Governors to discuss more control of American operations

KANDAHAR, Afghan-istan -- Southern Afghan governors began gathering Sunday for a regional meeting that could endorse or reject a proposal to require U.S. troops to seek their permission before striking suspected al-Qaida and Taliban units in the region.

But a local official said at least three of the six governors invited would not attend, casting doubt on the proposal by Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai to give the governors greater control over U.S. military movements. The United States has opposed the idea.

Sherzai called the meeting also to discuss his proposal to create a 500-man rapid reaction force, drawing on fighters from the six southern provinces, and a 3,000-man border control force. He said both would help U.S. troops fight al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Closed meeting

The evening meeting at Sherzai's residence in Kandahar was closed to the media and some attendees said no information would be available until Monday.

Sherzai's plans, outlined to The Associated Press on Friday, were partly in response to a July 1 U.S. air strike in the Afghan province of Uruzgan that, the national government said, killed 48 civilians and injured 117. The Americans believed they were attacking Taliban forces there.

Sherzai and the governors of five other provinces - Helmand, Uruzgan, Farah, Zabul and Nimroz -- were invited to the meeting. But Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his special envoy to Kandahar, said at least three governors were too busy to attend.

He said only Sherzai and the governor of Farah, which borders Iran, were in Kandahar to attend the meeting as of Sunday afternoon. It was not clear whether the governor of the desert province of Nimroz, which also borders Iran, would attend.

Karzai said that, without the governors of Helmand and Uruzgan, which have large pockets of Taliban remnants, and the governor of Zabul, which borders Pakistan, Sherzai's proposals could not be approved.

"He is not in a position to do such a thing," Karzai said in an interview at his Kandahar home.

He said the idea of a border control force could be a positive one but it would have to be controlled by the central government, not southern governors.

He also said his brother's government would oppose forcing U.S. soldiers to seek permission prior to raids.

"We need the U.S. to lead us and we will follow and support them," he said.

Warm welcome

Karzai said the U.S. soldiers based near Kandahar are as important to regional stability as they are to fighting the Taliban and said he was eager to show them a warm welcome.

He said southern Afghanistan could erupt in feuding between regional warlords and their private armies, as in the years before the Taliban's rise to power, if the United States left abruptly.

Reacting to Sherzai's proposal to require the United States to seek permission before raids, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, Maj. Ralph Mills, said earlier that the United States will continue close cooperation with the Afghan government. However, he said the Afghans will not be allowed to control operations.

"We have coordinated with the Afghan government over and over again and will continue to do so -- this doesn't really change anything," Mills said. "However, if it's a situation of imminent danger, we are going to continue to do what we believe is right and take action appropriately."

Sherzai's proposals, if adopted, could bolster the power of the ethnic Pashtun leadership in the south, the homeland of the ousted Taliban regime.