U.S. frees Taliban leader to join Karzai
By Shaun Waterman and Anwar Iqbal United Press International
Published 11/5/2003: (UPI) The United States, in a move at odds with its publicly declared policy, has released from custody in Afghanistan the former Taliban foreign minister as part of a strategy to recruit elements of the former regime into the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Afghan and Pakistani officials told United Press International the Karzai government has been negotiating with the minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, to entice elements of the Taliban to join the government, which faces widespread security problems in the Pashtun-dominated areas of the country that formed the heartland of the fundamentalist movement.
Muttawakil was handed over to Afghan authorities last week after more than 18 months in U.S. custody. "He's free," Haroon Amin, the spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Washington told UPI.
Two U.S. officials, who declined to be named or quoted directly on the issue, confirmed that Muttawakil had been released.
The move represents a sharp departure from the public policy of the United States.
Christina Rocca, assistant secretary of State for South Asia told a congressional hearing last week that U.S. forces "are working closer than ever with ... the government of Pakistan to capture or destroy the remaining remnants of ... the Taliban in the region."
Amin said the talks with Muttawakil, brokered by Kandahar Gov. Mohammed Yusef Pashtun, were still at an early stage.
"Various posts (in the government) have been proposed to him... and he has agreed to work with us," he said, adding the talks were ongoing.
Amin said Muttawakil was in the Kandahar area, but declined to specify where.
Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was the center of Taliban rule. Like many Pashtun provinces in the south and east of the country, it remains largely ungovernable, its tribal inhabitants highly suspicious of the Kabul government, which they see as dominated by Tajiks and Uzbeks -- their ancient ethnic enemies.
A Pakistani intelligence official told UPI that Muttawakil was meeting with former Taliban colleagues. Amin said Karzai's strategy was to incorporate those who were not actively opposed to the Afghan government, and neutralize those who were.
"We want to make those who are neutral our friends and those who are our enemies neutral," he said. "If Afghanistan is not to be a breeding ground for terrorism again," he added, "we have to use the energies, the abilities, of anyone we can."
He stressed, however, that no one who had been personally involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity would be eligible for a government position.
The Pakistani official said talks with Muttawakil were part of a two-pronged strategy to force Pakistan to pressure some elements of its former Taliban allies -- those thought more moderate -- to join the Karzai government. The other prong, he said, was the so-called Pashtunistan card.
More than half of Pakistan is also inhabited by Pashtuns, and there is a long-established, though currently weak, autonomy movement in the region, led by the leftist Awami National Party, founded by the legendary fighter against British colonialism, Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan.
Karzai has recently reached out to Khan's son, Wallikhan, and invited him to Kabul, the Pakistani official said, adding he had done so with U.S. support.
The invitation, he said, "is designed to send a message (to Pakistan), 'We have a card that we can use against you and will use against you unless you strengthen the Afghan government.'"
The United States helped local forces oust the Taliban from power in late 2001, after the regime refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, the man U.S. officials say is the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bin Laden and other al-Qaida members had found refuge in Afghanistan.
Despite having publicly dumped its Taliban allies after the Sept. 11, terror attacks on New York and Washington, the official said, Pakistan had maintained clandestine links with some Taliban elements, in order to preserve a small reservoir of influence in its fractious and unstable neighbor.
"There is a concern," he said, "that the Americans will leave one day and we'd be left facing Indian and Russian influence there with no allies in the country."
Since the U.S.-led war toppled the Taliban, Pakistan has also reached out to discontented Pashtun tribal leaders, the official said. By raising the specter of Pashtunistan, the official said, Karzai hoped to pressure Pakistan to use its influence with moderate Taliban and tribal leaders to get them to support -- and thereby stabilize -- the Kabul government.
U.S. officials declined to comment for the record, but one acknowledged that, even before the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, the United States had tried to reach out to Muttawakil through the Pakistani government.
"We have always stayed in touch with moderate Taliban," the official said. "If we want a stable Afghanistan, we have to try to help Karzai."