US revives Taliban tryst in Afghanistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Faced with escalating unrest
and an increasingly stronger and more organized guerrilla resistance in
Afghanistan, the United States has stepped up efforts to address the
country's troubles, including its moves to draw elements of the ousted
Taliban back into the political process.
Asia Times Online broke
the news on September 12 (Tribes, traditions and two tragedies ) that a new
Taliban grouping under the name of Jaishul Muslim had been formed to at
least talk to the US about political developments. Apart from Mullah Abdul
Razzak, a Pakistani who was a defense minister in the Taliban regime, the
group consists of low profile Taliban, and not Taliban leader
Mullah Omar.
On September 17, the organization was finally
officially launched in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar. Its founder,
Akbar Agha, issued a statement that was prominently reported in the
Pakistani Urdu daily Nawai Waqat, in which he called for a jihad against
the US "invaders" in Afghanistan, but at the same time criticized Mullah
Omar's "self-centered" policies.
In the Afghan capital Kabul,
meanwhile, in an address to a council of clerics, interim chairman Hamid
Karzai claimed that not all Taliban were involved in war crimes during
their rule from 1996 to the end of 2001. Therefore, he argued, those who
were not involved in any kind of crime could be considered for inclusion
in the government setup.
Ever since abandoning power in the face
of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban have slowly regrouped,
to the point that they now command widespread support in many parts of the
country, especially in the south and southeast, and they continue to
harass US-led forces as well as the newly-constituted Afghan Army.
US intelligence clearly realized this situation, and since the
beginning of the year it has attempted to reach a compromise with the
Taliban, on the proviso that they (the US) do not lose face.
Asia
Times Online on June 14 reported on the first attempts (US turns to the Taliban) in which a meeting was
set up by a jihadi leader with close Taliban, al-Qaeda and Pakistani
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) links. The meeting took place between
representatives of the ISI, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
and Taliban leaders at the Pakistan Air Force base of Samungli, near
Quetta.
Several demands were dished out to the Taliban, which were
set as pre-conditions for the inclusion of the Taliban in the Afghan
government:
Mullah Omar must be removed as supreme leader of the Taliban.
All Pakistani, Arab and other foreign fighters currently engaged in
operations against international troops in Afghanistan must be thrown out
of the country.
Any US or allied soldiers held captive must be released.
Afghans currently living abroad, notably in the United States and
England, must be given a part in the government - through being allowed to
contest elections - even though many do not even speak their mother
tongue, such as Dari or Pashtu.
The talks ended very quickly as
the Taliban refused to accept the first condition, on which they made it
clear that they could not show any flexibility.
After this
failure, both the Pakistan and US intelligence establishments did a lot of
groundwork to develop a proxy organization that would help split the
Taliban and reduce the intensity of its resistance movement. The Taliban's
second line, third line and even fourth line were given attractive offers,
and finally the Jaishul Muslim came into being.
Asia Times Online
sources familiar with the negotiations that led to the creation of the
Jaishul Muslim say that the plan is for its members to infiltrate camps in
Afghanistan where jihadis are trained. Here, and subsequently in the
field, they will attempt to sway Taliban commanders with the offer of a
place in the government as an inducement. If they are successful, it would
obviously be severely damaging to the Taliban's morale.
However,
there are serious doubts that, without Mullah Omar, any movement could
really say that it represented the Taliban. At the same time, the
organization has been planned and launched in Pakistan, and seemingly it
has little, if any, support within Afghanistan itself.
In the
initial days when the Taliban retreated from Kabul and Kandahar, a similar
group was set up, the Jamiat-i-Khudamul Koran (Organization of the
Servants of the Koran). This was in fact the real name of the Taliban
movement when it first emerged in the 1980s in Quetta and Peshawar - and
also with the help of the ISI.
The Jamiat's members were mostly
former ministers in the Taliban regime critical of Mullah Omar giving
shelter to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. They vowed that they would revive
the Taliban in its original form.
The group then disappeared from
the headlines. However, a few months ago, some intelligence sources said
that the organization had again joined hands with the Taliban and was
engaged in fighting against the US and its allies, notably in eastern
Afghanistan.
Such are the shifting sands of Afghan politics into
which the US is now treading ever further and further.
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] for information on our sales
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