By Xinhua,
Kabul : Top Taliban commander Mullah Mohammad Omar has said that despite the surge in international troops, western countries should learn from the history of Afghanistan as a tomb for invaders and they would face defeat eventually.
“The invaders should study the history of Afghanistan from the time of the aggression of Alexander, to the Ganges of the yore and to this very day and should receive lesson from it,” he said in a statement released Saturday, on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, in Pashtun, Farsi and English versions.
Omar said the elections held on Aug 20 were “fraught with fraud and lies and which were categorically rejected by the people”.
Nevertheless, the Taliban leader hinted some extent of reconciliation but put the withdrawal of all foreign troops as a pre-condition as usual.
“First of all the issue of the existence of the invading forces in the country should be solved and Afghanistan must find its place as a sovereign country on the map of the world. The internal issues among the Afghans can be solved,” the statement quoted Omar as saying.
Taliban militants in a bloody suicide attack Thursday, only three days before Eid al-Fitr, killed at least 16 people including six Italian soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Force (ISAF) and 10 local civilians in the centre of the Afghan capital city of Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai has promised to accelerate peace talks and reconciliation with Taliban militants if re-elected in the second presidential elections since the fall of Taliban regime in 2001.