The report states that ISI officials met with Siraj Haqqani, leader of the Haqqni network, a prominent Afghan insurgent group. “Highly placed intelligence sources”

said that the subject of discussion in the meeting was the shifting of Haqqanis operations from North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan to Afghanistan in exchange for ceasefire with Pakistan army and to halt military operations if the Haqqanis moves their operations from the NWFP into Afghanistan.

Another topic was the construction of the Khost-Gardez road being built by Indian company in Afghanistan. The ISI urged Haqqanis to sabotage efforts by the Indian government to help Afghanistan government to build the Khost-Gardez road.

Let’s give TimesNow the benefit of the doubt and assume that by “highly placed intelligence sources” they mean on the Indian side, not the ISI! The article says that the ISI was trying to get the Haqqanis to shift operations from NWFP to Afghanistan, which is absurd on many levels:

1) The Haqqanis have never operated in NWFP. No one has even accused them of this. The Haqqanis operate out of Waziristan, which is in FATA, not NWFP.

2) They are trying to convince the Haqqanis to focus on Afghanistan-which is the only place they’ve ever directed attacks! There has never been a recorded instance of the Haqqanis attacking inside Pakistan.

3) They want a ceasefire with the Haqqanis-but the Haqqanis are not fighting with Pakistan! There has never been any record of the Haqqinis ever fighting with Pakistan. The author of the article might be confusing Haqqani with Baitullah Mehsud and the Pakistani Taliban.

This all is as absurd as saying India had a secret meeting with the Tamil Tigers to convince them to stop fighting in India and direct their fire against the Sri Lankan government.

The Taliban doesn’t want to win power? Are we expecting the Talibs to just go back to their villages and plant wheat once the foreigners leave? Zaif is either lying to Reuters or he is lying to himself. Even most Taliban would probably laugh at this assessment.

Khalid, whose group generally acted as the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) representative in Mohmand, was one of the highest-ranking leaders in the Pakistani Taliban movement. He was a close ally to Faqir Muhammad of the Bajaur agency, who in turn has been linked to Zawahiri. He has led fighters into Afghanistan to attack US forces there, according to several reports.

The Long War Journal describes Khalid’s career trajectory:

Khalid became the dominant Taliban commander in Mohmand in July 2008 after defeating the Shah Sahib group, a rival pro-Taliban terror group. Khalid’s forces killed 10 members of the Shah Sahib group and captured another 80. Among those killed were Muslim Khan, the leader of the Shah Sahib group, and Mullah Obaidullah, the deputy leader. The groups reconciled after Baitullah Mehsud ordered an end to the fighting.

The Shah Sahib group consists of fighters of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, which operates in Mohmand and across the border in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. The Lashkar-e-Taiba took part in the July 13 attack on a US outpost across the border in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province, and has conducted numerous high-profile terror attacks inside Pakistan, Kashmir, and India, including the November 2008 terror assault in Mumbai.

We still don’t have official confirmation of Khalid’s death, however

Transport workers in Mardan town received letters this week from militants saying that buses offering such entertainment were guilty of spreading “vulgarity and obscenity,” Walid Mir, general secretary of the town’s transport union, told The Associated Press.

The militants said they would check the buses and that suicide attacks would be carried out against vehicles that still had audio and video equipment — prompting union members to act quickly, Mir said.

Meanwhile, TNSM is strengthening its grasp of Swat. The Daily Times in Pakistan (via the MEMRI blog) reports that women are no longer allowed in the central market. And while we’re at it, we might as well mention that the Pakistani Taliban forced a popular Pashtun comedian to renounce his work, MEMRI tells us.

Lovely.

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

What’s your opinion of the Mujeddedi commission?
Mujaddedi’s commission is in name only. He is only acting when he talks about bringing in the Taliban. He’s with America and Karzai as well. They are sick and being kept alive be US money. They keep saying we will shoot the Taliban. On the one hand they say that Pakistan supports Taliban. On the other hand they that the Afghan people don’t have any interest with or in the Taliban. So how can I join with someone who says this?

If National Front come to an agreement with you will you stop fighting?
We want only Islamic law. And we will support Islam always. Rabbani said: Bomb the Taliban, so how can I join with the National Front? We will never negotiate with anyone, not with the National Front, not with Karzai, not with Mujaddedi, not anyone. They are not Muslim, they do bad things and they are not moral. They brought the foreigners here, so what difference is there between them and foreigners? We are not ready to negotiate with anyone until foreigners leave Afghanistan.

What is the difference between National Front and Karzai?
There’s no difference between Karzai, the National Front, and foreigners. When the foreigners came and said “Muslims are our brothers” Then why don’t they change their religion? They should follow Muslim laws.