Battle to save Osama is not a battle for Islam, Pakistan secret service moderate Taliban to create a huge breakaway faction.
On reports.. The Washington Post reported that the troops were in southern Afghanistan to expand CIA efforts to encourage ethnic Pashtun leaders to break away from the Taliban.
In a major victory for General Pervez Musharraf the Pro- Osama religious leaders who taught Mullah Omar and his leadership in Dar- ul- Ulooms have quietly promised Pakistan that their activities in support of Taliban will cease they have now agreed to be less active in the group's pro-Taliban activities in future. The religious leader, now providing an active support to the government, has, nevertheless, stressed that because of the sensitive nature of the issue, he wouldn't make any public commitment about his efforts to dissect the Taliban movement from Mullah Omar and Al-Qaeda group.
Pakistani security officials have been holding extensive background meetings with top religious leaders of the country in order to convince them that the policy decision taken by General Pervez Musharraf was in the best interest of the country. Pakistani officials are also working with Afghan elements to encourage an anti-Mullah Omar group in Taliban. Officials said that they had made substantial progress on both counts.
I n an effort to bring down Taliban government two prong strategy is being pursued. On one hand predicting an imminent collapse of the Taliban government, the Bush administration has proposed Cambodia-like UN peace administration in Afghanistan during a transition period before a new government takes up in Kabul.
Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted by US media as implying during informal talk with journalists en route from New Delhi to Shanghai Wednesday that the political vacuum that would result from what now appears to be inevitable collapse of the Taliban government in the wake of US bombings would need to be filled, ‘probably by UN peacekeepers’.
The religious leader in Pakistan on prodding and encouragement of Pakistan secret services have re-energised his contacts with the Taliban political and military leadership, President General Pervez Musharraf have been informed by his security aides on Wednesday that a small group of senior Taliban officials -- willing to abandon Mulla Omar to join a new broad-based government in Afghanistan -- had contacted Pakistani officials in Peshawar, a senior Pakistani official said. It was, however, not known if the religious leader from NWFP had any role in this latest development, but officials were quick to describe it as "a significant breakthrough".
Pakistani sources said that messages from at least two Taliban ministers had confirmed earlier reports that a major Taliban group was gearing to break ranks with Mulla Omar. "There is a stream of messages from important Taliban political and military officials from various Afghan cities, but the latest communication from two Taliban ministers is most credible and significant," confirmed an official.
Pakistani officials said that the Taliban ministers sent their messages through intermediaries who had been shuttling through safer road passages between Kandahar and Quetta and between Jalalabad and Peshawer.
On the other hand slowly Taliban are suffering serious erosion as frictions within the group on Osama are leading to major divisions. The secret services of Pakistan are playing an important role. An initial breakthrough in their efforts to minimise support for Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden within the Taliban administration as well as for the pro-Taliban campaign by religious parties in Pakistan has been reported. The sources said that a premier secret service achieved breakthrough on both issues last week when an important Pakistani religious leader, who also runs one of the largest religious seminaries in the NWFP, secretly agreed with the secret service to use his influence with Taliban ministers and officials to adopt a more moderate course.
"He enjoys great influence over Taliban because thousands of them had graduated from his seminary. He personally knows several Taliban ministers," an official said. "His message to Taliban is that the battle to save Osama is not a battle for Islam."
Pakistani officials work closely with international forces, including the United Nations, to encourage anti-Mulla Omar and Al-Qaeda group in the present Taliban regime, they are also working separately to renew their contacts with former Pashtun Mujahideen commanders who had earned name in Jihad against the Soviet forces.
Talking about the chances of a collapse in support for the ruling Taliban, a political vacuum immediately may develop, or sort of a deteriorating situation that leads to a political vacuum. To fill the vacuum what needed is some sort of broad-based assemblage of individuals, leaders, representing all aspects of Afghan society who’ll come together with a common purpose, perhaps using the position of the king as a rallying point. Afghanistan’s former king Mohammed Zahir Shah, 87, is seen as one possible rallying point for a broad alliance. Simultaneously, Pakistani and US officials are said to be working intensely on a separate front to bring various Pashtun tribals from southern and eastern Afghanistan to a common anti-Taliban platform.
A Pakistani source informed: "Through his representative, Zahir Shah has assured us that he would respect Pakistan's judgement in the process leading to the selection of an interim council that will ultimately hold Loya Jirga inside Afghanistan." "Not a single Pashtun tribal leader, contacted so far from east to south in Afghanistan, has refused to participate in the political coalition being created to rid this country of Mulla Omar and Osama Bin Laden," the Pakistani official said. Some of these tribal leaders had completely rejected offers of senior level jobs from Mulla Omar, he added.
Officials in their background interviews acknowledged that the recent Afghanistan-related activities in the secret services of the country were directly linked to the intelligence cooperation that Pakistan had committed with the US soon after the September 11 incident.
"We are in the process of setting the rules of the games. It is crucial to designate the duties so there is no confusion once the operation gets going," informed an official familiar with the recent Pak-US intelligence interaction in Islamabad.
‘I think there probably will be a role for peacekeepers of some kind and that’s part of our discussions.’ The US has been persuaded by Pakistan that any future Afghan government should have broad support, including moderate members of the Taliban.
Powell said that for the post-Taliban scenario, the United States is strongly behind the idea of a broad-based government composed of leaders representing ‘all aspects’ of Afghan society to replace the Taliban. Powell has also endorsed Gen. Musharraf’s view that killing of Taliban troops in the North would give a free hand to the Northern Alliance to seize Kabul and be at the centre stage of new government would spell disaster. It would polarize Afghan society, encourage anarchy and prolong civil strife.
There appears to be some variance of views between Powell and Rumsfield. Defence secretary Rumsfeld is a strong supporter of calibrating bombing strikes to help Northern Alliance forces sweep Taliban positions in their march towards Kabul and other cities. Whilst State department sees Northern alliance single-handed take over as a disaster, Defence Department consider Alliance take over Kabul as a strategic victory. The Pakistani are trying to work against time and are moving very quickly to break Taliban so that a moderate faction may be able to join a broad based government as soon the Kabul falls. The last thing Pakistan fears the most is a unfriendly government as its back it is for this reason that Iran rejected Powell- Musharraf Islamabad statement on inclusion of moderate Taliban in future set up as unsatisfactory.
Pakistani secret services are working with some of these Mujahideen commanders hate Taliban because of the disrespect they had for heroes of Jihad against Soviet union, Pakistan expects that at least a few of the former Mujahideen commanders might not like Northern Alliance or Zahir Shah taking over Kabul but they would definitely like to see an instant downfall of Mullah Omar.
No credible feedback was available on the efforts by some Pakistani officials to lobby former Mujahideen commanders such as Maulvi Yunis Khalis and Maulvi Nabi Mohammadi, the two elderly Pashtun commanders, to urge them to use their contacts with Taliban to dissuade them from taking a course that may lead to complete destruction of Afghanistan. The end game in this campaign is well advanced and ISI is providing the intelligence and hopefully the backing within Pashtun the race that dominated Afghanistan’s demographic profile.
During its eight-year-long war against the USSR, Afghanistan had been provided with financial, intelligence and propaganda support by the US and its allies, while the ISI handled the operational side with strict control on monetary disbursement.
"Pakistan, like the previous Afghan operation, would like to keep a firm grip over the political operation," a senior official said, adding: "It means that no foreign intelligence activity on Afghanistan would take place in Pakistan without our complete knowledge." |
