ROME (AP) - Members of the opposition force fighting Afghanistan's Taliban rulers gathered Saturday to plot further steps in a reinvigorated effort to unify the country's ethnic and religious groups against the Taliban.
Field commanders in the anti-Taliban alliance met at a Rome hotel with a U.S. congressman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who said Afghans could count on a ``major aid package'' to rebuild their war-shattered country if they overthrew the Taliban and helped root out Osama bin Laden.
Rohrabacher, a California Republican, was in Rome with a congressional delegation that planned to meet Sunday with the country's former king, who is seeking to bring Afghans together to determine a more representative form of government.(Read photo caption)
A half-dozen members of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance also planned meetings with the monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who has lived in Italy since his 1973 ouster but is seen as a possible unifying figure in forming a transition government if the Taliban were to fall.
The alliance controls less than 10 percent of Afghanistan, but has recently been emboldened by U.S. threats to punish the Taliban unless they hand over bin Laden, named the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The aim of the Rome meetings was ``to find a way to establish a new government in Afghanistan that is acceptable after the Taliban,'' the head of the alliance delegation, Mohammed Younus Qanooni, said Saturday.
Zahir has met with several commanders from various Afghan groups at his Roman villa in the past week in a bid to rally them together. His office announced Friday that they had agreed to create a new military council made up of commanders, tribal elders and former army officers.
On Saturday, the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was quoted by the Iranian daily Entekhab as saying the 86-year-old Zahir was ``not capable'' of returning to Afghanistan because of his health.
But members of the anti-Taliban alliance, who passed the time between meetings lounging in a smoke-filled hotel bar watching news of their homeland, said the king was willing and able to play a very constructive role.
The king's 1973 overthrow led to the eventual arrival of a pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan and the 1979 Soviet invasion. Soviet troops withdrew in defeat in 1989, and the Taliban seized power in 1996 after devastating fighting between rival groups.
PHOTO CAPTION:
FILE-The former King of Afghanistan Mohammed Zahir Shah is shown in this November 1987 file photo. Restoring the Afghan monarchy is an old idea, rejuvenated by fears of U.S. military retaliation for the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon Sept. 11. (AP Photo/File)
- Sep 24 5:36 PM ET