HOW SERIOUS ARE TALIBAN TALKS IN AFGHAN?

THE REASONS FOR OBAMA'S DELAY OF TROOPS IN AFGHAN...

.

.

Very serious talks, Saudi facilitated,no Pakgov.

Afghan Taliban commander Abdul Manan aka Mulla Toor Jan and Mullah Omar strongly disagree with the Mehsud driven Paki Taliban regarding attacks on Pakistani noncombatant peoples of all faiths.The Afghans will only fight NATO and US troops in Afghanistan. The Afghans consider their fight to be ideological and faith driven and consider the Paki Taliban tobe nothing more than bandits that kidnap,extort and sell drugs.

Hakimullah Mehsudthreatened to eliminate theleaders of Kashmiri Mujahideen groups if they did not stop fighting in Kashmir and start attacking the PakMil.Taliban militants also massacred 20 members of Jama’at-ud-Dawa after a Jirga in Mohmand Agency in 2008. These actions greatly alienated the Haqqanis and Afghan Taliban from the Paki Taliban and AQ.

Many Afghan Talib blameAQ for the failure of the Taliban government in Kabul that brought Karzai and his family to power and allowed opium production to start up again. They see AQ and the Paki Taliban to be one and the same and hate the Uzbeks and Chechens they allowed into safe havens in Pakistan.

Remember Dostrum of the N Alliance is Uzbek and there is a strong mutual hatred with the Afghan Taliban Puhktuns.

So there are many opportunities for common ground. BTW, Karzai is not a willing participant in the talks and knows that what ever is settled, he is gone from power.

One likely scenario is to break off the Pakhtun areas of Afghanistan into an autonomous district that could have sharia law similar to areas of N Nigeria. The PakGov strongly opposes that idea.

Bottom line on the Afghan Taliban is that they haveminimal contact with AQ,Bin Laden and couldn't give him or Z up if they wanted to as they are residents of Pakistan.

gandalf

I forgot to mention Mullah Munibullah the Taliban commander of Nuristan. He isan exception to the Afghan Taliban in that he openly works with Paki Taliban, Uzbeks, AQ and Chechens. Likely because Nuristan is a transit toCentral Asia and he would not live long if he didn't allow safe passage.

His father met with our General Abizaid in 2001 right afterthe invasion and nearly joined forces. The door is still open, though, but after the debacle at FOB Keating in Kamdesh,Nuristan is out of our grasp for now.