ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents rejected an offer of talks from Kabul Monday and threatened for the first time to strike a target in the West, suggesting many years of violent conflict to come.

The United States also shot down the Afghan government proposal and said it wouldn't support such an initiative -- worsening the strain in U.S.-Afghan relations.

The major beneficiary of the dispute appears to be the Taliban, which said it wouldn't come to the negotiating table until all foreign troops have left Afghanistan, as it vowed in a videotape to strike in Paris unless coalition member France withdraws its forces.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who launched the peace move, offered to hold direct negotiations with the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and to guarantee him safe passage.

Karzai on Sunday challenged the U.S.-led international coalition to ``remove me, or leave if they disagree.''

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Monday slapped down the idea.

''One can't imagine the circumstances where you have the senior leadership of the Taliban -- that there would be any safe passage with respect to U.S. forces. Certainly, it's hard to imagine those circumstances standing here right now,'' McCormack said.

There have been no reported sightings of Omar, a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

But Omar's brother and deputy leader of the Taliban, Mullah Brother, scorned the proposal Monday.

''As long as foreign occupiers remain in Afghanistan, we aren't ready for talks because they hold the power, and talks won't bear fruit. . . . The problems in Afghanistan are because of them,'' Brother told the Reuters news agency by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

''We are safe in Afghanistan, and we have no need for Hamid Karzai's offer of safety,'' he added.

Despite Brother's assertion, most intelligence suggests that top Taliban leadership are based in Pakistan in and around the southwestern city of Quetta.

U.S. authorities have put a $10 million bounty on Omar's head. When Omar's Taliban militia ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 until they were toppled in the U.S. invasion, they provided a sanctuary to bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders.

A Western military official who shuttles between Afghanistan and Pakistan and couldn't be named because of the sensitivity of the subject said Karzai's offer may really have been aimed at lesser Taliban figures.

''There is thought put into these statements. It's to see if anyone nibbles at this,'' the official said. ``To those Taliban who are becoming war-weary, it may plant the seed of dissension.''

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