Last week a man named Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef checked into a hotel in London. This man was held in Guantanamo Bay for four years, charged with co-coordinating with Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Zaeef has been on the United Nation’s blacklist since 2001 and was removed this past summer. Lately he has emerged as a key ally to Karzai.
Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef has been acting as a negotiator between President Karzai and the Taliban’s supreme commander in Pakistan, Mullah Muhammad Omar. It has been thought that Zaeef and Karzai have been discussing a deal that would return the power to the Taliban in parts of south Afghanistan. As a result the Taliban would accept the control of the Kabul government and rid itself of any Al-Qaeda jihadists. This would be a small price to pay in order to regain peace in Afghanistan and end the war. However discussed in my last blog post this is an unlikely scenario.
The problem with this is that the Taliban would not likely be confined to the predetermined area and it is doubtful that they would obey the government in Kabul. The other reason the possibility that this deal will get done is small, is because all of the members that Karzai is using to converse with the Taliban are old members. They have not been with or fought with the Taliban in several years and the way things are run expected to adapt in their absence.
Another reason why the negotiations are poised to fail is because it is improbable that the Taliban would separate their ties from Al Qaeda. This can mainly be seen through a 1998 incident. Al Qaeda blew up an American submarine. Immediately following the Taliban issued a statement saying that they would respond with full force if Bin Laden were harmed. The Taliban was also given warning less than a month before 9/11 that Bin Laden was planning an attack against the US. However nothing was done to stop the attack. This shows how committed to Al Qaeda the Taliban was. It also provides insight into the reason why Americans associate the Taliban with Al Qaeda. Even though they are two separate groups it was the Taliban that gave Al Qaeda a place to train and a basis of operation. This creates in the minds of Americans an association or even an alliance between the two.
Because Zaeef has been willing to trade his old ways for new ones of peace there is hope for the country. With a team of former Taliban members working for Karzai who knows what kind of negotiation can be reached. Perhaps it is due to this group that peace will finally befall on Afghanistan. More and more former Taliban members are asking to be a part of the process because they want to see a country that can have coexistence. Through this portion of Karzai’s government the current leaders of the Taliban are able to speak and express their desires to the current government. This is a huge step forward in the process for negotiations of peace within the country.
Nathan
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8326606/Why-talks-with-the-Taliban-are-likely-to-fail.html
ReplyDeleteNathan, I would like to know how the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda has changed in the last ten years. Clearly a lot of water has gone under the bridge since 1998 and 2001 (the examples that you use). Is there any evidence that suggests a change in this relationship since these dates? Are these examples still valid as descriptors of the Taliban - Al Qaeda relationship?
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