Qaeda would face pressure from Afghan deal-making

London
(Reuters) - Bringing the Taliban into reconciliation talks with the U.S.
-backed Afghan government would strain the insurgents' ties to al Qaeda and lift Western hopes of denying Osama bin Laden the refuge his hosts provide.

Any pressure on al Qaeda's link to its Pashtun protectors could also spur bin Laden's group to expand ties to militants in other Muslim nations out of self-preservation as much as ideology.

The Afghan government on Thursday invited the Taliban
to a peace council, expected early this year, raising the prospect that attempts at political deal-making could eventually move to the forefront of efforts to end the war in Afghanistan.

Analysts said the Afghan Taliban headed by Mullah Omar did not have much incentive yet to join any talks following a year of territorial gains, and its link to al Qaeda remained intact.

But its more nationalist long-term goals differed from those of al Qaeda, whose militant ideology makes violent jihad an obligation for all Muslims, and an eventual rift was possible.

That reality, combined with regular missile attacks by U.S. drones on its hideouts in the mountainous Afghanistan-pakistan
border area, meant al Qaeda was facing multiple pressures.

"Al Qaeda faces a big threat," Edwin Bakker, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague: "The Taliban is a local group able to strike local deals and that's a worry for al Qaeda."

A Western intelligence source said the prospect of such talks would put "a great deal of pressure on al Qaeda

Source:/in.reuters.com/

Afghan forces need 5 years: Karzai

LONDON – Afghanistan needs five years to take charge of it own security, President Hamid Karzai said in London Wednesday as countries gathered for key talks on tackling a Taliban insurgency.

The country's international allies, which have around 110,000 troops tackling the Taliban, are expected to push at Thursday's talks for Afghan forces to take over security duties as rapidly as possible.

Karzai will use the conference to urge his partners to fund a 500-million-dollar programme to persuade moderate Taliban to stop fighting in exchange for jobs and security -- a plan that has been winning support.

"We will be trying our very best to be ready to defend the major part of our country from two to three years and when we reach the five-year end point, that's when we would be leading," Karzai at a meeting with students in London.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also answered questions from the students, said the Afghan security forces were expected to grow to number about 300,000 in two years.

The Afghan army currently numbers about 100,000 men, with the police force at around 90,000.

Brown also voiced support for Karzai's programme for reconciliation with moderate Taliban, to which Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday Germany plans to offer 50 million euros ($70 million) over five years.

"To weaken the Taliban, you divide them and you offer those people who are prepared to renounce violence... a way out. And that is something that we will do and something that President Karzai wants to do," Brown said.

Karzai reiterated that such an offer would only be made to Taliban who are not members of the Al-Qaeda network.

"We will continue to seek peace in Afghanistan using all instruments that are available to us," Karzai said.

US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told reporters in London that Washington would not accept talks with Al-Qaeda.

"There is an American red line, and it is Al-Qaeda. There cannot be any negotiation if they don't renounce Al-Qaeda because those people cannot be negotiated with," he said.

Merkel has said Thursday's meeting was crucial to determining the success or failure of the mission in Afghanistan.

"In London we are talking about nothing less than setting the future course, a course that I am convinced will determine the success or failure of our mission," Merkel told parliament after talks with Karzai on Wednesday.

But the Taliban dismissed it as a waste of time and regional power Iran also said it would be pointless and would not attend.

The only solution to the conflict is for all "invading forces" to leave immediately, the Taliban said in an emailed statement.

"The London conference is in fact aimed at extending the invasion of Afghanistan by occupying forces... (It) is just a waste of time," it said.

Karzai said in Berlin Wednesday that Afghanistan, where violence has reached record levels eight years into the costly international effort to defeat the Islamists, did not want to be an endless burden on its allies.

"Afghanistan wants to soon be defending its own territory, its own people with Afghan means," he said.

The head of NATO's military committee said in Brussels meanwhile that top officers from the Western alliance, Russia and Pakistan had given unanimous backing to the international strategy in Afghanistan.

"There was a feeling in the room that we are getting it right," Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola told reporters following talks with chiefs of military staff from more than 60 countries.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said it was pleased the reintegration of Taliban and reconciliation had taken centre stage in the run-up to Thursday's conference.

"We have always said a military effort alone cannot succeed and there is a clear need for a peace process to begin," spokesman Aleem Siddique told AFP.

Source:abs-cbnnews.com/

On Taliban/AQ ties and the Afghanistan exit strategy

Vahid Brown at the CTC Sentinel has a new article (pdf document) out arguing that the relationship between Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden before 9/11 was considerably more fractious than it was made out to be. The main source of argument was between the Taliban’s Afghan nationalist agenda and bin Laden’s view of global jihad, and in particular his determination to attack the United States, he says.

Based on an account by an insider, he challenges the assumption that bin Laden personally swore an oath of allegiance to Mullah Omar. The account by Egyptian jihadist Mustafa Hamid, better known as Abul-Walid al-Masri, was first published in jihadist forums in 2007 but gained little attention outside specialist websites.

Given the groundswell of talk this week about the possibility of an eventual peace deal with the Taliban it is worth reading closely in the light of the debate about whether they can be prised away from al Qaeda (bin Laden’s son says in this interview with Reuters that there is little love lost between the Taliban and OBL).

Brown notes that Abul-Walid is a Taliban loyalist and his claims should be treated with caution. However the apparent endorsement of his views by the Taliban would suggest that whether or not his account of a Taliban/al Qaeda rift is accurate, they cast light on how the Taliban chooses to project itself today.

“He (Abul Walid) writes that relations between the Taliban and the Arab jihadists in Afghanistan had become more contentious during that year (1998), primarily on account of the escalation of al-Qaeda’s media and operational campaign against the United States. From the outset, the Taliban’s provision of hospitality for the al-Qaeda leadership was limited by two conditions: bin Laden was not to communicate with the media without the consent of the Taliban regime, nor was he to directly antagonize the United States,” says Brown.

“A number of the Arab jihadist leaders rose in opposition to bin Laden at this time,” he quotes Abul-Walid as saying, “all of them affirming the primacy of the domestic fronts against the Arab regimes, convinced that a shift to a ‘global confrontation’ against the United States was ill conceived.”

With the relationship between Mullah Omar and bin Laden “worsening by the day”, the al Qaeda leader was supposed to take an oath of allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader to end the rift. Bin Laden however at first procrastinated, and then sent Abul-Walid to make a vow of allegiance on his behalf – an ambiguous act of proxy that would later allow him to either deny or aver having made the oath depending on which suited him best.

Of the preparation for 9/11, Abul Walid writes, “Mullah Omar topped the list of those kept in the dark, though it was on his head that all of the catastrophic consequences of that strike would fall, as his regime collapsed along with the Twin Towers of New York. ” The oath of allegiance “turned out to have been an outright deception of the Commander of the Faithful (Mullah Omar), diverting his attention from a dangerous act, plotted behind his back, that undermined his fundamental prerogatives as ruler of the country and threatened the lives and fates of all Afghans.”

Brown concludes that the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban may be similar even today, with the former using the latter out of expedience while pursuing policies counter to its own interests.

“In many ways, the Afghan Taliban remain as dependent on support from Pakistan as they were prior to 9/11. Yet it is against this very patron, and under a Taliban banner, that al-Qaeda and its coalition of Pakistani jihadists are waging a bloody campaign of suicide terrorism. Mullah Omar has flatly condemned this campaign, telling his purported “followers” in Pakistan’s tribal areas that they are “bringing a bad name” to the Taliban and “harming the war against the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

“The ‘Commander of the Faithful,’ however, has proven unable to command these particular faithful, and the violence in Pakistan’s cities rages on. This says less about the limits of Mullah Omar’s authority than it does about the expedient nature of the allegiances that al-Qaeda and its partners profess. To achieve its objectives in the region, the policy community must strive for a more nuanced understanding of these allegiances, the purposes they serve, and the underlying tensions they conceal.”

The arguments about whether the Taliban can be prised away from al Qaeda have raged pretty much since 9/11 — from those who say that the United States should have tried to do so more effectively before it launched its war in Afghanistan, to those who argue that the war itself has driven the two closer together.

Until quite recently, the debate has remained largely within the domain of specialists. The new focus, however, on an eventual exit strategy for Afghanistan – in which a display of strength on the part of U.S.-led forces is supposed to help pave the way for a longer term peace deal - makes these details about the Taliban very relevant today.

Do also read Ahmed Rashid in the New York Review of Books on a possible deal with the Taliban.

In his view, recent public statements by Mullah Omar have signalled a greater willingness to negotiate:

“The Taliban’s new tone can be traced to secret talks in the spring of 2009. Sponsored by Saudi Arabia at (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai’s request, the talks included former (or now retired) Taliban, former Arab members of al-Qaeda, and Karzai’s representatives. No breakthrough took place, but the talks led to a series of visits to Saudi Arabia by important Taliban leaders during the rest of 2009. The US, British, and Saudi officials who were indirectly in contact with the Taliban there quickly encouraged them to renounce al-Qaeda and lay out their negotiating demands. In turn, the Taliban said that distancing themselves from al-Qaeda would require the other side to meet a principal demand of their own: that all foreign forces must announce a timetable to leave Afghanistan.”

Pakistan, he says, is pushing for a major – indeed exclusive role – for its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in brokering any talks.

“How will the Taliban leaders respond? Many of them are fed up with years of ISI manipulation and strategizing on their behalf and would prefer to keep the ISI out of such talks. Some members of the Taliban have built up a rapport with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, the domestic intelligence agency of the Kabul government. The NDS and the ISI loathe and mistrust each other, and the NDS would be extremely reluctant to allow the ISI a central part in negotiations. Moreover the crucial acceptance of reconciliation with the Taliban has to come from the non-Pashtun population in the north who are extremely hostile to the Taliban and the ISI. If the northern ethnic groups who make up just over 50 percent of the population do not accept the reconciliation plan, there could be a renewed civil war as in the 1990s.

“But the ISI has power and influence over the Taliban. Not only are the Taliban able to resupply their fighters from Pakistan, and seek medical treatment and other facilities, but the families of most Taliban leaders live in Pakistan where they own homes and run businesses and shops. Taliban leaders travel to Saudi Arabia on Pakistani passports. All this makes them vulnerable to ISI pressure. Even before the US military can consider coopting mid-level Taliban commanders, both sides would have to ascertain how this would play with the ISI.”

It is impossible to believe that the United States and its allies would be willing to hand over exclusive control of any talks with the Taliban to the ISI. From Pakistan’s point of view, it would be unlikely to want to deliver on any peace deal unless it is convinced its own interests are taken care of – including reassurances both about India’s growing presence in Afghanistan, and the security of its own border with Afghanistan - never recognised by Kabul even under the former Taliban regime. India, with memories of Afghanistan being used as a base for Kashmiri militant groups before 9/11, would look warily at any deal with the Taliban which appeared to reassert Pakistan’s influence there.

So there is a long way to go yet. But you might just about be able to argue that after nearly a decade of war (or far longer in the case of Afghanistan), an end may be in sight.

Source:blogs.reuters.com/

U.S. eyes Afghan drawdown starting by 2013: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should be able to begin scaling back its troop presence in Afghanistan from a post-surge peak by 2013, according to an assessment by the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal gave his assessment to a delegation of U.S. lawmakers who visited Kabul earlier this week, participants said on Saturday.

It is unclear whether President Barack Obama will spell out a schedule for a drawdown of U.S. forces when he announces a revised war strategy on Tuesday.

The centerpiece of that strategy is expected to be the gradual deployment of about 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to secure population centers and train more of the country's security forces.

Pentagon officials hope NATO members will contribute up to 10,000 extra troops and trainers to supplement the U.S. buildup, pushing the overall number closer to the 40,000 additional soldiers recommended by McChrystal to counter a resurgent Taliban.

Britain has said it expects countries to pledge another 5,000 troops on top of those sent by the United States.

A drawdown schedule could help Obama blunt opposition to a troop increase within his own Democratic party, which controls Congress. Rising U.S. casualties and military costs have sapped public support for the war, threatening Obama's standing ahead of congressional elections next year.

An international conference on Afghanistan, to be held in London in January, would aim to set conditions for a gradual transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan control.

McChrystal met the visiting U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday.

"I asked him: 'If you get these troops that you are requesting, the 40,000, where's the tipping point? At what point will we begin to draw down?'" Republican Representative Mike Coffman told Reuters. "McChrystal responded: 'Sometime before 2013.'"

Pentagon officials had no immediate comment.

There are now roughly 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 allied forces in Afghanistan.

Coffman said McChrystal's assessment that a drawdown could begin before 2013 was "realistic" given the difficulty of training enough Afghan army and police units to take over security responsibility from U.S. and NATO troops.

"Irrespective of that, any increase in troops is going to be a challenge in Congress," Coffman said, citing Democratic opposition.

One proposal made by leading Democrats would set the goal of having about 400,000 Afghan army troops and national police officers by 2012 -- more than twice the forces' current size and a year earlier than currently planned.

Source:reuters.com