Prevent your cities from getting damaged

The Taliban do not want to battle government forces inside Afghanistan's cities and would rather see them surrender, a senior insurgent leader said Tuesday, as the militants also warned Turkey against extending its troop presence. 

The hardline Islamist group has swept through much of the north as foreign troops complete their withdrawal, and the government now holds little more than a constellation of provincial capitals that must largely be resupplied by air.

On Tuesday, the head of a Taliban commission that oversees government forces who surrender urged residents of Afghanistan's cities to reach out to them.

"Now that the fighting from mountains and deserts has reached the doors of the cities, Mujahiddin (Taliban) don't want fighting inside the city," Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a message tweeted by a Taliban spokesman.

"It is better... to use any possible channel to get in touch with our invitation and guidance commission," he said, adding this would "prevent their cities from getting damaged".

The strategy is one well-worn by the Taliban -- particularly during their first rise to power in the 1990s -- cutting off towns and district centres and getting elders to negotiate a surrender.

Hours after Muttaqi's message, a rush hour blast in the centre of the Afghan capital killed four civilians and wounded five others, police said.  

In a separate statement yesterday, the Taliban said Turkey's decision to provide security to Kabul airport when US-led forces leave was "reprehensible". "We consider stay of foreign forces in our homeland by any country under whatever pretext as occupation," the group said, days after Ankara agreed with Washington to provide security for Kabul airport.