Government offers reward for turning in Taliban

Afghanistan's government Saturday offered the equivalent of 40,000 dollars in return for information on Taliban militants who have infiltrated the capital Kabul, the interior ministry said. Scores of people in the capital have been killed in five suicide car bomb attacks in the past two months as the Taliban intensify their insurgency amid a political crisis following presidential elections on August 20.
"People who provide information leading to the arrest of these people will be awarded two millions afghanis (40,000 dollars) by the interior ministry," it said in a statement. "It is the responsibility of every patriotic Afghan" to inform police if they suspect insurgents are living or operating in their neighbourhoods, it said. The government's reward offer hints at the spreading presence of the insurgents inside the capital, which is heavily fortified and yet as the recent attacks show, increasingly vulnerable to attack.