We will not monopolise power: Rabbani

KABUL, NOV. 17. The former Afghanistan President, Mr. Burhanuddin Rabbani, arrived today in Kabul, four days after it was captured, even as U.S. warplanes, not pausing despite the beginning of Ramadan, pounded Kunduz and Kandahar.

Mr. Rabbani insisted that the Northern Alliance would not try to monopolise power after the downfall of the Taliban. ``We will try to form a broadbased government as soon as possible, it depends on the seriousness of the Afghan people and the U.N.,'' he told presspersons hours after his arrival.

He vowed to speed up the process and dismissed suggestions that the Alliance was dragging its feet on the formation of a government representing all Afghan groups.

The Taliban's Ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, told reporters at Chaman on the Afghan border that the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, was still in Afghanistan but that his exact location was unknown. Crossing the border into Pakistan after a visit to the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, Mr. Zaeef said ``Osama is inside Afghanistan but I don't know whether he is in our (Taliban) territory or the area controlled by the Northern Alliance.'' Earlier the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television channel quoted Mr. Zaeef as saying that Osama had left Afghanistan for an unspecified destination.

He is still there: U.S.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said today that the U.S. military had no evidence that Osama had left Afghanistan and was still hunting him there. ``We have no evidence that he has left Afghanistan,'' Mr. Glenn Flood said.

The U.S. Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, also said there was every reason to believe that Osama was still in Afghanistan.

He cautioned that despite their recent losses, ``the Taliban is still there''. He said American special forces were active shooting Taliban fighters and members of the Al-Qaeda.

On Friday, the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was reported to have ordered withdrawal from Kandahar and that it should be handed over to two sympathetic local commanders.

Mullah Najibullah, a Taliban leader in the border town of Spinboldak, said earlier today that Osama was alive, but said nothing more about his whereabouts.

U.N. initiative

At the United Nations, the Group of 21 countries on Afghanistan (G-21), including India, called for an early meeting of all Afghan factions for a political solution acceptable to all, even as demands were made for the withdrawal of Pakistani, Arab and other foreign fighters from the country.

The proposed meeting would include the former King, Zahir Shah, the Northern Alliance and the Pashtuns, the U.N. special envoy on Afghanistan, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, told presspersons after a two- hour closed door meeting on Friday.

Efforts were being made to revive the political process soon with ``as many short-cuts'' as Afghans would allow. Mr. Brahimi said the G-21 took the view that there was a need to ``go as fast as possible but not faster than possible.''

Amidst hectic diplomatic efforts to establish a transitional administration in Afghanistan, the U.N. envoy, Mr. Francesc Vendrell, arrived in Kabul to persuade all factions to participate in a U.N.-backed conference next week to discuss the country's future.

The U.N. has held out against granting Mr. Rabbani any special status and has been trying to organise talks outside Afghanistan.

Mr. Vendrell, in an interview to the BBC, said while Mr. Rabbani remained head of the Islamic state of Afghanistan, that did no necessarily mean he would be the new President.

Mr. Vendrell's warning that Mr. Rabbani was not assured of the leadership came after Russia announced that it was also sending a delegation to meet the Alliance.

Today, the home of a key Taliban commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and a seminary were bombed near the eastern town of Khost, leaving two persons dead and many others wounded.

The Pashtun leader, Mr. Hamid Karzai, told the BBC that convoys of Taliban were leaving Kandahar and moving towards the north. Aid agencies with close links to the region also reported that Taliban forces were moving out of Kandahar.

- PTI, AFP

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