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Karzai wants end to US-led operations
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-21 08:55

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the U.S. government works closely with the Afghan government and will continue to do so after Karzai's remarks on foreign military operations.

"These are all issues that we stay in close contact with them on and we'll continue to do so," McClellan said in New Orleans where President Bush was getting updates in Hurricane Katrina.

Karzai said he was "very, very satisfied" with the election.

But in a tape aired on Arabic television, Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader dismissed the vote as "nothing but a farce" held "under the terror of warlords" — an apparent reference to faction leaders in Afghanistan's destructive civil conflict of the 1990s, some of whom were candidates.

An election worker carries a ballot box at a counting center in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2005. Afghanistan continues the long process of collecting and counting votes Tuesday, two day after landmark legislative elections. [AP]

"Thieves and warlords are controlling affairs in the country, where international monitors can't observe more than 10 constituencies even if they wanted to," bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, said in a five-minute videotape aired late Monday on Al-Jazeera television.

Both al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghan border.

Celebrations over the vote have been tempered by projections that turnout was just over 50 percent — down from 70 percent in presidential elections last October. The lack of any major Taliban assault to disrupt the vote Sunday was seen as a major boost to efforts to marginalize the rebels, though the insurgency shows no signs of waning.

In the latest fighting, guerrillas ambushed police patrols in southern Uruzgan and Zabul provinces Tuesday, sparking fire fights that left three officers and four militants dead and four officers wounded, officials said.

Hours before Karzai spoke, coalition commander Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry warned that he expected "more fighting in the weeks ahead."

"We are staying on the offensive against the enemies of Afghanistan, and we will continue that process throughout the fall and throughout the winter," Eikenberry said.

He said the United States is committed to helping Afghanistan with security and reconstruction so that terrorists cannot use it as a base.

But Karzai played down the militant threat, saying, "We do not think a serious terrorist challenge is emanating from Afghanistan." He did not specify whether he was referring to a threat from al-Qaida terrorists, Taliban rebels — or both.

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