- (AFP) - The United States Saturday claimed the most
senior
Taliban official yet to fall into their hands, but came under further
criticism
from Europe as the war on terror widened.
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- Washington was also at odds with the International
Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC) for not recognising captured Taliban and al-Qaeda
fighters as prisoners of war.
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- Afghanistan's interim government called for Mullah Abdul
Wakil Mutawakel, the high-ranking Taliban foreign minister who surrendered
to US forces in Kandahar Friday, to be treated as a war criminal.
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- Mutawakel, one of closest aides to reclusive Taliban
leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, is seen as a potential source of crucial
evidence
on Omar and chief September 11 terror suspect Osama bin Laden.
-
- But his surrender did not ease growing concerns in Europe
about US foreign policy, with EU commissioner Chris Patten accusing
President
George W. Bush's administration of a dangerously "absolutist and
simplistic"
stance.
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- It was time European governments spoke up and stopped
Washington before it went into "unilateralist overdrive", he
told the British newspaper the Guardian.
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- His remarks came a day after France's Socialist Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin added his voice to criticism from Europe of US
foreign
policy, calling on Washington to broaden its contacts with the rest of
the world and not to become fixated on the war on terrorism.
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- French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine earlier this week
accused the US of pursuing a "simplistic" foreign policy since
the September 11 terror attacks on America.
-
- Patten singled out Bush's recent branding of Iran, Iraq
and North Korea as "an axis of evil".
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- "I find it hard to believe that's a thought-through
policy," he said, adding that the phrase was
"unhelpful".
-
- Patten insisted the European policy of "constructive
engagement" with Iranian moderates and North Korea was much more
likely
to bring results than a US policy which so far consists of "more
rhetoric
than substance".
-
- Relations between Iran and the West hit a new low after
the Islamic republic rejected Britain's new ambassador to Tehran, whom
experts said had borne the brunt of Iranian anger over Bush's "axis
of evil" comments.
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- Britain has been the chief ally of the United States
in its "war on terrorism", but has been cautious in endorsing
the "axis of evil" tag applied to Iraq, Iran and North
Korea.
-
- Bush said last week the US would not "grow exhausted
by our drive for freedom", and the ongoing search to root out
remaining
Taliban and member's of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network unearthed the former
Taliban foreign minister Mutawakel.
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- His voluntary surrender was met with Kabul insistence
Saturday that he be tried as a war criminal.
-
- Taliban leaders "were a part of the problem. They
created misery for our people. The world has suffered because of what they
did," Interim Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said.
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- "They cannot be a part of the solution, they were
a part of the problem and they deserve justice and to be treated as war
criminals because they supported terrorism."
-
- In Geneva, the ICRC said in a statement Saturday there
were "divergent views between the US and the ICRC on the procedures
which apply on how to determine that the persons detained are not entitled
to prisoner of war status," the ICRC said in a statement.
-
- Bush decided Thursday that the 1949 Geneva Conventions
would apply to captured Taliban fighters taken from Afghanistan to a US
military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but not to al-Qaeda members
there.
-
- However, Washington said that neither group would be
accorded prisoner of war status.
-
- About 50 US soldiers searched the remote mountain
district
of Zhawar Kili in eastern Afghanistan Saturday after a CIA missile strike
hit a group of suspected senior al-Qaeda members, apparently including
a tall man who was being treated with great deference by those around
him.
-
- A US official refused to say whether the man may have
been Saudi-born bin Laden, whose height is 1.93 meters (six feet four
inches).
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- "He was clearly someone who was senior," the
official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
-
- Kabul, meanwhile prepared to welcome home former king
Mohammed Zahir Shah, who was overthrown in a 1973 coup, but is seen as
seen as a uniting symbol in a country rife with factional and ethnic
fighting.
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- The 87-year-old who has lived in exile in Rome for 29
years, will return late next month and intended staying in Afghanistan
for the rest of his days, his personal physician said.
-
- Ahead of the King's return, Karzai continues to wrestle
with security problems as rival warlords try to fill power vacuums left
by the fall of the Taliban.
-
- On Saturday he met representatives of two warlords who
clashed violently last week over who should be governor in eastern Paktia
province.
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- "This is a very serious matter and Karzai wanted
himself to be involved in finding a solution," Deputy Border Affairs
Minister Mirza Ali told AFP.
-
- Fifty people were killed in a two-day battle when
Karzai's
appointed governor, Padsha Khan, sent his forces to secure the governor's
house in the provincial capital Gardez.
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- They were driven out by rival warlord Saif Ullah who
has refused to give up power.
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- Karzai has blamed Khan for the fighting and said it was
"one more reason why we should finish warlordism in this
country."
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- The clash has called into question Karzai's ability to
govern beyond the Kabul area and underpinned his appeal for the deployment
of more international troops in his country.
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