NP - Clerics meet on the future of Afghanistan

[David Morris]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1,,2001370904,00.html

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 24 2001
Clerics meet on the future of Afghanistan

The former Afghan king wants a multinational Muslim force to keep peace in a 
post-Taleban Afghanistan. The exiled king's vision was told to a 
1,000-delegate conference on a post-Taleban administration held in Peshawar, 
and attended by Islamic clerics, tribal chiefs and Afghan exiles.

The conference, which is organized by a coalition of exile groups dominated 
by the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), was told of a meeting 
between Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, the head of the NIFA, and King Zahir Shah, 
the 87-year-old former king who now lives in exile in Rome.

Mr Gailani urged moderate Taleban supporters to join efforts to rebuild the 
stricken country as he opened the conference. Mr Gailani is a Pashtun, the 
ethnic group of the Taleban leadership and the largest ethnic group in 
Afghanistan.

King Zahir has become the focus of international efforts to find an 
alternative government representing all the disparate ethnic groups in 
Afghanistan should the Taleban collapse.

Mr Gailani said the ex-king should head a leadership council that would 
supervise an interim government. He said that at a meeting with King Zahir: 
"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."

Mr Gailani added that when a national army and security force was 
established it would take over the role.

He said there should be a "broad-based" government and appealed to moderate 
Taleban supporters to help build the new political administration that 
"should conform to Islam and Sharia (Islamic law) and should enjoy popular 
support."

"In my opinion, those Taleban 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.



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