will gesture to boost the ongoing reconciliation policy extended an olive branch on the eve of Eidul Adha, the Muslim biggest religious festival Sunday and urged Taliban's chief Mullah Mohammad Omar to begin dialogue with the government.
President Karzai in an interview with the Associated Press asserted, "If he wants to come, he should get in touch with us."
However, Taliban's remnants in a sharp reaction rejected the offer and vowed for more attacks.
"The United States-led infidels have occupied Afghanistan and the only way to expel them from the country is to intensify Jihad and the Taliban would fight till last in order to achieve the goal," Ahmadi emphasized.
The purported spokesman further said that the United States and its allies were illegally exploring the untapped underground treasury of Afghanistan including Uranium for their own interests.
"We would not stop our Jihad until and unless get back Afghanistan's freedom from the Americans and other infields," Ahmadi stressed.
President Karzai in a bid to consolidate his government's control offered an amnesty for the armed opponent in November 2004 under which over 300 anti-government militants have laid down armsand joined the peace process.
However, the President exempted 150 high-ranking Taliban members including the group's leader Mullah Omar.
For his part, Omar, whose regime was ousted by the United States on charge of harboring Osama Bin Laden in late 2001, has termed the amnesty as a ploy to divide Taliban and rejected it.
Taliban-linked militancy claimed the lives of over 1,500 people in 2005. Enditem |