Thoughts of American Infidel: AFGHANISTAN: KARZAI READY TO TALK WITH MULLAH OMAR

Karzai ready to talk to Mullah Omar ‘for the sake of peace’

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said yesterday he was prepared to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar for the sake of peace in Afghanistan but only if he freed himself from “foreign slavery”. Karzai two years ago offered an olive branch to members of the Taliban regime driven from power in 2001, but the then offer of amnesty excluded the leaders of the movement “whose hands are stained with blood”.

“Those people, if it is Mullah Mohamed Omar or others, if they want to talk and negotiate with us, they are welcome but they should first free themselves from foreign slavery and come to their own land and live in peace,” Karzai told reporters.

“For the sake of peace in Afghanistan, we are ready to negotiate with them. We have always negotiated with their supporters and people who control them, and will do again,” he said.

The Afghan government and Karzai himself have often accused neighbouring Pakistan of harbouring extremists and insurgents, and even supporting them. Pakistan has always denied the claim.

Karzai said however he was not offering amnesty to Mullah Omar or Afghan commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is also leading a rebelling Islamist faction behind the everyday violence in Afghanistan.

He was also vague about how the offer of talks would fit in with demands from the US and others for the arrest of the men, who have bounties worth millions of dollars on their heads.

“If Mullah Mohamed Omar, as an Afghan, frees himself from foreign claws and comes and sits with his people, we can talk with the international community,” he said.

However, if the wanted men came to Afghanistan - a reference to the belief that the Taliban leader is hiding out in Pakistan - Afghans would be able to begin legal action against them for alleged abuses, he said.

“If any one had any legal cases against them, they can do that,” he said. Many Taliban are believed to have fled across the border after the extremist regime’s five years in power ended with a US-led invasion launched weeks after the 9/11 attacks blamed on Al Qaeda leaders being sheltered here.

Afghan officials say these men are plotting the insurgency in Afghanistan from across the border and sending militants here to carry out attacks. Karzai also said the world would only be safe from terrorism if the roots of the Taliban militancy were addressed, instead of Afghanistan being the only battlefield.

“With operations only in Afghan villages, terrorism is not going to be eradicated since its roots are not in Afghanistan, its resources are not in Afghanistan,” he said.

“The international community needs to go to roots of terrorism not its results. It needs to focus on and bring more pressure over the resources of terrorism, training centres, places of finance and where they are given the ideology to come to Afghanistan and fight.” – AFP

Are we about to witness another Waziristan Peace Agreement?!?

Pakistan's Peace Deal with Taliban Militants
By Tarique Niazi

On September 5, Pakistan signed a peace deal with "Taliban militants" in North Waziristan, where its military has been battling insurgents since 2004. Under the deal, military troops have now been redeployed to their designated camps and forts within the region. The political agent, who represents the federal government in the region, signed the deal on behalf of Islamabad, while seven "militants," who represented the local "Taliban Shura" (Taliban advisory council), affixed their names to a three-page agreement that features 16 clauses binding the signatories (Dawn, September 6).The deal offers amnesty to Taliban militants and "foreigners" (a reference to Afghan-Arabs who are members of al-Qaeda) in North Waziristan for a pledge that they would desist from mounting cross-border attacks into Afghanistan; assaulting Pakistani security forces, public servants, state property, tribal leaders and journalists; and carrying heavy weapons (Dawn, September 6). They will, however, be allowed to travel across the border into Afghanistan on a "business trip" or a "family visit" and carry "light" weapons such as AK-47s.

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Many Pakistanis of different persuasions—members of civil society, activists for democracy, liberals, leftists, nationalists and seculars—are not persuaded of the deal's intended objective, which is "peace." Rather, they see it as an instrument for converting North Waziristan into "a safe haven for al-Qaeda and the Taliban," making the Taliban Shura, a signatory to the deal, "winners" (Dawn, September 6; Daily Times, September 8). Others think the government has "ceded the [North Waziristan] region to the Taliban" and that this amounts to "a total capitulation" (Dawn, September 6; Daily Times, September 9). Unnerved by the backlash, the government hid behind the semantics, claiming that it has signed the deal with the Utmanzai tribe and not with the Taliban. Yet the Taliban Shura and its seven signatories to the deal are all members of the Utmanzai tribe, which inhabits North Waziristan. The international media, however, has insisted that the actual agreement has been "signed" indirectly between Pervez Musharraf and Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban movement (Daily Times, September 26).

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The deal is likely to embolden the Taliban to launch even more lethal attacks in Afghanistan. It is pertinent to note that the Taliban on both sides of the Durand Line, which separates Pakistan from Afghanistan, pledge their allegiance to Mullah Omar. As the Taliban do not recognize the Durand Line as an "international border," they assert their identity as Taliban, not as Afghan Taliban or Pakistani Taliban.

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"The truces between Pakistan's military and the separatists," the UN says, "have coincided with rising violence and increased attacks in four Afghan provinces along the Pakistan border." A diplomat further specifies these links by observing: "The Waziristan border is like somebody has swung the gate open. They [the Pakistanis] have brought peace there by exporting the problem."

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The growing hostility toward Islamabad in its tribal areas has further opened up hospitable space for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The failed military operation in North and South Waziristan has troubled neighboring Khyber and Malakand Agencies as well, which have now become dangerously destabilized to the advantage of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. This means more trouble for bordering Afghan provinces.

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The Taliban have since renamed the region the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, and successfully extended their administrative and judicial reach into neighboring towns and cities, most prominently Bannu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Bara and even parts of Peshawar, which is the capital city of the NWFP. The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan now has its own map and national flag, which lend it all the trappings of a state (The Post, September 28). The September 5 peace deal is the result of the Taliban's growing influence in the region.Nevertheless, three factors hastened the deal. The first factor was the Pakistani military's inability to pacify the region, even after taking thousands of casualties, including 600 fatalities in North and South Waziristan by July; the casualty count is actually believed to be much higher than the government admits (The Economist, July 8-14).

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Second, the Taliban's parallel resurgence in Afghanistan persuaded the government to neutralize its hostility and rebuild relations with the Taliban before it was too late.

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Third, the redeployment of U.S. troops from southern Afghanistan signaled changing priorities of the international community in the region. As a result, Pakistan began to foresee the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which it savors as an antidote to the Northern Alliance government in Kabul that it perceives as friendly to India and hostile to Pakistan. Pro-Musharraf commentators, sharing the government's assessment, predicted an impending fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. "If the government [of Pakistan] perseveres for a few more months, a bright future will await us," one such commentator wrote (Daily Jang, September 11). Therefore, Pakistan foresees the return of a pre-9/11 Afghanistan with the Taliban in the driving seat again (Asia Times, September 9)....While Islamabad is realigning its strategic interests with the resurgent Taliban, it certainly does not want to lose billions of dollars either, which have continued to flow in its direction since 9/11. Hence, Islamabad stands by the Taliban
and fights them too.

***UPDATE***UPDATE***UPDATE***

Purported Taliban statement refuses Afghan president's offer of talks

KABUL, Afghanistan Taliban leaders have ruled out talks with President Hamid Karzai's government as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan, a purported statement from the hardline militia said Saturday.

On Friday, Karzai told reporters he was ready to negotiate with fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar if he stops receiving support from neighboring Pakistan — where the Afghan leader alleges Omar is hiding.

Karzai made a similar offer in an interview with The Associated Press in January, telling Omar to "get in touch" if he wanted to talk peace. Fighting in the country has since escalated sharply as a resurgent Taliban has battled NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces in the bloodiest clashes since the hardline regime fell in late 2001.

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