Peace marchers cross war-torn Afghanistan

DOZENS of peace protesters arrived in Kabul yesterday after walking hundreds of kilometres across war-battered Afghanistan, as the Taliban ended an unprecedented ceasefire and resumed attacks in several parts of the country.

Exhausted after their 700km 38-day trek, most of it during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the marchers walked double-file through the Afghan capital shouting “We want peace!” and “Stop fighting!”

“We want our people to stay united for peace and get rid of this misery for the next generation,” one of the marchers, Mohammad Naikzad, said.

“I am calling on both sides, the government and the Taliban, for God’s sake, find a way for peace.”

The Taliban refused to extend its three-day ceasefire beyond Sunday night despite pressure from ordinary people, the government and the international community.

Their fighters attacked security forces in the eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghman, and in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, officials said. There were few details on casualties.

The governor of Ghani Khel district in Nangarhar was shot dead and his bodyguard wounded yesterday, provincial governor’s spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said.

Defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh said there had been fighting in nine provinces since the end of the Taliban’s ceasefire, with 12 soldiers killed or wounded.

About 2 500 Taliban fighters entered Kabul during the three-day ceasefire and most had refused to return to the battlefield, Radmanesh said.

“They are tired of war and have given up fighting, but our security and defence forces are ready to prevent and respond to any threat,” he said.

The peace march, believed to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan, grew out of a sit-in protest and hunger strike in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand which is a Taliban stronghold.

That demonstration, begun after a car bomb attack in the city on March 23, triggered similar movements by war-weary Afghans nationwide.

They are calling for an extended ceasefire, peace talks and a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan, also a key demand of the Taliban.