The Taliban is vowing to force NATO troops to leave Afghanistan before 2014, the Western military alliance's target date for handing off security to Afghan government forces.
The 28-nation alliance agreed Saturday to begin giving the Afghan government control over security in some regions as early as next year, with plans for a full handover by the end of 2014.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that some soldiers with the International Security Assistance Force will remain in Afghanistan past 2014, both in combat and training roles.
But Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid emailed a message to reporters on Sunday, in which he said the Taliban "will not remain silent even for a single night until and unless the goal of complete freedom and the formation of an independent government is achieved. They will not wait for the time of implementation of a given decision or timetable of withdrawal."
In his email, Mujahid did not address offers from Afghan President Hamid Karzai to engage in peace talks, which have been repeatedly rebuffed by hard-line Taliban.
Karzai recently formed a 70-member High Peace Council in an attempt to broker a political solution to the ongoing insurgency. However, the Taliban have vowed to kill any member or follower who negotiates with government officials.
Mujahid predicted that NATO will fail to establish a stable government in Afghanistan by 2014 and said the Taliban have devised their own government policy framework should they successfully take control of the country.
"In the past nine years, the invaders could not establish any system of governance in Kabul and they will never be able to do so in future," Mujahid said, adding that until 2014 "various untoward and tragic events and battles will take place as a result of this meaningless, imposed and unwinnable war."
Canada is to pull its army battle group out of the embattled southern province of Kandahar in July, 2011, ending an Afghan mission that began in 2002.
However, Ottawa announced this week that it will keep roughly 950 soldiers and support staff in Afghanistan past the scheduled end to the combat mission in the country. The remaining personnel are to be brought home in March 2014, several months before NATO plans to have its security handover completed.
NDP leader Jack Layton told CTV's Question Period on Sunday that there are no guarantees that Prime Minister Stephen Harper won't extend the mission even further.
"Why should we believe him now? I remember when he said 2011 was the absolute limit; end of the military mission; we're out of there … and now they're saying 2014. I don't think anyone believes them."
Layton also criticized the announcement of the extended deployment, saying the issue should have been put to a vote in Parliament.
"I think Canadians want to see a vote on this sort of thing … When troops are deployed, there should be votes in the House of Commons," he said.
Canadian aid with conditions
Before the Taliban made public its vow to keep up attacks on coalition troops, Harper closed a NATO summit in Portugal on Saturday by telling reporters that the Afghan government doesn't deserve a "dime" of direct foreign aid money until it cleans up its act on combating corruption.
Karzai has asked NATO leaders and coalition partners to step up the flow of the billions of aid dollars to his government instead of filtering it through international organizations operating in the country.
But in his toughest criticism yet of the Afghan president, Harper indicated at the two-day summit that Canadian aid will not come without conditions.
"We will not dispense a dime to the government of Afghanistan unless we are convinced that that money is spent in the way it's intended to be spent," Harper said.
The prime minister told reporters that it is no secret Afghanistan's government has "challenges."
"But addressing those challenges can not stand in the way of the necessity, the absolute necessity of addressing the core reason of why we went into Afghanistan. And that is assuring that Afghanistan is a secure enough state capable of handling its own security so it does not again become a global threat. That is job number one."
With files from The Associated Press
