A massive pro-Taliban rally was held Tuesday in the Islamic militia's southern stronghold of Kandahar to denounce exiled king Mohammed Zahir Shah -- a key player in efforts to build a new, broad-based government for Afghanistan.
"Thousands of civilians of Kandahar have flooded the city's streets to protest against the return of Zahir Shah," said Abdul Hanan Hemat, chief of the ruling Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency.
Hemat said it was the first demonstration to be held in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual heartland, since the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency put the number of demonstrators at 10,000, and said they burned US flags and effigies of US President George W. Bush.
Demonstrators adopted a resolution vowing not to hand over Osama bin Laden -- the Saudi-born dissident fingered by the United States as the mastermind behind last month's devastating attacks.
It also pledged total opposition to any government installed in Afghanistan with foreign help.
The demonstrators shouted slogans against the 86-year-old former king, who has been living in exile in Rome since 1973.
The Italian capital has in recent days seen intensive talks centered around Zahir Shah, who is seen as the single unifying force who can bind Afghanistan's disparate forces into a cohesive administration.
The talks, involving myriad Afghan opposition groups, agreed on Monday to form a 120-member supreme council which can elect a head of state and transitional government.
But the Taliban, dominated by the Pashtun ethnic majority, have vowed to wage guerrilla war against any government imposed on Afghanistan from outside -- KABUL (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
