Karzai discounts threat from Taliban; 2 coalition soldiers die in new offensive

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban do not pose a long-term threat to Afghanistan's stability, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Karzai spoke after the release on Pakistani television of an audio recording purportedly of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar saying the Afghan government did not have the wisdom to solve the nation's crisis.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said two coalition soldiers had been killed in combat that also left about 45 militants dead.

U.S.-led forces are waging their largest anti-Taliban offensive to date across southern Afghanistan to quash the deadliest campaign of militant violence since the Islamists' ouster in 2001.

The recording aired by independent Pakistan station Geo TV was apparently made during a recent meeting of Taliban leaders in Helmand province, the network said.

"They cannot solve the issue of Afghanistan based on their wisdom and thinking," said the speaker purported to be Omar.

The station reported that the recording also included Omar's claim that the Taliban control large areas of the country. Geo said the recording came in an e-mail from purported Taliban figures in the capital, Kabul.

Omar last was heard from in July 2005, when he vowed that the Taliban would continue to fight coalition forces.

Karzai did not comment on the tape's authenticity during an interview with CNN. But he said if Omar is "really in charge," he should emerge from hiding and "face the danger that he is causing to hundreds of young people in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

"It needs guts to do what he's talking about, and he doesn't have it," Karzai told "Late Edition."

Omar led the Taliban in the capture of Kabul in 1996. After the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, an American-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his group.

Karzai said Omar and the Taliban do not represent a threat to his government.

"They exist in the form of attacking schools, attacking children, killing innocent people," he said. "They are no match for our power."

The two coalition soldiers died at a hospital after they were wounded during a four-hour gunbattle Saturday, the U.S.-led coalition said. Another coalition soldier was wounded.

The identities of the slain soldiers were not released.

The coalition estimates about 250 insurgents have been killed since an operation began this month to stop a wave of suicide attacks and ambushes.

In eastern Afghanistan, a police official said five Afghan aid workers were released after having been held captive since Thursday.

The five, including two doctors and an employee of a Swedish aid organization, had traveled to inaugurate a health clinic in a remote village and on the return trip were kidnapped in a mountainous area. No details were released about their captors.