Al-Qaeda wants a part of Afghan
talks By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - While the Taliban and the Afghan
administration of President Hamid Karzai play
political football with the idea of peace talks,
the stumbling block remains al-Qaeda, which is
firmly opposed to any dialogue unless it can gain
something for itself.
Over the past few
weeks, the Taliban have responded positively to
Karzai's offer of talks, but just when it appeared
there might be
progress, there's a setback.
Speaking on his return from the United
States on Saturday, Karzai said that he was ready
to meet Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, the leader of another insurgency group,
Hezb-e-Islami, for peace talks aimed at sharing
power.
But on Sunday, Qari Mohammad
Yousuf, a Taliban spokesman, was quoted by Reuters
as saying that peace talks with Kabul would not
take place as long as the more than 50,000 foreign
troops remained in the country. "The Karzai
government is a dummy government. It has no
authority so why should we waste our time and
effort?" Yousuf was quoted as saying. Previously,
the Taliban have said that they would talk without
preconditions, and they could well revert to this
position.
Coincidentally or not, Karzai
made his offer hours after one of the biggest bomb
attacks in six years killed 30 people in Kabul.
Karzai said that President George W Bush
and Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary
general, had both supported the idea of peace
talks when he met them in the US. Karzai said he
would allocate some government posts to the
Taliban and that both Hekmatyar and Mullah Omar
could stand in elections scheduled for 2009, if
they wanted power.
Although Karzai has
offered talks before, this was the first time
since the Taliban's ouster in 2001 that the
Washington-anointed leader had gone as far as to
effectively legitimize the insurgency.
Recently, several top Taliban commanders
met again in the Pakistani city of Quetta to hold
talks with the Afghan government through Afghan
tribal elders acting as go-betweens.
These
talks are claimed by the Karzai government as
proof of debate among Taliban commanders for
peace. However, what is overlooked is the
ideological strength of al-Qaeda, which has once
again wrested control of the hearts and minds of
the Taliban, at least in southeastern Afghanistan.
And until al-Qaeda's leaders are drawn into the
talks, any other dialogue is bound to fail.
Mushahid Hussain Syed, chairman of the
foreign relations committee of the Pakistani
Senate and also the powerful secretary general of
the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, told Asia Times
Online: "Only a year ago when I made the proposal
that if Mullah Omar is too hardline to talk too,
and the Afghan government should start
negotiations with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Afghan
government was so upset that it officially
protested to Pakistan. But I am happy that now Mr
Karzai himself has endorsed the same proposal."
There is a delayed realization in the
Western camp that the Taliban are a reflection of
Afghanistan's majority Pashtun population and that
their brand of Islam in fact blends strongly with
conservative Pashtun traditions. Even after the
Taliban defeat in 2001 by the US and its allies,
that same brand of Islam is reflected in Afghan
court decisions and in many other matters dealt
with by the present administration.
The
upshot is acceptance that the Taliban should be
accommodated politically as well, yet the Western
coalition still does not have the stomach to talk
with al-Qaeda, which is exerting its influence
from the Pakistani tribal areas of North
Waziristan and South Waziristan.
People
forget that the reason Afghanistan was invaded in
the first place was because of the sanctuary that
the Taliban offered al-Qaeda. The majority of
Afghanistan's tribal and clerical councils
recommended to expel Osama bin Laden after
September 11, 2001, but al-Qaeda's influence
prevailed.
The US and Pakistan, as
partners in the "war on terror", made numerous
efforts to split the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and at
times they succeeded. Notably, there was major
disagreement on strategies between the Taliban and
al-Qaeda in 2006, which led to many al-Qaeda
leaders leaving the Waziristans and Afghanistan.
And this year, a Pakistani-sponsored massacre was
carried out in South Waziristan against Uzbek
militants by Pakistani Taliban commander Haji
Nazeer. Prominent al-Qaeda commanders were
expelled from the area, yet after a few months
al-Qaeda had regained its influence and all
Pakistan Taliban groups and al-Qaeda members are
fighting side-by-side against the Pakistani armed
forces.
If the al-Qaeda factor is to be
neutralized, the group needs to be engaged, just
as attempts are being made to embrace the Taliban.
When Prince Turki al-Faisal (now ambassador to the
United States) was the Saudi intelligence chief,
the kingdom kept its channels of dialogue with
al-Qaeda open, even after September 11, by using
the Taliban leadership.
And recently,
Saudi Arabia made a fresh approach at dialogue
with al-Qaeda by sending an envoy to speak with it
in North Waziristan. (See Military brains plot Pakistan's
downfall Asia Times Online, September
26, 2007.)
These talks did not make too
much progress, but al-Qaeda is certainly looking
for some kind of "amnesty" for itself. Until this
happens, the Taliban's commanders in southwestern
Afghanistan might win some breathing space, but
there can be no guarantee of any lasting political
settlement in the region.
Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan
Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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