Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday appealed to hundreds of tribal and religious leaders to support a major operation in their southern province, the heartland of a Taliban insurgency.
Mr Karzai, accompanied by top Nato commander US General Stanley McChrystal, held talks with representatives and residents in Kandahar about renewed efforts to bring stability to the war-weary province.
“Right now the life of Kandahar is a very bad life,” Mr Karzai said in a speech to the shura, a traditional council gathering, in a stuffy conference hall in Kandahar city. “I need to start the operation to clean up the enemy. We need your help and support,” he said.
Mr Karzai’s pleas were largely well received by the group, the majority of whom applauded and stood to raise their hands when he asked for their support.
Many of the 30,000 troops US President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan late in 2009 are heading to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement and a hotbed of bombings, assassinations and lawlessness.
The Kandahar operation promises to be a major test of foreign alliance efforts to bring a quick end to the nearly nine-year war against increasingly emboldened insurgents.
Mr Karzai expressed condolences for the 50 people killed in the province in a Wednesday suicide bombing at a wedding, which was blamed on the Taliban, and called on the militants to renounce violence.
“Tell the people to be part of the solution... Let’s cooperate, let’s coordinate,” he told the crowd. Mr Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omar said the President would use the Kandahar visit to stress to wary locals the campaign in the troubled area was a “process of stabilisation”, rather than a major military offensive.