Afghan Islamic Leader Wants U.S. Out

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, September 29, 2002

Afghan Islamic Leader Wants U.S. Out

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The leader of Afghanistan's most radical Islamic group says Afghans are tired of a central government that has no control beyond Kabul and has permitted "foreigners and outsiders" to direct Afghan policy, according to USA Today report Saturday.

Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf suggested in an interview that Western forces, which he said have nearly completed their mission of driving out the former Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda fighters, should leave soon.

"We have our own laws, our own habits, our own behaviors," said Sayyaf, who has no official role in the current government. Speaking in English, he added, "My aim is that the purposes of our beliefs should be implemented. That is what I want, for the Afghans to be independent, a country independent of outsiders."

Sayyaf's remarks were the first public indication that he is losing patience at being shut out of the new coalition ruling Afghanistan. He also appears to be accelerating efforts to influence events through his speeches and other contacts, Western officials said. They said he was hailed as Afghanistan's future leader when he showed up at the Saudi Arabian Embassy earlier this week.

His aspirations could cause problems for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is promoting a secular government. An Islamic, isolationist Afghanistan also would prevent the United States from continuing its war on terrorism and its efforts to promote regional economic and political stability.

Sayyaf, a guerrilla fighter in the 1979-89 war against Soviet forces, is the pre-eminent conservative Islamic leader in Afghanistan. His weekly messages from mosques in the Kabul area are carried on radio. According to Western officials, he is supported by hundreds of thousands of Afghans, many of whom believe he should lead the country.

Sayyaf and his followers seek a strictly Islamic nation where foreigners, especially non-Muslims, have no influence. But his interpretation of Islam is not as harsh as the Taliban's.

After the 1979-89 Afghan war, Sayyaf founded the University of Sawal al-Jihad outside Peshawar, Pakistan. U.S., British and other Western intelligence officials have described the institution as a training school for terrorists. Among the graduates: members of the radical Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines. They took their name from the university's founder.

Sayyaf refused to recognize Karzai's government after it was formed last December. But he has since participated in several political events, including the loya jirga (grand council) in June that established Afghanistan's two-year transitional government.

Interviewed at his heavily guarded hillside headquarters an hour's drive north of Kabul, Sayyaf would not say whether he believed the U.S.-led intervention that forced out the Taliban nearly a year ago had merit. But he said it was time for the U.S. and other international forces to leave.

Source: Agencies

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