Taliban deny holding talks in Saudi Arabia

KABUL: The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied that they would soon hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government in Saudi Arabia.

“There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future,” the Taliban said on their website.

Afghan officials, requesting anonymity, had suggested that the two sides would hold talks in Saudi Arabia separate from planned negotiations in Qatar between the Taliban and the United States.

But it was never clear whether the Taliban, who have so far resisted talks with the Afghan government, or the Saudis, who have conditioned involvement on the Taliban renouncing al-Qaeda, would come on board.

Taliban negotiators have begun preliminary discussions with the United States in Qatar on plans for peace talks aimed at ending the decade-long war. They have also announced plans to set up an office in Doha.

On Wednesday, the Taliban said they had not yet “reached the negotiation phase with the US and its allies”. A day earlier, a government spokesman in Kabul cautioned that no steps had been taken to start talks in Saudi Arabia. “The Afghan government is very clear on talks — we have always preferred Saudi to Qatar,” Akim Hasher, head of the Government Media and Information Centre, told AFP. “There is a possibility that the talks will take place in Saudi as well — Qatar is definitely not the only option.”

Afghan govt, Taliban to hold talks in S Arabia: envoy

RIYADH: Afghan government officials and representatives of the country’s former Taliban rulers are to hold peace talks in Saudi Arabia, a Riyadh-based Afghan diplomat said on Monday.

“An Afghan government delegation and a Taliban delegation will hold talks in Saudi Arabia,” the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity, but he could not give a timing. He said the talks in Saudi would be separate from the US-brokered meetings held in Qatar and be the first such talks to take place there.

Taliban negotiators have begun preliminary discussions with the United States in Qatar on plans for peace talks aimed at ending the decade-long war in Afghanistan. A member of the Taliban’s leadership council, the Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, said Sunday “the idea that the Taliban should have a point of contact in Saudi is pushed by the Pakistan and Afghan governments.”

Pakistan was feeling “sidelined” from the US-brokered talks, he said. The Afghan diplomat, however, said there were no plans for a third party to attend the negotiations in Saudi Arabia. “So far, there is no third party that will be present at the talks,” he said. A senior Afghan government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged on Sunday that the Saudi talks would take place but also did not say when.

Secret Nato report accuses Pakistan of helping Taliban

LONDON: Pakistan’s security services are secretly aiding Afghanistan’s Taliban, who assume their victory is inevitable once Western troops leave, a secret Nato document says, according to reports on Wednesday.

The leaked report — seen by The Times newspaper and BBC — was compiled from information gleaned from insurgent detainees and was given to Nato commanders in Afghanistan last month, the media reports said.

The “State of the Taliban” document claims that Islamabad, via Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, is “intimately involved” with the insurgency. The BBC said the report was based on material from 27,000 interrogations of more than 4,000 captured Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives.

“Pakistan’s manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly,” the report was quoted as saying. Taliban captives revealed how Islamabad was using a web of intermediaries and spies to provide strategic advice to the Taliban on fighting Western coalition troops.

“The government of Pakistan remains intimately involved with the Taliban,” the report said. “ISI is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of senior Taliban personnel. Senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel, who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the government of Pakistan.

“ISI officers tout the need for continued jihad and expulsion of foreign invaders from Afghanistan.” However, there was little evidence from the detainees that Islamabad was providing funding or weaponry.

Kabul, which accuses Islamabad of supporting the 10-year Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, put relations on ice after the September murder of its peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani, which one Afghan minister blamed on Pakistani spies.

The Times quoted the report as saying the Taliban’s “strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact”, despite setbacks in 2011.

“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” it said. “Once (Nato force) Isaf is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.” The US Department of Defense said it could not comment on the report but set out its fears about Pakistan and its influence in Afghanistan.

“We have not seen the report, and therefore cannot offer comment on it specifically,” Pentagon spokesman George Little told AFP.

“We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks.”

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta “has also been clear that he believes that the safe havens in Pakistan remain a serious problem and need to be addressed by Pakistani authorities.”

The report said there had been unprecedented interest in joining the Taliban cause in 2011 — even from members of the Afghan government.

“Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption,” it was reported as saying.

It said the Taliban were deliberately going soft in some areas to encourage Nato troops to leave faster, while doing local deals with the Afghan forces who take over.

Some in the Afghan security forces collaborated with the Taliban, selling arms and sharing intelligence, the report said.

The Times, in an editorial, said Pakistan was “actively hindering reconciliation” between the Taliban and Kabul with a “systematic effort” to destabilise President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“The ISI emerges from this document looking considerably more villainous, even, than the Taliban itself,” it said.

Pakistan hit out angrily at the report, calling it “frivolous” and “not worth commenting on”.

“This is frivolous, to put it mildly. We are committed to non-interference in Afghanistan and expect all other states to strictly adhere to this principle,” foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told AFP.

A senior security official condemned the leak, as reported by the BBC, which also broadcast a documentary “Secret Pakistan” last year accusing parts of Pakistan’s intelligence service of complicity with Taliban militants. “The report is not available, leaks not worth commenting,” he told this agency.

Reuters adds: The US military said in a secret report that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after Nato-led forces withdraw, raising the prospect of a major failure of Western policy after a costly war.

Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the existence of the document, reported on Wednesday by Britain’s Times newspaper and the BBC. But he said it was not a strategic study.

“The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions,” he said. “It’s not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis.”

Nevertheless, it could be interpreted as a damning assessment of the war, dragging into its 11th year and aimed at blocking a Taliban return to power. It could also be seen as an admission of defeat and could reinforce the view of Taliban hardliners that they should not negotiate with the United States and President Hamid Karzai’s unpopular government while in a position of strength.

The US military said in the document that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) security agency was assisting the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces. Reasserting control over the country would be more difficult a second time for the Taliban, however, with Afghan police and soldiers expected to number around 350,000 beyond 2014 and some foreign troops likely to remain, including elite forces.

The Times said the “highly classified” report was put together by the US military at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, for top Nato officers last month.

The document may leave some US policymakers wondering whether the war was worth the cost in human lives and funding. As of late January, 1,889 US soldiers had been killed in a conflict that was launched after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks and has drained almost half a trillion dollars from US coffers.

Romney says US should not negotiate with Taliban

MYRTLE BEACH: US Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said on Monday the United States should not negotiate with the Taliban and he criticised the Obama administration for efforts to broker secret talks with the Afghan insurgents.

Romney, who has won the first two Republican contests in the race to pick a nominee to face Democratic President Barack Obama in November, strongly rejected any sort of talks with the Taliban.

“The right course for America is not to negotiate with the Taliban while the Taliban are killing our soldiers,” Romney said during a debate of the five Republican presidential hopefuls ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

“The right course is to recognize that they are the enemy of the United States.” Romney said Obama had put the United States in a position of “extraordinary weakness” because he had made a decision based on a political calendar on when to pull US troops out of Afghanistan and because he has even publicly announced the date when the United States would completely withdraw from the country. “We don’t negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out,” Romney said. “We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban.”

Senior US officials told Reuters last month that the United States had been involved in 10 months of secret dialogue with the Taliban. Officials had said the talks had reached a critical juncture and a Taliban prisoner transfer was possible from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody.

Taliban say they recruited soldier who killed French troops

KABUL: The Afghan Taliban said on Saturday they had recruited an Afghan soldier who shot dead four French soldiers a day earlier, raising fears the militant group had managed to deepen its infiltration of the country’s struggling security forces.

The killings prompted France to threaten an early pullout from the Nato-led war. The claim of responsibility raises serious concerns about handing control of security over to the Afghan army and police, which Nato-led forces are currently in the process of doing before all foreign combat troops leave by the end of 2014.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has recruited people in important positions,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location, using another name the Islamist group call themselves.

“Some of them have already accomplished their missions.”

The four French soldiers died on the spot, he said. The killings in Kapisa province were the latest in a string of such attacks in which Afghan troops turn on their Western allies and mentors. While Nato has blamed Taliban infiltration in the past, it has also said stress, indiscipline and divided loyalties within the hastily trained ranks played a role. Such attacks are especially damaging as the Afghan National Army tries to win public trust before foreign troops leave.

The Taliban claim coincided with a visit to Kabul by the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman. He is expected to meet President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials.

Friday’s attack also comes weeks after an offer from the Taliban to open a political office in Qatar as a prelude to possible peace talks with the United States and other nations. After the shooting — which took the French death toll to 82since the war began in 2001 — President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered all French military operations on the ground to be suspended and Defence Minister Gerard Longuet jetted into Kabul on Saturday.

A regional Taliban commander added that incidents such as a video showing US Marines urinating on corpses were boosting support for the group among Afghans and threatened more attacks. “Our missions have become easier because of incidents like the video,” he said.

Taliban warn spy-catcher masked men

PESHAWAR: The five-member leadership council of different Taliban groups on Friday issued a leaflet which declared that masked men of “jihadi” groups were not authorised to pick up people on spying or other charges without informing the council members. “The members of any group conducting such activities would be answerable to them,” the council warned. The statement carried names of all the five members including Maulvi Sadar Hayat, Maulvi Saeedullah, Maulvi Noor Saeed, Maulvi Azmatullah and Hafiz Ameer Hamza.

Romney says US should not negotiate with Taliban

MYRTLE BEACH: US Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said on Monday the United States should not negotiate with the Taliban and he criticised the Obama administration for efforts to broker secret talks with the Afghan insurgents.

Romney, who has won the first two Republican contests in the race to pick a nominee to face Democratic President Barack Obama in November, strongly rejected any sort of talks with the Taliban.

“The right course for America is not to negotiate with the Taliban while the Taliban are killing our soldiers,” Romney said during a debate of the five Republican presidential hopefuls ahead of Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

“The right course is to recognize that they are the enemy of the United States.” Romney said Obama had put the United States in a position of “extraordinary weakness” because he had made a decision based on a political calendar on when to pull US troops out of Afghanistan and because he has even publicly announced the date when the United States would completely withdraw from the country. “We don’t negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out,” Romney said. “We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban.”

Senior US officials told Reuters last month that the United States had been involved in 10 months of secret dialogue with the Taliban. Officials had said the talks had reached a critical juncture and a Taliban prisoner transfer was possible from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody.