Afghanistan's former king wants a multinational Muslim force to keep peace in the country when an interim government replaces the Taliban, an exiled leader said Wednesday.
Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, head of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), also urged moderate Taliban supporters to join efforts to rebuild the stricken country as he opened a conference here on Afghanistan's future.
As US air strikes pounded Taliban positions in Afghanistan, about 1,000 delegates including Islamic clerics, tribal chiefs and Afghan exiles attended the meeting on a post-Taliban administration in the Pakistan border city of Peshawar.
The conference, organized by a coalition of exile groups dominated by NIFA, was told of Gailani's meeting with Mohammed Zahir Shah, the 87-year-old former king who now lives in exile in Rome.
Zahir Shah has become the focus of international efforts to find an alternative government representing all the disparate ethnic groups in Afghanistan should the Taliban collapse.
Gailani said the ex-king should head a leadership council that would supervise an interim government.
He said that at a meeting with Zahir Shah "we agreed that during the period of the interim government, a UN security force organised from the people of Islamic countries should be deployed in different parts, particularly big cities to maintain law and order".
Gailani added that when a national army and security force was established it would take over the role.
Such a single religion force would be a first for the United Nations. However, Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, Malaysia and even Pakistan are heavily involved in peacekeeping efforts around the globe.
Gailani said there should be a "broad-based" government and appealed to moderate Taliban supporters to help build the new political administration that "should conform to Islam and Shariat (Islamic law) and should enjoy popular support".
"In my opinion, those Taliban who agree to our ideas as regards peace and a broad based government should start the task immediately. I consider their cooperation significant and fruitful," he added.
In his opening speech to the "Conference for Peace and National Unity of Afghanistan" Gailani said his homeland had been "plunged into the most critical period of its history".
The NIFA leader, an ethnic Pashtun like the Taliban leadership, said: "Every effort must be made to bring about an end to military operations and the start of reconstruction of the country as soon as possible."
Speaking to AFP ahead of the conference, Gailani said moderate Taliban ready to work with all Afghans to rebuild the country would be welcome in a new government.
Taliban moderates could play a continued role in politics if the regime is replaced with a more broad-based government. "It is difficult to determine moderation or hardliners, so the decent Taliban ... they are welcome," he said.
The Taliban, which seized Kabul in 1996, is under attack for its refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the September 11 suicide hijackings in New York and Washington which left more than 5,000 people dead.
A delegation of the former king has been invited to the conference and NIFA sources said some representatives of the former monarch would attend. It was not known if there was any Taliban representation.
Conference participants are also to discuss a possible Loya Jirga, a traditional Afghan assembly of elders called in times of turmoil to unite the country's fractious clans and ethnic groups -- Pakistan, (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
