Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a surprise overture to the ousted Taliban on Sunday, inviting them to vote in September elections, and said his government was trying to negotiate peace with the insurgents.

But a top Taliban commander, Mullah Dadullah, swiftly rejected Karzai's invitation and repeated a threat to disrupt the country's first-ever presidential and parliamentary polls, denying the Taliban were in talks with the government.

Karzai's offer to the Islamist regime evicted from power by US-led forces in 2001 follows a wave of Taliban attacks in the south and southeast that have hampered efforts by UN officials to register millions of voters for elections.

"They are Afghanistan's people," Karzai said, referring to the Taliban. "They can go for registering their votes and take part in the elections and do what they want to do," he told a news conference while on a visit to Kandahar.

Kandahar is a former Taliban bastion and the birthplace of Karzai, who survived an assassination attempt by a suspected Taliban member there in 2002.

"We will increase our efforts to derail the elections and will kill whoever participates in it," Dadullah told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

The man, an Afghan, was picked on a street that leads to Karzai's village, police said. As Karzai spoke to reporters, a Taliban spokesman said the guerrillas had ambushed a government military convoy in Shah Wali Kot, about 19 miles outside Kandahar city. Local officials were not immediately available to comment.

Suspending voter registration

A series of attacks and explosions before the weekend in Kandahar province forced the United Nations to suspend voter registrations briefly in the area, UN spokesman David Singh told a news conference in Kabul Sunday.

About 1.8 million out of Afghanistan's 10 million eligible voters have registered for the polls in September, which had been postponed from June because of security fears.

The US military said Saturday the Taliban appeared intent on influencing voting in the south and east through attacks on targets such as local politicians and Afghan security forces, and said violence in Kandahar was picking up.

Karzai, the favorite in the elections, also faces factional clashes in the north by regional militia commanders.

Without giving details or revealing any Taliban identities, Karzai reiterated that his government was "in talks with some Taliban leaders."

"There are only 100 or 150 (Taliban) who with the aid of others want to destroy this country. The rest are all ordinary people and may God bring them and settle them in their own country," he said.

But Dadullah said the Taliban were not talking to Karzai's government. "He (Karzai) wants to create a schism among the Taliban. I myself have 500 fighters among my command alone. We have a strong force," he said.

After their ouster, the Taliban declared a jihad, or holy war, on foreign and Afghan government troops and aid organizations. More than 650 people have died in violence since August last year, much of it blamed on the resurgent Taliban.

Dadullah reiterated that Taliban militants, who are being hunted by about 15,500 US-led foreign troops, would target both international and local aid workers in Afghanistan.

(China Daily April 26, 2004)