Afghan Taliban leader hails 'legitimate' peace talks

They were the first comments from Mullah Omar on last week’s milestone meetings between the two sides in Pakistan, easing concerns that the nascent dialogue lacked the leadership’s backing.

Afghan security personnel patrol during an ongoing anti-Taliban operation in Dangam district near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the eastern Kunar province. Noorullah Shirzada/AFP Photo

KABUL // Taliban leader Mullah Omar on Wednesday said peace talks aimed at ending Afghanistan’s 13-year war were “legitimate”.

They were his first comments on last week’s milestone meetings between the two sides in Pakistan, easing concerns that the nascent dialogue lacked the leadership’s backing.

Afghan officials sat down with Taliban cadres last week in Murree, a tourist town in the north of Islamabad, Pakistan, for their first face-to-face talks aimed at ending the bloody insurgency.

They agreed to meet again in the coming weeks, drawing international praise, but many militant commanders openly questioned the legitimacy of the Taliban negotiators, exposing dangerous faultlines within the movement.

But in his annual message before Eid Al Fitr, the reclusive leader supported negotiations although he did not refer specifically to last week’s meeting.

“If we look into our religious regulations, we can find that meetings and even peaceful interactions with the enemies is not prohibited,” he wrote in a statement on the Taliban’s website.

“Concurrently with armed jihad, political endeavours and peaceful pathways for achieving these sacred goals is a legitimate Islamic principle.”

Several informal meetings have been held in recent months between Taliban representatives and Afghan officials and activists, but last week’s meeting was seen as a significant step forward.

Afghan officials have not said when and where the next round of negotiations will take place, but it is widely expected to be conducted after Eid.

Wednesday’s statement marks the first comments on the process from Mullah Omar, who headed the Taliban’s hardline Islamist rule over Afghanistan for five years.

He has not been seen in public in years, and some disgruntled Taliban factions have suggested he is either dead or very ill and others may be making statements in his name.

In the absence of a clear lead from the top, some fighters have fallen back on the Taliban’s traditional position, that there can be no meaningful talks until all foreign forces leave Afghan soil.

The Taliban have been fighting to expel US-led foreign forces and the US-backed government in Kabul since they were ousted in 2001. Most foreign troops left last year but at least 13,000 remain, most of them training Afghan forces.

Nato ended its combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of December, but a smaller residual force remains in the country to train Afghan forces, due to leave altogether by the end of 2016.

Afghanistan and Pakistan said last week’s talks were the first official meeting between representatives and that all parties had agreed to start a process.

The Taliban’s leadership, however, is known to be divided on the issue, with political chief Akhtar Mohammad Mansour - who frequently speaks for Mullah Omar - in favour of negotiation and top battlefield commander Abdul Qayum Zakir against them.

But Wednesday’s statement is “different from previous Taliban statements”, said Kabul-based political analyst Ahmad Saeedi.

“In addition to war, the Taliban leader talks about peace and negotiations,” Mr Saeedi said.

“There is no doubt a gradual change is developing in the Taliban’s attitude. It is now for the Afghan government to use this golden opportunity and engage them smartly.”

But talks are dependent on another contributing factor – the emergence of a local branch of the ISIL, the Middle Eastern extremist outfit that last year declared a “caliphate” across large areas of Iraq and Syria that it controls.

The Taliban warned ISIL last month against expanding in the region, but this has not stopped some fighters, inspired by the group’s success, defecting to ISIL and swearing allegiance to its chief Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi instead of the invisible Mullah Omar.

In an oblique reference to ISIL, Omar’s statement said, “We have ... directed all our mujahideen to preserve their unity and forcefully prevent all those elements who attempt to create differences, damage this jihadi front.”

US drone strikes over the past week have killed dozens of suspected ISIL-linked cadres in Afghanistan, including the group’s Afghanistan-Pakistan regional chief Hafiz Saeed.

The notoriously uncompromising ISIL has shown no desire to negotiate – and if the Taliban faultlines widen, there is a danger the talks process could drive more of its hardline fighters into the arms of the Middle Eastern militant group.

* Agence France-Presse and Reuters