Afghan Taliban vow to fight US presence

DPA

Kabul

The Taliban said yesterday that the presence of “even a single American soldier is unacceptable” in Afghanistan and that they would continue to wage war against US troops until all had departed.

President Barack Obama said this week he is committed to leaving some 9,800 soldiers in the Afghanistan after their combat mission ends in 2014, if Kabul signs a long-delayed bilateral security agreement.

“Jihad (holy war) is obligatory against them and our people will continue their legitimate resistance and jihad against them,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

The group said that the US is wasting its time in Afghanistan and repeating the mistakes of “their predecessors,” referring to the invasion by the British army in the early 1900s and the Soviet invasion in the 1980s.

The US combat presence in Afghanistan - currently about 32,000 troops - ends in December. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused for nearly a year to sign the agreement, which would guarantee protection from legal liability for the US troops who remain to train and advise Afghan forces.

The US along with its Nato allies mounted the mission in 2001, with approval from the UN Security Council, after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US and the prevalence of Taliban-supported Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan.