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Defiant US interacting with Taliban leaders without ISI consent | Defiant US commanders leading the NATO military
coalition force in Afghanistan have reportedly agreed to hold meetings with senior Taliban commanders outside the Afghan capital without the consent of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a bid to end the war in Afghanistan faster than earlier scheduled. According to the New York Times, Taliban commanders are
secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops for
these discussions, some of which have reportedly taken place in Kabul . The meetings
are and have been held with the inner circle of President Hamid Karzai, members
of the Quetta shura, the leadership group that oversees the Taliban war effort
inside Afghanistan and NATO commanders. The Afghan leaders have also held discussions
with leaders of the Haqqani network, considered to be one of the most hard-line
guerrilla factions fighting here; and members of the Peshawar shura, whose fighters
are based in eastern Afghanistan . "These are face-to-face discussions. This is
not about making the Americans happy or making Karzai happy. It's about what is
in the best interests of the Afghan people. These talks are based on personal
relationships," an Afghan official said. The Taliban leaders have left their havens
in Pakistan on the explicit assurance that they will not be attacked or arrested
by NATO forces. At least four Taliban leaders, three of them members of the Quetta
shura and one of them a member of the Haqqani family, have taken part in discussions,
according to the Afghan official and a former diplomat in the region. "When the
Taliban see that they can travel in the country without being attacked by the
Americans, they see that the government is sovereign, that they can trust us,"
the unnamed official said. However, there are concerns that the strategy could
backfire by provoking the Pakistanis into undermining any agreement. With Mullah
Muhammad Omar, the overall leader of the Taliban, being cut out of the negotiations,
in part because of his closeness to the Pakistani security services, officials
said, the potential for the ISI to prevent the negotiations and eliminate Taliban
leaders engaging in talks is huge. The New York Times is withholding the identities
of the Taliban leaders at the request of the White House and an Afghan who has
taken part in the discussions. The NYT quoted the Afghan official, as saying that
identifying the men could result in their deaths or detention at the hands of
rival Taliban commanders or Pakistani intelligence agents who support them. "The
ISI will try to prevent these negotiations from happening. The ISI will just eliminate
them," an Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. According
to the paper, in at least one case, Taliban leaders crossed the border and boarded
a NATO aircraft bound for Kabul . In other cases, NATO troops have secured roads
to allow Taliban officials to reach Afghan and NATO-controlled areas so they can
take part in discussions. American officials said last week that talks between
Afghan and Taliban leaders were under way. The discussions are still described
as preliminary, partly because Afghan and American officials are trying to determine
how much influence the Taliban leaders who have participated in the talks have
within their own organizations. Even so, the talks have been held on several different
occasions and appear to represent the most substantive effort to date to negotiate
an end to the nine-year-old war, which began with an American-led campaign to
overthrow the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks.
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