Under pressure, Karzai threatens to join Taliban

U.S. calls Afghan’s comment troubling

 Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday visits the city of Kandahar, south of Kabul.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday visits the city of Kandahar, south of Kabul.

— Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to overhaul his government, several members of parliament said Monday.

Karzai made the unusual statement at a private meeting Saturday with selected lawmakers - just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks accusing foreigners of being behind fraud in last year’s disputed elections.

Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole,but it will add to the impression the president - who relies on tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops to fight the insurgency and prop up his government - is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.

“He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban,’” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.

“He said rebelling would change to resistance,” Marenai said - apparently suggesting that the militant movement would then be redefined as one of resistance against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government.

Marenai said Karzai appeared nervous and repeatedly demanded to know why parliament last week had rejected legal changes that would have strengthened the president’s authority over the country’s electoral institutions.

Two other lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of political repercussions, said Karzai twice raised the threat to join the insurgency.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said reports that Karzai threatened to abandon the political process and join the Taliban insurgency if he continued to receive pressure from Western backers to overhaul his government are troubling.

“On behalf of the American people, we’re frustrated with the remarks,” Gibbs told reporters.

Karzai’s comments are the latest in a string of statements by the Afghan leader that have concerned U.S. officials. On Thursday, Karzai lashed out against the U.N. and the international community, accusing them of perpetrating a “vast fraud” in last year’s presidential polls as part of a conspiracy to deny him re-election or tarnish his victory, accusations the U.S. has denied.

“The substance of the remarks are obviously not true,” Gibbs said.

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Much of that fraud was attributed to the Karzai camp, and an auditing panel stripped the president of about a million votes, nearly a third of those cast for him. He ultimately was declared the winner after his main opponent dropped out of the race, which forced the scrapping of a second-round vote, but his stature wasconsiderably eroded by the months-long struggle.

Karzai is embroiled in a battle of wills with parliament over a decree giving him sole authority to appoint members of the election oversight panel. Parliament’s lower house had voted to overrule the decree, but its upper house backed Karzai.

The Afghan lawmakers said Karzai on Monday also dismissed concerns over possible damage his comments had caused to relations with the United States. He told them he had already explained himself in a telephone conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that came after the White House described last week’s remarks as troubling.

The lawmakers said they felt Karzai was pandering to hard-line or pro-Taliban members of parliament and had no real intention of joining the insurgency.

“He didn’t really mean that he’s going to join the Taliban; he was saying there are a lot of problems and pressures on him,” said Daoud Kalakani, a member of parliament’s international affairs committee, who attended the meeting.

But he said he and others warned Karzai he was damaging his reputation with Afghanistan’s Western backers, who have furnished tens of thousands of troops to fight the Taliban, together with billions of dollars in aid.

“We told him, ‘That kind of talk is not to our benefit,”’ Kalakani said. “He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I am going to talk with the foreigners and resolve this issue.”’

Gibbs said a meeting scheduled for May 12 between Karzai and President Barack Obama was still on.

Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar’s phone was turned off and another number for him rang unanswered Monday. Deputy spokesman Hamed Elmi’s phone also rang unanswered.

Karzai’s comments come against the background of continuing insurgent violence as the U.S. moves to boost troop levels in a push against Taliban strongholds in the south.

NATO forces said they killed 10 militants in a joint U.S.-Afghan raid on a compound in Nangarhar province’s Khogyani district near the Pakistani border early Monday, while gunmen seriously wounded a female Afghan provincial councilman in a drive-by shooting in the country’s increasingly violent north.

NATO also confirmed that international troops were responsible for the deaths of five civilians, including three women, on Feb. 12 in Gardez, south of Kabul.

A NATO statement said a joint international-Afghan patrol fired on two men mistakenly believed to be insurgents. It said the three women were “accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men.”

International force officials will discuss the results of the investigation with family members of those killed, apologize and provide compensation, he said.

The two men killed in the Gardez raid had been long serving government loyalists and opponents of al-Qaida and the Taliban, one serving as provincial district attorney and the other as police chief in Paktia’s Zurmat district.

Mohammad Sabar said the family’s only demand was that the informant who passed on the faulty information about militant activity be tried and publicly executed.

“Please, please, please, ourdesire, our demand is that this spy be executed in front of the people to ensure that such bad things don’t happen again,” Sabar said.

In the latest of a series of targeted assassination attempts blamed on militants, Baghlan provincial council member Nida Khyani was struck by gunfire in the leg and abdomen in Pul-e Khumri, capital of the northern province, said Salim Rasouli, head of the provincial health department.

One month ago, a member of the Afghan national parliament escaped injury when her convoy was attacked by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. Female government officials regularly report receiving threats to their safety. Some women leaders, including a prominent police officer, have been assassinated.

The Taliban rigidly oppose education for girls and women’s participation in public affairs, citing their narrow interpretation of conservative Islam and tribal traditions.

Also Monday, the organizer of a national reconciliation conference - known as a jirga - scheduled for early May said it would not include insurgent groups such as the Taliban.

There have also been indications it would include discussion of the withdrawal of 120,000 foreign troops in the country.

Ghulam Farooq Wardak, the minister of education who is organizing the conference, said it will focus on outlining ways to reach peace with the insurgents and the framework for possible discussions.

Out of the jirga will come the “powerful voice of the Afghan people,” Wardak said. “By fighting, you cannot restore security. The only way to bring peace is through negotiation.” Information for this article was contributed by Amir Shah and Christopher Bodeen of The Associated Press and by Laura King and Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/06/2010

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