Karzai: Afghanistan Needs U.S. Help

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 11, 2001

Karzai: Afghanistan Needs U.S. Help

Hamid Karzai, newly appointed head of a U.N.-backed transitional government, urged the United States Monday not to turn its back on his country once the Afghan phase of the war against terrorism is over.

Sitting in the sprawling compound of the defeated Taliban leader, Afghanistan's interim ruler pledged Monday to build a new nation �� but said the country must first destroy the terrorists who have held it hostage. Hamid Karzai, newly appointed head of a U.N.-backed transitional government, also urged the United States not to turn its back on his country once the Afghan phase of the war against terrorism is over.

"U.S. help is critical," Karzai told a group of American and European journalists in the garish residence of supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who disappeared last week when Taliban rule collapsed. "Please do not turn away again."

Karzai said Afghanistan faces a daunting task to build a functioning state on the wreckage of 23 years of war, "but first we must root out all the terrorists.... We are going after all of al-Qaeda's safe houses."

He said he was appealing to all Afghans to look for Omar and terror suspect Osama bin Laden �� a message he says he has been delivering personally to village elders and tribal leaders.

Karzai told reporters he was looking forward to the arrival of an international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and, although the U.S. bombing of Taliban and al-Qaeda positions should stop once terrorist cells are destroyed, "we are not finished yet with the terrorists."

He urged the United States not to abandon Afghanistan after the defeat of al-Qaeda, bin Laden's terrorist network, and pleaded for international help in rebuilding his nation.

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