Kabul,August 09: The Taliban have no trust in the Western-backed Afghan government and no immediate incentive to accept calls for talks which could stop their insurgency dragging on for decades, analysts say.
President Hamid Karzai has made peace a pillar of his campaign for re-election at polls in 10 days’ time. As Western militaries lose record numbers of soldiers in Afghanistan, NATO powers have backed talks as an option.
But eight years after the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban, critics say there is no workable strategy for negotiations and rapprochement with “moderates” would still leave hardline Islamist militants directing attacks.
“The first thing I am going to do if I win the election, will be to call a jirga,” Karzai told a recent campaign rally in Kabul, referring to a traditional meeting of elders, called for centuries to resolve disputes.
The Taliban, radical Hezb-i-Islami faction and others “unhappy” with the current order would be invited under the auspices of Saudi Arabia’s respected King Abdullah, he said.
But Wadir Safi, from Kabul University’s law and political sciences faculty, doubts that Karzai — expected to win a second-term on August 20 — was the person who could come to the table to “finish this problem”.
“Karzai is very weak and around him he has warlords and people who don’t like the Taliban and whom the Taliban don’t like,” he said.
The president is running for re-election on a ticket with Taliban arch foes, former warlords Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Karim Khalili, who will become his two vice presidents should he win at the ballot box.
Another of his allies is warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostam, accused of killing thousands of Taliban fighters, including some who surrendered after the 2001 US-led invasion.
Analysts believe the Taliban significantly influence more than half the country and that government control extends only several kilometres (miles) outside major towns, making the movement strong enough to rule out talks.
“If there are no talks, the insurgency and war will continue for decades,” Safi told AFP.
After the invasion overthrew the austere 1996-2001 Taliban government, many militia leaders fled across the border into Pakistan where they regrouped to launch an insurgency now at its deadliest.
More than 2,000 civilians were killed in 2008 — most of them from insurgent attacks but around 39 percent in military operations, according to UN figures.
Reconciliation would have to include trust building. Militants’ demands need to be clearly enunciated and seriously considered — including the possibility of power-sharing, analysts said.
“The Taliban don’t trust the government,” said Afghan analyst and writer Waheed Mujda, who was a civil servant in the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.
Suggestions the administration was meeting unidentified Taliban commanders were “an attempt by Karzai to create mistrust in their ranks,” he said.
It could take at least five years for the government to reconcile with the Taliban leadership, he warned.
Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Center for Research and Policy Studies, said the Taliban are secure in safe havens in Pakistan and continue to operate an intact command and control structure.
“If they are not under military pressure, I don’t know why they should sit down and talk,” he said.
The mainstream Taliban rules out unconditional negotiations and demands that all foreign troops leave Afghanistan.
“We’ll never talk to Karzai’s puppet government,” spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP. “Kabul has no authority over anything. It’s the Americans who decide what the puppet regime does or not.”
He denied the existence of any disparate elements in the militia who may be leaning towards reconciliation — identified by Western powers as “moderates”.
“The Taliban are united… the ‘moderate’ and ‘non-moderate’ Taliban concept is something made by the invading forces,” he said.
But Western diplomats and commanders are convinced that there are a sizeable number of insurgents fighting under the Taliban banner for money and influence — not Islamist ideology — who could be persuaded to stop fighting.
“The insurgency has proved resilient, adaptable and deadly,” said a British embassy spokesperson. “But its weaknesses are also clear. It is a wide, but shallow coalition of convenience.”
–Agencies