ISLAMABAD, April 7 Kyodo The Afgh...

ISLAMABAD, April 7 Kyodo

The Afghan Taliban have threatened strict punishment for those taking part in elections scheduled in September, Afghan Islamic Pres (AIP) reported Wednesday.

The Pakistan-based moderns agency said newspapers in Peshawar received a faxed statement Tuesday by way of a Taliban spokesman urging Afghans to boycott the elections to be held beneath the aegis of a UN-broker agreement reached in Bonn in 2001

The statement warned the Taliban would monitor the activities of those taking part in elections and they would be punished for taking part in a plan that asks to change ''the independent and Islamic character of Afghanistan.''

The statement charged the United States, with throngs deployed in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and several other countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, was trying to impose a constitution of its confess design on occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

''The United States is seeking to eliminate all independent states and independent governments'' in the Islamic world, the statement said.

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