Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime was mobilizing troops Tuesday for a threatened "holy war" with the United States as UN aid agencies warned of a looming humanitarian crisis of "stunning proportions."
As Washington prepared to strike the Taliban for refusing to hand over accused terrorist Osama bin Laden, the Taliban's defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah, said 300,000 Afghan men were being called to arms.
Meanwhile, bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic militant blamed for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon which left nearly 7,000 people dead, issued his own call for resistance to the United States.
"We incite our Muslim brethren in Pakistan to prevent the American crusader forces from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan," a Qatari satellite television, Al Jazeera, quoted him as saying in a fax message received by the station.
The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, also remained defiant and warned that terrorism would continue as long as US troops remained in the Gulf region, home to Islam's holiest places, and as long as Washington sided with Israel against the Palestinians.
"The United States should not harbor any misunderstanding. It cannot come out of the current crisis if it kills me or Osama," Omar said in a statement.
The Taliban claim to be prepared to ask bin Laden to leave the country where he has been given refuge since May 1996 but have been unable to find him.
"I do not know exactly where he is," the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said Monday. "There is an effort to locate him. He may be in Afghanistan and he may be hiding."
With US warplanes, ships and troops taking up positions around Afghanistan, Defense Minister Obaidullah said 300,000 men "experienced in jihad," or holy war, had been deployed in Kabul, on the borders and at "other important sites."
"We have instructed the whole mujahed nation to prepare themselves for jihad and wage holy war at any time they think is necessary," he said.
Taliban forces are believed to number between 40,000 and 50,000 and military experts in neighboring Pakistan said it was unlikely the Taliban could mobilize as many as 300,000 fighters.
In another sign of preparation for war, the Taliban militia on Monday took over foreign relief offices and cut off communications for most UN operations.
The Taliban seized some 1,400 tons of food aid, or about three weeks of provisions, to have been distributed in southern Afghanistan by the World Food Program, a WFP official said in Rome on Monday.
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been fleeing major cities fearing US strikes. The movement comes at a time when millions are already on the brink of famine due to relentless civil war and drought.
Leading international aid agencies issued a statement in New York on Monday calling for help in dealing with a humanitarian crisis of "stunning proportions" in Afghanistan.
"We urge a world wounded by the horrific and deplorable terrorist attacks of September 11 to be mindful of the principles of international humanitarian law and to take all measures to protect the civilian populations, especially the millions of children and women," said the joint statement.
The statement was signed by the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Program, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
UN emergency planners are preparing contingency plans for more than a million refugees in the countries surrounding Afghanistan.
Pakistan has pledged its "full cooperation" with the US "war on terrorism" and the United States has also garnered crucial support from Russia and former Soviet states bordering Afghanistan.
The United States on Monday also said it was in "close touch" with various Afghan factions including the chief opposition movement to the Taliban, the Northern Alliance which controls some 10 percent of the country -- KABUL (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
