By Jon Hemming KABUL, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said on Monday the hardline Islamist movement was not a threat to the world and was only fighting to eject foreign troops from Afghanistan. The reclusive Afghan Taliban leader said he was making the remarks in response to statements by U.S. officials, who have warned Afghanistan could again become a failed state and an al Qaeda haven if the fight against the Taliban is lost. "We want legitimate relations with countries of the world and we are not a threat to anyone," said a statement signed by Omar and published by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press. "America portrays the Taliban as a threat to countries of the world and, with such propaganda, wants to use the countries and governments of the world in pursuit of its own interests. "If foreign troops leave Afghanistan, that will be a victory for the people of Afghanistan," he said. U.S. and British ministers are pressing reluctant NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, especially the volatile south, to quell the Taliban insurgency relaunched two years ago. More than 6,000 people were killed in fighting in Afghanistan last year, nearly 2,000 of them civilians. While the Taliban have suffered heavy casualties every time they have fought international troops, their strategy of guerrilla attacks, suicide and roadside bombs is aimed at sapping foreign governments' political will to sustain the war. "It would ... be better if the people of the world put pressure on their governments to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and give the people of Afghanistan the right to establish a government based on their own will," Omar said. U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001 after Omar refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. A U.S. official last week said Omar was directing Taliban operations in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, a charge the Pakistan government strongly denies. In a separate development on Monday, Pakistani security forces wounded and captured prominent Taliban commander Mullah Mansour Dadullah as he crossed the border into Pakistan. Omar removed Dadullah from command of Taliban militants in the southern province of Helmand after the regional commander had been involved in failed negotiations to enter the Afghan government's reconciliation process, diplomats said. NATO forces in Afghanistan say they are making progress against the Taliban and have had a number of successes targeting Taliban leaders and bringing Afghan forces increasingly to the fore in consolidating security. But frustration with poor security, the slow pace of development and official corruption is turning public opinion against the pro-Western government of President Hamid Karzai. (Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif addresses clerics and students during his visit to the Islamic seminary Jamia Naeemia in Lahore February 11, 2008. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's allies are engaged ...
Afghanistan
