Anand Gopal

On an evening this past spring, near midnight, a land cruiser pulled up to the house of a government official in Kandahar city. The vehicles carried a senior Taleban figure, sent by Mullah Omar, and some tribal elders. That night the group met secretly with a leading Afghan official and discussed the course of the war and the prospects for negotiations. After the meeting the Taliban figure moved to a hideout outside of the city, before eventually disappearing across the border into Pakistan.

It was typical of the types of contacts that have been occurring between senior Taleban leaders and Afghan officials for years. There have been scores of clandestine meetings between the warring sides, sometimes simply to establish a rapport and sometimes in an attempt to build a more substantive dialogue. These include leaders meeting Afghan officials on their own initiative in some cases, and in others Mullah Omar or the entire senior leadership sending representatives. Thus when NATO and US officials announced recently that there have been attempts by the Taleban to reach out to the Afghan government, it should not be seen as a shift in the insurgents’ approach. Rather, by recognizing these attempts, it is Washington that is changing course. Nor are the contacts a sign that actual negotiations are near; rather, their recognition merely signals Western fears that mission failure is afoot.

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KABUL — The U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan government are launching an initiative to persuade Taliban insurgents to lay down their weapons, offering jobs and protection to the militants who choose to abandon their fight.

While President Hamid Karzai’s government has been trying to woo these insurgents for years, the new program marks the first time that the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces are systematically reaching out to Taliban fighters.

The tactic comes as the U.S. prepares to announce Tuesday how many additional troops it will send to Afghanistan as part of a new strategy aimed at bringing the eight-year war to a successful end. U.S. officials also hope America’s European allies will raise their troop contributions as part of the new push.
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Promises of cash and jobs–rather than ideological pledges–help prompt fighters to lay down their arms. But questions remain about the program’s efficiency.

Alasay, Afghanistan - Deep in a mountain valley north of Kabul, Gulab Shah and his fellow insurgents were under siege. It was mid-March, and a French-led military offensive had been pounding their village night after night. A few of his comrades managed to escape into the surrounding mountains, but most were killed.

In the midst of these battles, a progovernment tribal leader met with Mr. Shah’s men and made them an appealing offer: Stop fighting, and we will give you amnesty and a job. The men cautiously accepted.

They joined a program aimed at reconciling rank-and-file insurgents with the government, an initiative that figures to be a central component in the Obama administration’s strategy to stabilize this country. Local tribal elders credit this reconciliation process, together with the French-led military offensive, for a stark turnaround in the security situation here.

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The Haqqani Network has agreed to discuss a peace proposal with government-backed mediators.

Kabul, Afghanistan - As the Obama administration ponders reaching out to moderate Afghan insurgents, Kabul has opened preliminary negotiations with the country’s most dangerous rebel faction, the Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network.

The group is accused of masterminding some of the most brazen attacks here in recent years, and a deal with them will likely be key to ending the war.

“If the Haqqanis can be drawn into the negotiation process,” says Kabul-based political analyst Waheed Muzjda, “it would be a serious sign that the insurgents are open to one day making a deal.”

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In Afghanistan, the US and NATO reassess their strategy amid concerns that their efforts are failing.

Kabul, Afghanistan - The Afghan government and its allies are reconciling with moderates and isolating hard-liners in a bid to split the insurgency, Western and Afghan officials say.

The idea of wooing moderates has gained traction as violence in Afghanistan has reached record levels this year. The United States and NATO are reassessing their strategy amid a growing chorus of Western officials who say that the international effort here is failing.

“Some ministries have started a program to try to separate Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” says Ursala Rahmani, a former Taliban official who has been involved in talks with the government. Mr. Rahmani says that the Interior and Defense ministries are involved in the effort.

“We are trying to exploit the natural tensions that exist between Al Qaeda and those under Mullah Omar,” the fugitive leader of the Taliban, adds a senior intelligence officer with the international forces, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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It looks like we have some confirmation of last week’s post on Hekmatyar’s letter to Karzai. The Afghan online news site Quqnoos is reporting that the President is indeed close to opening talks. Might we see a return of Hekmatyar to the Afghan government? The last time Hekmatyar held a government post, you might recall, he was much too busy shelling Kabul and murdering Afghans to attend to his government duties.

The Quqnoos story in full:

PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai’s office says it is “optimistic” about striking a peace-deal with the leader of one of the country’s most hard-line Islamic groups, Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), whose leader is on the US’s most wanted list of “terrorists”.

The president’s spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said today (Tuesday) that there was fresh optimism about the possibility of holding talks with HIA’s leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is frequently accused of collusion with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“We are optimistic to have some developments for you in the near or far future,” Hamidzada said.

The spokesman was answering questions about claims that sources close to Hekmatyar said recently that the HIA leader planned to hold talks with Kabul in the near future.

Hekmatyar, who founded HIA in the mid-1970s, has reportedly tried to open negotiations with the Karzai government for the past four years. His group was long-considered one of the most radical Islamist groups before the emergence of the Taliban.

Hamidzada also said the president welcomed talks between Pakistan’s new coalition government and the Pakistani Taliban, although talks between the two sides recently broke down when the government refused to withdraw troops from the country’s tribal areas.

In April 2002, the US Central Intelligence Agency tried and failed to kill Hekmatyar with an unmanned predator drone.

Four years later, he was wrongly reported as captured before he allegedly took credit for Al-Qaeda leader Osma bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora during the US-led invasion of 2001.

In 2003, the US government blacklisted HIA a “terrorist” organisation and the UN put its leader’s name on a list of people accused of supporting the Taliban.

In related news, CBS has a video a interesting new interview with Hekmatyar, which you can watch it in full here - just after the ad for the new Buick Enclave.

As bullets flew and MPs scampered on Sunday, many wondered how insurgents were able to penetrate such tight security. The Taliban claims that they didn’t intend to kill Karzai, but of course you wouldn’t expect them to say otherwise. However, if history is any guide, they might actually be telling the truth. During the last presidential elections the guerrillas curiously avoided attacking polling stations, a clear sign that they would rather have Karzai in power than a Northern Alliance commander or other such unknown quantity.

The prolific Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times Online claims that the Haqqani Network and Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami engineered Sunday’s attack. If true, it might suggest another reason why the attackers may have been content to just turn the heat up a bit and not actually try to kill the President. On Saturday a well-placed source (a former Taliban official who is now in close contact with Rabbani of the Northern Alliance and Mr. Karzai) told me that Hekmatyar sent a letter to Karzai in an attempt to open negotiations. The letter reads, in part:

I have devoted my whole life to struggle, but I am now old. I only want what is best for my country of Afghanistan.

Hekmatyar goes on to ask Karzai to remove all foreign troops from urban centers. It isn’t clear what Hekmatyar says he will do in return, but the obvious inference would be that he’d lay down his arms and accept a post in the next government. The existence of such a letter fits well with the latest rumor on the Afghan street: Hekmatyar is angling to join the government (a rumor most recently spread by Zaynab TV)

How seriously can we take all this? The letter comes at an interesting time - see my article about Hizb-i-Islami’s growing presence in the north. Antonio Giustozzi suggests that Hizb-i-Islami is flush with funds and is increasing activity in the north. Why would a letter like this come now? Surely Hekmatyar isn’t so out of touch to realize that his boys have got a long way to go before they can actually play for state power. Therefore he might be using his newfound wealth to force the Karzai government take him more seriously.

Or it might be, like everything else in Afghanistan, a dirty game of conceit, lies and misinformation.

For those that don’t know: more on Hekmatyar