Moderate Taliban offered truce, Kabul claims

[Barrett808]

KABUL: Former Taliban officials have contacted the Afghan government and offered to cooperate, after months of deadly attacks on aid workers and troops, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said on Monday.

“They contacted the government and said they were ready to cooperate with the government if it wanted. They have said they are ready to do their best to help the government,” Jaweduddin told a press briefing in Kabul. He didn’t say when the contact was made.

Jaweduddin, however, declined to name the officials but said they were moderate members of the hard-line regime, which was toppled from power under a United States-led military assault which began two years ago. “It was a number of Taliban who were involved in the Taliban government. Our understanding up to now is that they were not those Taliban whose hands were polluted with people’s blood and they are not known criminals,” Karzai’s spokesman said.

The bid by the moderates to join hands with Karzai’s administration comes amid a surge in violence by fighters loyal to the fundamentalist militia, who have been attacking aid workers, US troops and Afghan security forces mainly in Afghanistan’s southeast. US military officials have accused the Taliban of trying to destabilise Karzai’s administration and re-install their own regime.

Jaweduddin said the government had not decided whether to negotiate with the Taliban moderates or not. “Up to now the government has not made any decision in this regard. “As far as the question of negotiation with the Taliban is concerned, there hasn’t been any negotiation with them.”

(more)

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_21-10-2003_pg7_10

[Ms. Clio]

1. "moderate" Taliban?

Isn't that an oxymoron like "compassionate" conservative?

Once again, the Asia Times was on top of this story all the way back in June:

US turns to the Taliban

"Such is the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, compounded by the return to the country of a large number of former Afghan communist refugees, that United States and Pakistani intelligence officials have met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise a political solution to prevent the country from being further ripped apart."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EF14Ag01.html

[SlavesandBulldozers]

2. oh great, negotiations with Theocratic Fascists.

so now we're just past 2 years from the start of the war on terrorism and the Northern alliance is already considering negotiations with the Taliban? I guess the ladies are going to have to dust off those Burkhas and everybody's going to have to bury the VCR's again.

We're America, aren't we're supposed to be some kind of juggernaut militarily. That's the (accurate) accusation against us all the time - we spend too much GDP on military, we are a rape-culture etc, youd think we could have at least annihilated the Taliban. why the hell is anybody still calling themselves the Taliban over there? Did we really get so distracted by this bullshit Iraq thing that the Taliban set up a branch office somewhere? Doing a bang up job there Mr. President. Bush can't finish anything he gets into, typical A.D.D.

[bluestateguy]

3. We should not negotiate with the taliban

Negotiating with warlords is one thing (though I don't like that either), but the destruction of the Taliban, not it's preservation, is what we should aim for. If you look at the Taliban, you will see many similarities with our own American Religious Right.

[TheLastMohican]

4. You don't destroy something you have created

Simple law of nature. Maybe next time the stupid administration will be more careful in creating different talibans and schools of america but I am being an optimist here.