US would back Afghanistan’s Taliban reintegration policy: Holbrooke - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

President Obama’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke has said that the US would back Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plans to reintegrate the Taliban extremists. Karzai is likely to table a blue print of a policy to convince low-level and midlevel Taliban fighters who don’t back Al Qaeda and are ready to lay down arms during an international conference on Afghanistan here today (Thursday, January 28). “The overwhelming majority of these people are not ideological supporters of Mullah Omar and Al Qaeda. Based on interviews with prisoners, returnees, experts, there must be at least 70 percent of these people who are not fighting for anything to do with those causes,” The Daily Times quoted Holbrooke, as saying. Holbrooke said the goals for the London conference go beyond the reconciliation plan and will include discussions of a province-by-province handover of security control from US and NATO forces to Afghan forces However, the Taliban has rejected plans to reintegrate the fighters, saying they were not fighting for financial gains. In a statement posted on its website, the banned extremist outfit said they were fighting to defeat and end the presence of foreign powers present on their soil. “Our fighters wouldn’t be swayed by financial incentives because they are fighting not for money, property and position, but for Islam and to end the foreign military presence in the country,” the statement said.