PDA

View Full Version : Unbelievable: U.S. has been negotiating with Taliban impostor in peace talks




Agorism
11-22-2010, 10:28 PM
Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an Impostor
By DEXTER FILKINS and CARLOTTA GALL

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23kabul.html?_r=1



KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from across the border in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.

The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.

The episode underscores the uncertain and even bizarre nature of the atmosphere in which Afghan and American leaders search for ways to bring the nine-year-old American-led war to an end. The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with the assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in American aid.

Many in the Taliban leadership, which is largely made up of barely literate clerics from the countryside, had not been seen in person by American, NATO or Afghan officials.

Doubts were raised about the man claiming to be Mullah Mansour — who by some accounts is the second-ranking official in the Taliban, behind only the founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar — after the third meeting, held in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. A man who had known Mr. Mansour years ago told Afghan officials that the man at the table did not resemble him. “He said he didn’t recognize him,” said an Afghan leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Western diplomat said the Afghan man was initially given a sizable sum of money to take part in the talks — and to help persuade him to return.

While the Afghan official said he still harbored hopes that the man would return for another round of talks, American and other Western officials said they had concluded that the man in question was not Mr. Mansour. Just how the Americans reached such a definitive conclusion — whether, for instance, they were able to positively establish his identity through fingerprints or some other means — is unknown.

As recently as last month, American and Afghan officials held high hopes for the talks. Senior American officials, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the talks indicated that Taliban leaders, whose rank-and-file fighters are under extraordinary pressure from the American-led offensive, were at least willing to discuss an end to the war.

The American officials said they and officials of other NATO governments were helping to facilitate the discussions, by providing air transport and securing roadways for Taliban leaders coming from Pakistan.

Last month, White House officials asked The New York Times to withhold Mr. Mansour’s name from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized — and Mr. Mansour’s life put at risk — if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansour’s name, along with the names of two other Taliban leaders said to be involved in the discussions. The status of the other two Taliban leaders said to be involved is not clear.

Since the last round of discussions, which took place within the past few weeks, Afghan and American officials have been puzzling over who the man was. Some Afghans say the man may have been a Taliban agent sent to impersonate Mr. Mansour. “The Taliban are cleverer than the Americans and our own intelligence service,” said a senior Afghan official who is familiar with the case. “They are playing games.”

Others suspect that the fake Taliban leader, whose real identity is not known, may have been dispatched by the Pakistani intelligence service, known by its initials, the ISI. Elements within the ISI have long played a “double-game” in Afghanistan, reassuring United States officials that they are actively pursuing the Taliban while at the same time providing support for the insurgents.

Publicly, at least, the Taliban leadership is sticking to the line that there are no talks at all. In a recent message to his followers, Mullah Omar denied that there were any talks unfolding at any level.
“The cunning enemy which has occupied our country, is trying, on the one hand, to expand its military operations on the basis of its double-standard policy and, on the other hand, wants to throw dust into the eyes of the people by spreading the rumors of negotiation,” his message said.

Despite such statements, some senior leaders of the Taliban did show a willingness to talk peace with representatives of the Afghan government as recently as January.

At that time, Abdul Ghani Baradar, then the deputy commander of the Taliban, was arrested in a joint C.I.A.-ISI raid in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Although officials from both countries hailed the arrest as a hallmark of American-Pakistani cooperation, Pakistani officials have since indicated that they orchestrated Mr. Baradar’s arrest because he was engaging in peace discussions without the ISI’s permission.

Afghan leaders have confirmed this account.

Neither American nor Afghan leaders confronted the fake Mullah Mansour with their doubts about his identity. Indeed, some Afghan leaders are still holding out hopes that the man really is or at least represents Mr. Mansour — and that he will come back soon.

“Questions have been raised about him, but it’s still possible that it’s him,” said the Afghan leader who declined to be identified.

The Afghan leader said negotiators had urged the man claiming to be Mr. Mansour to return with colleagues, including other high-level Taliban leaders whose identities they might also be able to verify.

The meetings were arranged by an Afghan middleman with ties to both the Afghan government and the Taliban, officials said.

The Afghan leader said both the Americans and the Afghan leadership were initially cautious of the Afghan man’s identity and motives. But after the first meeting, both were reasonably satisfied that the man they were talking to was Mr. Mansour. Several steps were taken to establish the man’s real identity; after the first meeting, photos of him were shown to Taliban detainees who were believed to know Mr. Mansour. They signed off, the Afghan leader said.

Whatever the Afghan man’s identity, the talks that unfolded between the Americans and the man claiming to be Mr. Mansour seemed substantive, the Afghan leader said. The man claiming to be representing the Taliban laid down several surprisingly moderate conditions for a peace settlement: that the Taliban leadership be allowed to safely return to Afghanistan, that Taliban soldiers be offered jobs, and that prisoners be released.

The Afghan man did not demand, as the Taliban have in the past, a withdrawal of foreign forces or a Taliban share of the government.

Sayed Amir Muhammad Agha, a onetime Taliban commander who says he has left the Taliban but who acted as a go-between with the movement in the past, said in an interview that he did not know the tale of the impostor.

But he said the Taliban leadership had given no indications of a willingness to enter talks.

“Someone like me could come forward and say, ‘I am a Talib and a powerful person,’ ” he said. “But I can tell you, nothing is going on.”

“Whenever I talk to the Taliban, they never accept peace and they want to keep on fighting,” he said. “They are not tired.”

jmdrake
11-22-2010, 10:33 PM
Flashback : Afghan officials say Pakistan's arrest of Taliban leader threatens peace talks (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040904807.html)

KABUL -- Senior Afghan officials are now criticizing as counterproductive the arrest in Pakistan this year of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 Taliban official. Its main effect, the Afghan officials say, has been to derail Afghan-led efforts to secure peace talks with the Taliban, making that peace ever more remote.

THIS STORY
Arrest of Taliban leader is criticized
Obama reaffirms U.S.-Afghan ties in note to Karzai
U.S. Osprey crashes in Afghanistan, killing four
The episode offers a window into the mutual suspicions that still divide Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly because of Pakistan's long history of support for the Taliban, as well as differences between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States about how best to seek reconciliation between insurgents and the Afghan government.



Senior Afghan officials in the military and presidential palace accuse Pakistan of orchestrating the arrest of Baradar and others to take down Taliban leaders most amenable to negotiations. Some of them say that Afghans had been in secret contact with Baradar before his arrest and that he was prepared to join the 1,400 people descending on Kabul next month for a peace conference. Despite Afghan requests, Pakistan has refused to hand over Baradar and other Taliban leaders.

Pakistani officials flatly deny that they intended to derail Taliban talks. Such an allegation, one Pakistani intelligence official said, is a "slur on us."

If the Afghan government "were talking to him, why did they allow him to leave Afghanistan?" he said. "If he was so important [to the peace process], he himself should have stayed there. If he was so important to the jirga, why did the United States provide the information that allowed us to catch him?"

The Afghan government's concern over the timing of the arrests reflects the urgency many feel to initiate a political dialogue with Taliban leadership. This push for high-stakes diplomacy has worried certain segments of Afghan society, including women and minority ethnic groups, who suffered the most under Taliban rule in the 1990s. The Obama administration prefers to focus on enticements for lower-level foot soldiers to switch sides, but President Hamid Karzai says the insurgency cannot be subdued without a political deal with Taliban leaders, according to his aides.

"There is a dire need for all of us, the international community and the Afghan government, to seek ways we can bring them peace," said Shaida Mohammad Abdali, deputy national security adviser in Afghanistan.

Both Afghans and their NATO allies want a negotiated solution to the nine-year-long insurgency, although there are differences of opinion among Afghanistan's Western partners -- and within some Western governments -- on how and how quickly negotiations should proceed.

Senior officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, have counseled delaying substantive reconciliation talks until the Taliban has been weakened by the current U.S. military surge, while Britain has said publicly that negotiations should proceed in tandem with the fighting.

In Afghanistan, U.S. military officials appear much more amenable to such talks. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander, has appointed the retired British officer who performed the same task for U.S. forces in Iraq to begin probing for dialogue at all levels.

"One without the other makes absolutely no sense," retired Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb said of the distinction drawn in Washington between reintegration of low-level fighters and reconciliation with top Taliban political leaders.

The pursuit of contacts with the Taliban appears to be happening at many levels within Afghan society, including governors, tribal elders, religious scholars and former Taliban and mujaheddin fighters. In the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan, both Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's half-brother and the region's leading power broker, and Nangarhar governor Gul Agha Sherzai, his longtime rival, made separate visits to U.S. officials in Kandahar earlier this year to try to convince them they could lead the effort to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Some Afghans say the arrests of Baradar and others undermined their bargaining position. "He was ready to go to the peace jirga," one senior Afghan official said. After his arrest, "the process of negotiations with the Taliban has slowed. We are now in a suspended state."

Afghan officials attribute to Pakistan multiple motives for the timing of the arrest of Baradar: a desire to not let Afghans control peace talks, to offer up select Taliban leaders to slake American demands for action, and to maintain a degree of influence over the Taliban movement they once openly supported. One American military official in Kabul said Pakistan is using the capture of insurgents as "trade bait" to extract more aid and military assistance from the United States.

Pakistan insists it has no relationship with the Afghan Taliban, although officials acknowledge having intelligence contacts, who they say are similar to those developed by the CIA.

Since Baradar's arrest, he has been interrogated by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials, but the Afghans have been left out. During Karzai's recent visit to Islamabad, he asked Pakistan to turn Baradar and other captured Taliban leaders over to Afghan custody. But Pakistan has said they must go on trial there.

1836er
11-22-2010, 10:41 PM
What a freakin' mess. At this point I can only think of even one plausibly legitimate reason to have anything to do with over there and that's to keep Pakistan's nukes out of the hands of those who would actually use them if given the opportunity... like we could prevent that anyway given our "intelligence."

IPSecure
11-22-2010, 10:41 PM
“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

Can 'We The People' obtain FAIL insurance?

HOLLYWOOD
11-22-2010, 10:53 PM
Gesus, somebody has to do a movie on this with the opening credits saying,

Based on an Absolutely True Story of the Biggest Wasting Imperial Morons on Planet Earth.

Then a camera pan...one of those ARRA Road signs outside of Kabul half Blown Up saying, "Your American Tax Dollars at Work"

Finally, a bunch of FSO/FP/CIA/State Department clowns with their heads up their asses.

axiomata
11-22-2010, 10:56 PM
Why is this unbelievable?

jmhudak17
11-23-2010, 01:17 AM
Our government is so freaking dumb...

Agorism
11-23-2010, 01:21 AM
Remember it was someone named "curveball" who fed George Bush faulty Iraq WMD data. Here's a picture of him.
http://motherjones.com/files/legacy/mojoblog/curveball.jpg

Maybe that's that they were negotiating with?

http://www.mwctoys.com/images/oddjob001.jpg

Anti Federalist
11-23-2010, 01:29 AM
www.sadtrombone.com/

Reason
11-23-2010, 03:04 AM
lol

HOLLYWOOD
11-23-2010, 03:15 AM
Just announced... Military Suicide Rate in Afghanistan highest since Vietnam War.

Disgusting Imperialist Fascists

Aratus
11-23-2010, 12:47 PM
oh lordy oh lordy
the drone base
was thusly attacked
after the imposter
was in the region?

ItsTime
11-23-2010, 12:56 PM
So LITERALLY, we do not know who the enemies are?

pcosmar
11-23-2010, 01:31 PM
Unbelievable:

No
Not really.
:mad:

sailingaway
11-23-2010, 01:34 PM
Why is this unbelievable?

TheState
11-23-2010, 01:45 PM
What's really amazing is that if the guy actually was a taliban commander, then the US would have just admitted giving the taliban "a lot of money".

angelatc
11-23-2010, 01:48 PM
I'll bet he also told them that Al Qaeda is now in Syria, and that they have WMDs, too!

oyarde
11-24-2010, 01:21 PM
There is no single Leader or a few leaders who can speak for all Taliban.

ExPatPaki
11-24-2010, 01:30 PM
There is no single Leader or a few leaders who can speak for all Taliban.

Mullah Omar. He's still alive and kicking.

Agorism
12-05-2010, 09:06 AM
bump

vita3
12-05-2010, 09:09 AM
& karazi refused a meeting with Obama

Pull the plug on this lie, fiasco & waste.