<

Taliban See Flood of Volunteers
Tuesday, October 30, 2001
(12:00 AM CT)
By Niko Price / The Associated Press

"My mother sent me to fight for our faith," Farooq Shah, 21, told the Associated Press in the Pakistani town of Temergarah. Shah said his mother sold her jewelry to buy him a Kalashnikov rifle.

From South Africa to Britain, and from many parts of the Arab world, hundreds of Muslims are booking flights, boarding ships and hitching rides on rickety trucks, trying to get into Afghanistan.

Their goal: to fight for the Taliban against the United States.

But the Taliban say they don't need the help -- yet.

"We have to turn down their requests, because the ground battles have not started," the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said Monday. "At this stage, there being only air assaults in Afghanistan, there is no need and there is great danger."
(More: KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News Source)
2001 © The Associated Press.

Dan