Human bomb threats against US forces

Hekmatyar has issued fresh threats against the US presence in Iraq

Afghan guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar warned US forces that they would face attacks by Arab fidayeen (human bombs) in Iraq where hundreds of Osama bin Laden supporters have gathered, a report said Sunday.

 

“Arab fidayeen have been undergoing pain and suffering in search of Americans in foreign lands, but the enemy has now reached their own homes,” he said in a statement released by the private Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).

 

“Now they need no visa and no passport to travel abroad. They can ambush them everywhere (in Iraq),” said the former guerrilla leader who is wanted by Washington for terrorism charges.

 

“They (the fidayeen) can explode bombs and embrace shahadat (martyrdom) in their own country,” said the six-page statement dated April 11, after the fall of Baghdad to the US-led coalition.

  

Hekmatyar accuses US troops of promoting a “subjugation” of the Middle East

The Pakistan-based private news service said the statement of Hekmatyar, who was declared a terrorist by the United States last year, was written in his native Pashtu language, spoken by the majority of Afghans.

 

“The fall of Iraq is not a US military victory, it is the success of modern technology,” he said adding that the capture of Iraq was a prelude to “subjugation” of the entire Middle East.

 

“The recent intensification in Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territory proves this.”

 

Hekmatyar described the invasion of Iraq as a “moral and political defeat” of the United States. “It has triggered a hatred and enmity in the Islamic world which will be difficult to eradicate.”

 

He claimed that Iraq would now come either under US rule or “America will impose a puppet regime like Hamid Karzai’s administration in Afghanistan.”

 

Fresh fighting

 

Elsewhere, 10 suspected Taliban fighters were killed in a clash with local security forces in southeast Afghanistan’s Zabul province, governor Hameedullah Tokhi said.

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been accused of losing full control of his country

“Yesterday at 11:00 am Taliban attacked Daychopan district and up to now the fighting is still going on,” he told AFP by telephone.

 

“Up to yesterday evening 10 Taliban were killed and six injured,” he said citing reports from the district chief and local security commanders in Daychopan, 300 km (190 miles) southwest of Kabul.

 

There were no reported casualties among the security forces, Tokhi said.

 

No further details of the clash were immediately available, said the governor, who was on his way to the mountainous district to assess the situation.

 

However, he said Daychopan had not been taken under Taliban control “even for one hour.”

 

Nearly 18 months after the ousting of the Taliban, remnants of the militia and its al-Qaeda allies continue to attack foreign and government targets.