Taliban Forces Landing Of U.N. Plane Plane Carrying Tajik Opposition Leader To Peace Talks

Taliban fighter planes intercepted a U.N. aircraft carrying a rebel leader from neighboring Tajikistan on Saturday and forced it to land at a military air base in western Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman said.

“They didn’t get the proper permission and we were within our rights to force them to land,” said Abdul Niazi, a Taliban spokesman in the Afghan capital Kabul.

The aircraft was forced to land at Shindand Air Base, several hundred miles west of Kabul. All those on board were unharmed. They were apparently being held, and it was not clear when they might be released.

Niazi said Tajikistan’s opposition leader Syed Abdullo Nuri was on board the aircraft, along with eight other people, some of whom were Iranians.

Nuri was on his way to Kunduz in northern Afghanistan to attend peace talks with Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmanov to try to end a civil war in the former Soviet republic, said Akbar Torahjanzada, a spokesman for Nuri.

The peace talks were to be held on Monday, he said.

Niazi said the U.N. aircraft which had left Mashhad, Iran, was forced to land after it entered Afghan air space over Herat without first getting permission.