President Hamid Karzai has offered an amnesty to rank-and-file Taleban but the man in charge of efforts to persuade insurgents to give up said the offer would also apply to group leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and another anti-government militant chief, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

“We want peace with everyone, without exception,” former president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi told a news conference, when asked about Omar and Hekmatyar.

“They can put their guns down on the ground, accept the constitution of Afghanistan and obey the government,” he said.

Spokesmen for the government, which has previously said the amnesty would not cover militants associated with atrocities or Al Qaeda, were not immediately available for comment.

Omar is among the Islamic militants most wanted by the United States.

US forces have been hunting him, Hekmatyar and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden since invading Afghanistan and driving the Taleban from power in late 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The United States wholeheartedly supported the government amnesty programme but it was not open to everyone, a US military spokesman said.

“It’s not a general amnesty,” said the spokesman, Colonel Jim Yonts, while declining to comment on what Mojaddedi had said.

“Those who have committed serious crimes are responsible for their actions and are not eligible for the programme,” he said.

More attacks

Reconciliation talks between the government and some former Taleban officials have been held, but with little apparent progress.

Several Taleban members have given up in recent months, including some local-level commanders, but there has been no sign that defections were blunting the insurgency.

Rebels have launched a string of attacks in recent weeks after a winter lull raised hope they might be struggling to find recruits and resources and their fight might be fading.

Among the latest casualties were two US Marines, killed in a clash in the east of the country on Sunday. US-led forces responded with ground and air attacks, killing 11 insurgents, according to police and a US spokeswoman said.

A Taleban official, speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, claimed responsibility for the death of the Marines.

“We have asked our Taleban to step up attacks on coalition forces. The first targets are the US and British,” the rebel official said.

In Kabul, a bomb, which authorities suspect was detonated by a suicide attacker, killed three people in an Internet cafe at the weekend, including a U.N. worker from Myanmar.

About 60 insurgents and 10 soldiers and police were killed in two clashes last week in the south of the country, the US military said. Taleban spokesmen denied such high casualties, saying most of the dead were villagers.

They have rejected the amnesty offer as propaganda and said their war against foreign troops and the US-backed government would go on.

US and Afghan opposition forces drove the Taleban from power after they refused to hand over bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11 attacks.