Rebels Want More Land, Says Ousted Afghan Leader

The new Afghan rulers have their eye on territory beyond the nation’s borders, the deposed president insisted Wednesday as he called for a cease-fire and a meeting of warring factions.

President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was forced to flee Kabul when the Taliban rebels captured the capital on Sept. 27, surfaced Tuesday in Mazar-e-Sharif, the northern stronghold of warlord Rashid Dostum.

“We want a council of all the leaders to meet. We are trying to find a way to solve the conflict peacefully,” Rabbani said in Koodabarq, 10 miles south of Mazar-e-Sharif.

“We have not discussed the military option,” he said after a lengthy talk with Dostum.

The faction meeting Rabbani proposed is not likely to occur. Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban rebels - former religious students who are installing their strict version of Islam in Afghanistan - rarely leaves his headquarters in southern Kandahar or meets with anyone.

Rabbani did not say why he thought the Taliban aimed to conquer territory in Central Asia outside Afghanistan.

In control of two-thirds of the country, the Taliban have been pressing to flush out former government soldiers holed up in the Panjshir Valley, 90 miles north of the capital.

Dostum, who commands the only other major fighting force in Afghanistan, controls seven northern provinces as well as the Salang Highway, the only road linking Kabul with northern Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Dostum’s army is well-disciplined and well-armed. Many of his soldiers were conscripts in the former communist government, backed for 14 years by Moscow. His fleet of aircraft includes several Russian fighter jets and Hind helicopter gunships.

There were mixed reports on the extent of the fighting Wednesday.

Witnesses who tried to reach the mouth of the Panjshir Valley were turned back at a Taliban checkpoint at Charikar, 35 miles away. They were told, however, that fighting was heavy at the front.

But a spokesman for Dostum, Gen. Piandah, denied reports that Dostum’s soldiers were fighting alongside former government troops. “We have not been fighting, but we are capable of defending ourselves,” he said. Like many Afghans, Piandah uses only one name.

While Rabbani told reporters the proposed meeting could be held anywhere in Afghanistan, Piandah said Dostum wants it convened in Mazar-e-Sharif.

“We are requesting all the leaders to personally come to Mazar-e-Sharif to sit together and solve the Afghan problem,” Piandah said.