Diplomacy with Taliban questioned

ISLAMABAD // Revelations that Afghan and British leaders are leaning towards diplomacy and negotiations with the Taliban, while thousands of Pakistani troops and civilians are dying in anti-Taliban offensives and blowback suicide attacks, amounts to mixed messages from the world community, say analysts in Islamabad. Britain's top military commander in Afghanistan told the Sunday Times that a political settlement with the Taliban would be welcomed as "we are not going to win this war", Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has invited Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban chief, to talk with him, and a number of unconfirmed reports allege that Afghan and Taliban leaders held face-to-face talks in Saudi Arabia last month. "I think it is bloody hypocritical," said Ayesha Siddiqa, a defence analyst and author. "While the Americans' military incursions into Pakistan are causing further instability, now Washington's ally Britain is talking about talking to the Taliban, which in many ways also will be counterproductive because when the time was right to talk nobody in the West was willing to talk." The comments by Brig Mark Carleton-Smith follow reports based on a leaked cable that the UK ambassador to Afghanistan believes military operations against the Taliban are "destined to fail" and that foreign troops are more of a problem than a solution. Although Kabul denies that talks with the Taliban have taken place already, a government spokesman said yesterday: "We would like that to happen, but how, when and where, by what mechanism and with whose help - we are working on that." The apparent change of heart by London and Kabul towards Afghanistan's former rulers comes amid massive pressure on Pakistan to ramp up military offensives against Taliban fighters, and at perhaps Pakistan's most precarious moment in the seven-year "war on terrorism" The economically crippled state is losing civilian lives, as well as civilian support, because of intensified US attacks on its territory targeting Taliban and al Qa'eda hideouts. One US commando raid took the lives of women and children alongside accused militants. It has now become a major focus of the US election campaign, with both sides criticising Islamabad's efforts and outdoing each other in hawkish pledges of greater aggression against Taliban and al Qa'eda bases on Pakistan soil. Meanwhile the country is reeling from the Sept 20 suicide lorry attack on Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, that killed at least 53 people and wounded over 260, the latest in a non-stop chain of nearly 100 suicide attacks in 21 months. In the past five days alone two parliamentarians have been targeted by suicide bombers; more than 1,300 soldiers have been killed during army operations along the Afghan border since the September 11 attacks; and public opinion against partnering with the United States in fighting the Taliban is high. Despite popular opposition, the Pakistan army is waging a major military offensive against Taliban militants in the border tribal agency of Bajaur and it has 80,000 troops stationed along its Afghan border in a bid to prevent Taliban incursions. Asif Ali Zardari, the president, has vowed repeatedly to take on the militants. Anti-Taliban tribal militias are being armed by the government. Mr Zardari's government is working overtime to convince the people that it is Pakistan's war and not just that of the United States. Several ceasefires and peace treaties between the government and Taliban groups in the past 12 months were heavily criticised by Washington and British-led Nato forces in Afghanistan. "When Pakistan tries to talk to the Taliban it's criticised, but when Karzai does the same thing and even when the British say 'we want to talk', then little is said [in the way of criticism]. It's the height of hypocrisy," Ms Siddiqa said. "I see it as a confusion in the policies of Britain and the US. This is a difficult war, especially when they're expanding their frontier and taking it inside Pakistan as well." US and Nato forces must withdraw from Afghanistan if a negotiated settlement is to work, says the party of Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister. "Even the US had to hold talks with Vietnamese and Koreans. It will be advisable to resolve this issue by adopting negotiations. But our considered opinion is that if the foreign forces do not withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the core problem will remain to be solved," said Siddiqe ul Farooq, a spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which holds the second largest bloc of seats in parliament. The current US policy of firing missiles at suspected Taliban shelters and mounting incursions on Pakistan soil without permission "is very negative and too counterproductive," Mr Farooq said. "We have now become the target of this terrorism. "PML-N prefers talks as the first priority to win over hearts and minds rather than bodies. The only permanent solution to the problem is the withdrawal of occupational forces." The US-led coalition needs to correct its early post-September 11 mistake of overlooking moderate Taliban figures, said Iqbal Pervez Cheema, a security analyst who heads the Islamabad Policy Research Institute. "The initial mistake was when the Americans lumped all Taliban as bad," Mr Cheema said. "There were many Taliban, like its foreign minister, who were much more moderate, but the US pushed them into a corner with the hardliners. The moderates had not much choice and began to sympathise with them, if not actively participating in their militancy." More than 30 suicide attacks in Pakistan in the first nine months of 2008 have taken at least 500 lives. Combined with other non-suicide attacks, the toll for 2008 has topped 1,200. The Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies recorded 60 suicide attacks last year, in which at least 770 people were killed, including 300 civilians and 470 police and soldiers. bcurran@thenational.ae