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The governors of Zabul and Ghazni, in southern Afghanistan, are also conducting talks with Taliban, using religious leaders and local elders as intermediaries. Read more about the talks here. As one Afghan says, "This is good news for our people, for our nation, for our brothers who had been deceived. It's a major achievement for our government. It's really time for unity, it's time to get along. We should hold each others' hands and rebuild our country."
In their negotiations, the authorities are receiving some valuable assistance from an insider:
One of the Taliban's most senior and charismatic commanders has become a key negotiator as more and more members of the Islamic militia in Afghanistan give up the fight against the Americans.
The commander, Abdul Salam, earned the nickname Mullah Rockety because he was so accurate with rocket propelled grenades against Russian troops. He later joined the Taliban as a corps commander in Jalalabad before being captured by the Americans after September 11.
Now he is a supporter of President Hamid Karzai and is tempting diehard Taliban fighters to accept an amnesty offer and reconcile themselves to Afghanistan's first directly elected leader.
"The Taliban has lost its morale," he said, speaking by satellite phone from the heartlands of Zabul province, a Taliban redoubt. "But you have to go and find the Taliban and call to them and ask them directly. If they believe they will be secure and safe they will come down from the mountains."
According to Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist, the British army officer who serves as deputy commander of international forces in Afghanistan, local residents are proving increasingly helpful in combating the Taliban and al Qaeda remnants. Afghan and American authorities have also been successful in their efforts to isolate and bring to the table the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan group of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, widely seen as sympathetic to the Taliban.
The terrorists and insurgents are losing their infrastructure as more arms caches continue to be found throughout the country. Four were located on Feb. 5, including one containing "82 mm mortar rounds, one 100 mm projectile, two 122 mm projectiles, eight 57 mm projectiles, one 76 mm projectile, 14 23 mm recoilless rifle rounds, two C-50 rockets, 10 anti-personnel mines, 500 fuses, 21 hand grenades and 12 VOC-25 rifle rounds."
On one day alone, Feb. 7, the troops located six caches with weapons and 2,400 pounds of hashish. In 13 days up to Feb. 12, 33 separate weapons caches were discovered throughout the country. Another large cache recovered in Herat; four caches discovered in Paktya, Kunar and Uruzgan provinces and Herat; and a huge cache discovered by the Afghan Zafar army corps in Shindad district, consisting of "600 cartons of guns, rocket missiles and 65 ballistic missiles." And two roadside bombs have been recently located and disarmed thanks to tips from local elders in Oruzgan district and Herat province.
Other security successes: the capture of the top Taliban commander in the province of Uruzgun; the arrest in a raid in Quetta, Pakistan, of 17 Taliban members, including the former deputy governor of southern Helmand province, Mullah Khush Dil, and ex-Kabul police chief Mullah Ibrahim; and the arrest of four Taliban leaders in the south.
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The authorities are reporting that the southwestern zone of the country, centered in Kandahar, has been 98% disarmed. The region around Jalalabad has been declared the second in the country to be fully disarmed. Meanwhile, "a second phase of disarmament of private militants have begun in Badakshan, Kunduz, Thakar and Baghlan provinces of Afghanistan." And there's more progress around Bamiyan.
Replacing militias, guerilla groups and other armed bands, the new Afghan army is developing according to plan:
Afghanistan's new army will reach full combat strength by the end of next year and training of the overall force of 70,000 should be complete by the end of 2008. . . . The army currently has 17,000 combat soldiers, with another 5,000 undergoing training, and it would reach its full combat strength of 40,000 by the end of 2006, U.S. Brigadier-General Richard Moorhead told a news conference. He said completion of training of the overall force of 70,000, including headquarters and other non-combat personnel, would take until the end of 2008.
(Update: the army level reaches 20,000 troops.) |
