KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) – A second former top Taliban official said Saturday that he will be a candidate in Afghan legislative elections, while the country’s president urged more women to take part in the polls.

Mullah Mohammed Khaksar, the former deputy interior minister for the ousted Taliban regime, said he would run as an independent candidate in the September elections. Khaksar secretly contacted the United States in 1999 to seek American help in stopping the Taliban, and renounced the fundamentalist movement after its collapse in 2001.

“I want to again serve my people,” he told reporters in the southern city of Kandahar. “I want to support the government and have good relations with the international community,” he said.

On Tuesday, a former Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who is considered a relative moderate, also nominated himself as a candidate in Kandahar.

The Afghan government has recently reached out to Taliban members to lay down their weapons and rejoin civil society. Several midlevel Taliban commanders have accepted the offer, but the insurgency continues to produce heavy clashes.

The September polls will elect both a new national legislature and new provincial assemblies.

At least a quarter of all seats in the legislature and the provincial assemblies have been reserved for women, who were banned from all public life under the Taliban’s rule.

While 285 women have enrolled as candidates to compete for seats in the 249-seat national legislature, few have signed up for the provincial elections, despite urging from President Hamid Karzai.

AP-ES-05-21-05 2039EDT

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