Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Washington — As President Obama prepares to unveil his long-deliberated war strategy, the Taliban's supreme commander declared Wednesday that U.S.-led forces would find only defeat, dishonor and "a bed of thorns" in Afghanistan.
The statement came as the White House announced that Obama will deliver a televised speech about the war Tuesday from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is expected to announce higher troop levels for Afghanistan and detail a plan for ultimately withdrawing U.S. forces.
"We're in the ninth year of our efforts in Afghanistan," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in announcing the speech, which will air at 5 p.m. "The president will want to walk through his decision-making process and give people a sense of the importance of our efforts, but reiterate for them that the president does not see this as an open-ended engagement.
"Our time there will be limited," Gibbs said, "and I think that's important for people to understand."
The Taliban warning, contained in a statement by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the movement's reclusive leader, was issued on the eve of one of the year's most important Muslim holidays, Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice. It marks the end of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that is made by millions of observant Muslims.
In his missive, which was punctuated by the flowery phrases and high-flown rhetoric typically employed in such messages, Omar urged Afghans to disavow the "puppet" government of President Hamid Karzai, who was sworn in last week to a second term after an election clouded by massive vote-rigging.
"Break off all relations with the stooge administration in Kabul!" Omar urged, saying that the Karzai government was a partner to "the evil process of colonization and occupation."
The Taliban leader also denounced Karzai's calls for Taliban fighters and commanders to lay down their arms and join in the political process, an appeal that has the broad backing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Western governments.
Omar, a one-eyed village cleric who rose to the leadership of the Taliban movement more than a dozen years ago, has a $25-million bounty on his head.
He disappeared soon after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and is thought to have his headquarters in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
