Taliban attack as Karzai opens Afghan peace bid

Taliban suicide commandos attacked a huge gathering of Afghan elders and notables on Wednesday just as President Hamid Karzai launched an ambitious peace plan he hopes will persuade the insurgents to lay down their arms.

Officials said three rockets aimed at a vast tent where the traditional jirga (gathering) was being held fell short, and security officials clashed with an unknown number of gunmen -- one who blew himself up with a bomb.

Sporadic firing could still be heard an hour after the initial attack, Reuters witnesses at the scene said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for athe attacks on the landmark gathering.

"We have four suicide attackers placed on the top of a tall building near the jirga tent. They are threatening the jirga tent," Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, told AFP by telephone.

"They are using rockets, they have small arms and have strapped explosives to their bodies," he said

"Everyone is used to this"

Unpopular at home despite an election victory last year that was mired in controversy, Karzai called the jirga of tribal leaders, elders and other notables to forge national consensus for overtures to the Taliban.

But minutes after he began unveiling his plans, the first rocket landed in an open field near the giant marquee in the west of the capital, Kabul.

"Sit down, nothing will happen," Karzai, who has survived at least three assassination attempts, told nervous delegates as some stood to leave. "I have become used to this. Everyone is used to this."

Karzai finished his speech and left in a convoy of armored vehicles as helicopters hovered overhead.

Earlier in his speech, Karzai condemned the Taliban, who are waging an insurgency against Karzai's government and have not been invited to the jirga.

Karzai brought together 1,600 leaders from across Afghanistan, seeking national consensus on how to end nearly nine years of war and persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms.

About 12,000 security personnel will be guarding the three-day "peace jirga" against possible attack by the Taliban, who have dismissed it as a propaganda stunt.

The conference got under way with a recitation from the Koran followed by the national anthem in a huge air-conditioned tent in Kabul's southeastern suburbs that was festooned with Afghanistan's green, red and black flag.

The attack is carried out by our fighters

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban

3rd conference since 2001

Hundreds of bearded men in tribal dress and turbans sat in rows and a portrait of Karzai hung above the blue-carpeted stage with a shield carrying the words National Consultative Peace Jirga written in Dari and Pashto.

Women delegates, who at 300 account about 20 percent of the total, were mostly seated in a separate section as Afghanistan's conservative social mores traditionally keep women apart from men to whom they are not related.

The meeting is the third such conference uniting Afghanistan's complex mix of ethnic, tribal, religious, geographical and gender interests since the Taliban were toppled in 2001.

"The goal of the jirga is to seek ways for a lasting peace in Afghanistan," said Mohammad Zahir Faiz-zada, who heads the delegation from the relatively peaceful western province of Herat.

But critics have warned that the outcome is likely to prove limited.

Taliban leaders -- who insist they will not hold peace talks until foreign troops are off Afghan soil -- issued a statement Tuesday condemning the jirga.

"The foreign invading forces and their surrogates utilize this consultative jirga only as a propaganda stunt and wrongly (paint) it as a representative body of the Afghans," the Taliban said.

The jirga is being held after al-Qaeda announced the death of its number three leader and Afghanistan operations chief Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, believed to have been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan late last month.

"Behind closed doors"

Abdullah Abdullah, who was Karzai's main opponent in last year's fraud-tainted presidential election, said he would not attend the assembly as "the agenda has been decided behind closed doors".

Karzai's Western allies, led by the United States, have expressed support for the jirga as a milestone in Afghanistan's political maturity.

With Western public appetite waning for a war that has killed almost 1,800 foreign troops and shows no sign of abating, they would like to see progress before an international conference set for late July in Kabul.

The number of U.S. and NATO troops will peak at 150,000 by August as part of a strategy designed to reverse Taliban momentum and boost government authority in southern Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants to start drawing down troops from mid-2011.

The event is expected to end on Friday with a declaration on what steps should be taken to end the insurgency, what groups should be included in the process and how they should be approached.

The role of Afghanistan's neighbors -- particularly Iran and Pakistan -- is considered vital to the success of any peace talks.