Afghan Ambassador to Tajikistan Said Ibragim said in Dushanbe on Thursday that the recent Taliban losses mark the beginning of the end of war in the strife-torn nation.
In an interview, Ambassador Ibragim said the eventual cessation of hostilities still needs time, but that won't take too long.
He said the people across 80 per cent of Afghanistan now feel that "they have been liberated from the Taliban forces," who now mainly concentrate in Kandahar, Herat, and Farah Provinces. In the northern province of Kunduz, over 20,000 Talibs, most of them foreign nationals, are still resisting.
He said that Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect for the November 11 attacks on the United States, is still inside Afghanistan. The ambassador said that the US-led bombing campaign in Afghanistan was caused by bin Laden and his supporters, and that they should all be brought to justice.
As the war is approaching to its end, Ibragim said, the Afghan government calls on foreign countries to help with its reconstruction efforts. He said young Afghans should no longer be with their arms folded but go in to rebuild their tattered homeland and start their new lives instead.
(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2001)
