Islamabad, July 03: Afghan President Hamid Karzai is using old friends and new allies to try to bring some of the fiercest Taliban to the negotiating table, although their links to al-Qaeda might scuttle any deal.
Pakistan is trying to broker a deal between the Afghan government and the Haqqani group, one of the most violent Taliban factions led by veteran rebel leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, according to Afghan parliamentarians and Pakistani analysts.
Haqqani was a legendary commander in the war against the Soviets who had close ties to the Reagan administration. Now, he and his son Sirajuddin command hundreds perhaps thousands of fighters blamed for some of the most audacious attacks in Kabul and eastern Afghanistan.
Their network is based in the North Waziristan tribal area along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
“The president is trying to use old friendships with Jalaluddin Haqqani and his sons to make them participate in the reconciliation process,” said Khaled Pashtun, an Afghan lawmaker from the Taliban heartland of southern Kandahar.
“Pakistan is also pressurising the government to bring this person (Haqqani) in the government.”
Yet Haqqani’s ties to al-Qaida run deep. His friendship with Osama bin Laden dates back to the war against the Soviets in the 1980s. Haqqani allowed bin Laden to set up a base on his territory in Khost province of eastern Afghanistan.
The US fired cruise missiles at the base in 1998 in a bid to kill bin Laden.
Haqqani also ensured safe passage for foreign fighters, including senior al-Qaida figures, when they fled into Pakistan after the collapse of Taliban rule in the 2001 US invasion, according to Taliban officials in Kabul at the time.
Since President Barack Obama announced the start of a US withdrawal in July 2011, Karzai has sought to improve relations with Pakistan and reach out to the insurgents. Last month, he told a national peace conference in Kabul he would talk with any militant leader.
As a sign of good faith, he pledged to seek the release of detainees and lobby the UN to remove some of the insurgent leaders from a blacklist that froze their bank accounts and prevents them from traveling abroad.
He also signed a reintegration decree this week offering amnesty and economic incentives to Taliban fighters who want to leave the battlefield, if they accept the Afghan constitution and break ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
Obama has said the July 2011 date does not herald a rapid American withdrawal from Afghanistan and Washington is committed to a long-term relationship with the Afghans.
-PTI