AN
ATOL EXCLUSIVE Peace gets a new chance in
Afghanistan By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - All major anti-Taliban
operations have been suspended in the southwestern
Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Helmand and
Uruzgan, the Taliban's spiritual heartland, as an
international reconciliation process gathers pace,
an Asia Times Online investigation has found.
This was confirmed to ATol by multiple
sources, including the Afghan Ministry of Interior
and Taliban commanders in Kandahar.
A
senior Talib also confirmed to ATol by telephone
from Kandahar that under the same initiative,
several senior Taliban in the custody of
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were
released on Wednesday,
including Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, a commander of
the Taliban in southwestern Afghanistan.
When contacted by ATol, an ISI
spokesperson would not verify the release of the
Taliban commanders.
All concerned
international and regional players have agreed
that Turkey should host the next round of talks
with the Taliban, possibly as early as next month.
Unlike previous rounds, though, that primarily
involved a few Muslim states including Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all
major players including the United States, the
United Kingdom and India are very much onboard for
this latest reconciliation process.
A
senior Afghan official confirmed to ATol on the
condition of anonymity on Wednesday that plans
were in place to hand over the security of
Afghanistan to Afghans by the middle of this year
and that foreign troops would only operate in the
six north and northeastern provinces, besides
still using unmanned drones for strikes against
insurgents.
A change of heart "I cannot confirm whether the Taliban's top
leaders have agreed for talks or not, but yes, I
have observed a visible change on the ground," a
senior Taliban commander told ATol on the
condition of anonymity on telephone from Kandahar
when asked for confirmation of the Taliban's
participation in the reconciliation process.
"As a field commander, I can confirm three
prominent things. Every year before April, NATO
[North Atlantic Treaty Organization] carries out a
grand operation in Kandahar, Helmand, Urzgan and
Zabul against Taliban sanctuaries. They aim to
clear the Taliban's presence from around major
highways and also intervene to disperse the
Taliban. This year, NATO carried out no such
operation, which surprised me," the Taliban
commander said.
"Secondly, only a few
months ago there was considerable congestion on
the Kandahar-Chaman highway because [of a steady
stream of] NATO supplies, including fuel tankers,
tanks and other war machines. In the last two
months, there has been no activity on such a scale
as it looks that NATO has stopped its shipments to
Kandahar airfield."
The commander
continued, "I cannot confirm, but I have learnt
from sources that Pakistan has also released eight
top commanders of the Taliban, including Mansoor
Dadullah [brother of slain Mullah Dadullah]. I
don't know what the Taliban high command is
thinking, but certainly the enemy is desperately
looking for a truce with the Taliban."
The
situation unfolding indicates that Western
capitals have finally agreed to follow a roadmap
that was first talked about between the Taliban
and Western forces in 2009 to start a
reconciliation process. (See Seven
steps to peace in Afghanistan Asia Times
Online, August 22, 2009.)
Confirming the
new reconciliation process with the Taliban, a
senior Afghan official told ATol that in general
there was a consensus on a roadmap for dealing
with the insurgency.
"Earlier, the Afghan
government had lots of reservations about allowing
the Taliban to operate with an office in Turkey,
but the High Peace Council [Afghan body
responsible for seeking peace talks with the
Taliban] intervened and Professor Burhanuddin
Rabbani, the head of the mission, said there
should some place from where a credible peace
process could be initiated, and now everybody in
the Afghan government has agreed that the Taliban
should be allowed to come to the surface and
operate an office in Turkey," the official said.
"Then, security will be handed over to the
Afghan army and police in the southern parts of
the country in the middle of this year. This is
again a demand of the Taliban that Western troops
should leave their areas. However, NATO forces
will operate bases in six provinces - Pansher,
Bamiyan, Kabul, Laghman, Kunduz and Mazar Sharif.
Hi-tech, such as drones, will be applied against
insurgents in the border provinces with Pakistan,"
the Afghan official said.
India jumps
into the fray In an apparent softening of
its attitude against India, Pakistan has withdrawn
its opposition to New Delhi's participation in a
preparatory conclave on the security and
reconstruction of Afghanistan to be held in Ankara
next month, the Indian newspaper the Hindu
reported.
"We appreciate the Taliban as
the future force in the Afghan government and
therefore we want to open a channel of
communication with the Taliban so that Afghanistan
is not used against India in the future, like
happened in the past," a senior Indian security
official told ATol in February.
In this
vein, as early as 2009 the Indian government
mobilized its cadre in Afghanistan to open lines
of communication with the Taliban.
India
turned to influential figures for assistance, even
though they had no direct access to Taliban
commanders. These were former Taliban ambassador
to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, and former
Afghan foreign minister Moulvi Abdul Wakeel
Muttawakil. The results were positive.
"They [Taliban] did not support anyone
against India. Afghanistan is weak, Afghanistan
has to be neutral, India and Pakistan are no
different for us... ," Zaeef told Indian media
outlet CNN-IBN in March 2010.
The comments
by Zaeef, who lives under restriction in Kabul,
upset some Taliban cadre in southwestern
Afghanistan. Despite Pakistan's support for the US
war in Afghanistan, they still consider Pakistan
as a natural ally as it is a Muslim-majority
state. This correspondent was subsequently invited
in March 2010 to contradict Zaeef's statement and
announce that he had nothing to do with the
Taliban. (See War
and peace: A Taliban view, Mar 26, 2010.)
However, given Zaeef's rapport with the
Taliban in the southeastern parts of Afghanistan,
the Indians succeeded in getting approval of
Zaeef's statement in favor of India.
Official Taliban spokesman Zabiullah
Mujahid said in a media release on March 30, 2010:
"It's possible for the Taliban and
India to reconcile with each other," he [Zaeef]
told his interviewer. [Our] complaint is that
India backed the [anti-Taliban Northern
Alliance] and is now supporting the [President
Hamid] Karzai government. He'd like you to
believe that it's all a misunderstanding because
"unlike the [Pakistan militant group] Lashkar
which is focused on Jammu and Kashmir, the
Afghan Taliban concentrate on Afghanistan.
[Taliban] have never taken part in any attack in
India, nor do we attack anyone at Pakistan's
behest".
A senior Indian official told
ATol, "We don't have any intentions to compete
with Pakistan by opening a channel of
communication with the Taliban, but we simply want
to isolate anti-India groups operating in
Afghanistan like Ilyas Kashmiri and his associate
LeT [Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Taiba] commanders."
Since 2008, the reconciliation process has
hit many snags because there has never been total
consensus among the players on how to deal with
the Taliban. This has now changed, although
al-Qaeda's response remains crucial.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia
Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of
upcoming book Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban,
beyond 9/11 published by Pluto Press, UK. He
can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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