WASHINGTON: The Afghan interior minister said on Friday that 10,000 to 15,000 Taliban were fighting in the nation, offering a rare estimate on the insurgency which the new US administration has vowed to tackle.
Minister Hanif Atmar dismissed the strength of the insurgents, saying a wave of high-profile attacks showed the desperation of the Taliban movement. Atmar, in Washington for a three-way dialogue with the US and Pakistan on a new “war on terror” strategy, said the Taliban insurgents were operating in up to 17 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
“In terms of numbers, there could be between 10 and 15,000 Taliban insurgents,” he told reporters. Atmar said most of the insurgents were foreigners, operating with Al-Qaeda or Central Asian extremist groups.
He said many Afghans were recruited for economic reasons and that he did not consider them dye-in-the-wool Taliban. Commenting on the February 11 terrorist attacks on three government offices in Kabul, Atmar said: “These terrorist attacks do not represent their strength, but indeed their weakness.”
“The fact that they don’t care about their image is a significant indication of their hopelessness,” he said.“They are still capable of threatening the lives of the Afghan people, but that does not mean that they can derail the (reconstruction) process or challenge the government of Afghanistan,” he added.
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