AFGHANISTAN

the star: Oust foreigners, Afghans urged

Warlord vows to fight U.S. troops

Recorded message sent to media

ISLAMABAD—In his first video message since returning to Afghanistan last year, rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar urges Afghans to "cut off the hands of the foreign meddlers" and drive all American and other foreign troops from the country.

Hekmatyar, who led one of the factions in Afghanistan's civil war a decade ago, mocked the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai as unscrupulous opportunists who are "fighting their own people under the command of foreigners.''

"I invite all Afghan factions to come and forget our differences ... and oust the foreign troops, cut off the hands of the foreign meddlers," Hekmatyar said, speaking in Pashtu.

The video, on a compact disc received yesterday by Associated Press in Pakistan, underlines the resistance still facing U.S. troops as they try to bring order to Afghanistan 1 1/2 years after the Taliban regime and its Al Qaeda allies were ousted.