Hekmatyar vows fresh attacks on NATO troops
Agence France-Presse . LondonAfghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar vowed in an interview published Wednesday to kill as many Western soldiers as possible before NATO combat forces withdraw from the country in 2014.
Hekmatyar, a former prime minister who leads Afghanistan’s second largest militant group Hezb-i-Islami, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that fresh attacks would send a warning to ‘others waiting to invade Afghanistan’.
‘Before the withdrawal of invading forces, the Mujahideen would like to witness with their own eyes a scene that will teach the invaders to never think of coming this way again,’ he said in a video obtained by the Telegraph in response to questions asked through an intermediary.
Hekmatyar, designated a global terrorist by the United States, warned that Afghanistan could collapse into bloody civil unrest after NATO troops withdraw, 13 years after the US-led invasion.
‘The fact is that the government has failed,’ said the former premier, who is shown in the video with a white beard and wearing a black turban.
‘We might have a dreadful situation after 2014 which no one could have anticipated.’
NATO is aiming to train 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014 to take over responsibility for security.
But trust between the two sides has been seriously undermined by ‘insider’ attacks by Afghan forces that killed more than 60 foreign troops in 2012, and the transition process has been beset by other problems including desertions.
Hekmatyar indicated that Hezb-i-Islami, notorious for its bloody siege of Kabul in the 1990s, has softened some of its hardline Islamist policies such as banning women from education.
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