Taliban officials have engaged in periodic, discreet contacts with Afghan and U.S. officials for months but are unwilling to move to formal peace negotiations until the U.S. agrees to a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, according to a Pakistani intelligence official and members of a newly formed Afghan peace council.

The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama supports attempts by the Afghan government to open peace talks with Taliban leaders, but still wants the insurgents to renounce violence and their support of al-Qaida.

However, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the United States was not taking part in any such talks. "This is about Afghanistan," he said. "It has to be done by the Afghans."

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that secret talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan have begun between representatives of the Taliban and the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The Post quoted Afghan and Arab sources as saying they believe for the first time that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban command council based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Source.

Do you see where the Quetta Shura is based? That's right. Pakistan, where Jihadist camps are "flourishing":


So, it's not clear that the talks with Taliban are going to be succesful but what it's really clear is that, speaking with them the war loses absolutely all its basis. If Western countries are prepared to engage in talks with the same people who are plotting since before the NATO operation against Western targets and without any real change for normal Afghans, the question is why now? Oh, sorry, the Obamamessiah doesn't see this war in terms of winning or losing. Well, there are a lot of good soldiers who have lost their lives there. So, you see, it's always something we should measure in terms of winning or losing, because if no goals are met and yet people have been killed in action, why were they killed?

By the way, it's not that Pakistan is not collaborating with the US, it's that it's actively supporting the Talibans. No one can understand that if a journalist has filmed those guys, Pakistani army hasn't found them.

Anyway, there are people who support this move and others who don't. This is a very interesting video, sent to me by Jennifer, a reader.


Background:
US slams Pakistan.
Pakistan: terrorist attacks and double game continues.

BBC:

The Taliban have infiltrated the Afghan army and police, a recently-retired United Nations official has warned.

Taliban flag

Dr Antonio Maria Costa, former head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said Taliban sleeper cells had been set up inside the security forces.

They had already carried out a number of attacks and were planning further attacks on Nato-led troops, he said.

A spokesman for the coalition forces said infiltration was a rare problem and most Afghan troops were loyal.

Dr Costa's comments come as the coalition is preparing to hand over control of the country's security to Afghan forces by 2014, the BBC's Gerry Northam reports.

Meeting the handover target in four years requires 141,000 new recruits to be found within a year - more than the current size of the Afghan army.

There are fears that the Taliban are taking the opportunity to enlist insurgents into the ranks.

"We have plenty of evidence we had a number of suicide attacks carried out by people who had been in the army, trusted because they were affiliated," Dr Costa told the BBC.

Background:
Spanish TV publishes video of Spanish base (Qala-i-Naw)'s terrorist attack. The attack was carried out by an Afghan police member, linked with the Taliban.
Spanish TV publishes video of Spanish base attacked after Taliban terrorist attack.

Don't send troops to Afghanistan, Taliban warns Bangladesh. Or else....:

"The Taliban has warned Bangladesh against sending its troops to Afghanistan after the US asked Dhaka to send its forces to the war-ravaged country.

The Taliban Monday told Bangladesh to refuse the US request to send combat troops to Afghanistan, a media report said.

The US monitoring service SITE intelligence group published a report Monday with the headline 'Afghan Taliban reacts to US requesting troops from Bangladesh', said Star Online, website of The Daily Star newspaper.

US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke last week made the plea to send troops to Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni at a meeting in New York."

Well, nothing strange here. Note simply that Bangladesh is also a Muslim-majority country:

The main religion practiced in Bangladesh is Islam (89.7%), but a significant minority adheres to Hinduism (9.2%).[77] The majority of Muslims are Sunni. There is a small Shia and an even smaller Ahmadiyya community. Ethnic Biharis are predominantly Shia Muslims. Sufi influences in the region go back many centuries.[78] Other religious groups include Buddhists (0.7%, mostly Theravada), Christians (0.3%, mostly of the Roman Catholic denomination), and Animists (0.1%). Bangladesh has the fourth largest Muslim population after Indonesia, Pakistan, and India, with over 130 million. 

The Guardian is extremely critical ... with ISAF for having arrested them. Why? Because these "apparently objective and impartial" cameramen were, supposedly, filming and saying what the Taliban "suggested" them to ... Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, calls that "comprehensive coverage".

PS: Afghanisation. How about checking your writing, Mr. Greenslade?

A Taliban commander responsible for improvised explosive device emplacements, illegal checkpoints and attacks on Combat Outpost Terezayi was captured Friday by coalition forces, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Tuesday.

Noor Wali Shah, head of the Ethics Department for Terezayi district, was detained after coalition forces, conducting a routine patrol in the Terezayi district of Khost province, recognized him as a person of interest and verified his identity.

Shah, who is connected to a September 1 attack on Combat Outpost Terezayi, was known as a cell leader in the Terezayi district.

Probe into Afghanistan troops' heroin trafficking claims - Asia, World - The Independent:

 "Military police are investigating claims that British soldiers may have been involved in heroin trafficking in Afghanistan.

Officials said they were aware of 'unsubstantiated' claims that troops were buying the illegal drug from dealers and using military aircraft to ship it out the country.

An inquiry has been launched focusing on British and Canadian service personnel at airports in Camp Bastion and Kandahar.

Meanwhile security has been tightened, with additional sniffer dogs being used as part of the crackdown at the bases.

Afghanistan is the source of 90% of the world's opium.

Some drug bosses in the war-ravaged country have implicated soldiers in the trade.

Last year the Sunday Times spoke to one dealer who said members of the military were the second largest buyers of heroin after foreign drug lords.

The newspaper was told: 'The soldiers whose term of duty is about to finish, they give an order to our boss.'

The dealer, named only as Aziz, added: 'They are carrying these drugs in the military airlines and they can't be reached because they are military. They can take it to the USA or England.'"

This is of course, not surprising, specially considering the boost in heroin production since the NATO coalition entered the country (see here, here, here and here). Of course, that doesn't mean that all military and civil personnel in Afghanistan are drug traffickers, but certainly some of them are benefiting from the trade). The Taliban fall (good altogether) brought to power several of the warlords who were in charge of the drug trade. But certainly the plants should have been destroyed the minute they were planted. Why they weren't? Well, that's a very difficult question to answer...

Karzai Divides Afghanistan In Reaching Out to Taliban - WSJ.com:

"...key leaders of Afghanistan's three largest ethnic minorities told The Wall Street Journal that they oppose Mr. Karzai's outreach to the Taliban, which they said could pave the way for the fundamentalist group's return to power and reignite civil war.

Mohammed Mohaqeq, a lawmaker and former warlord representing the 2.5-million-strong Hazara minority, endorsed Mr. Karzai in last year's presidential race, contributing to his reelection.

'We feel betrayed by the president,' Mr. Mohaqeq says now. 'It seems that what President Karzai pursues now is the Talibanization of Afghanistan. The only difference between him and the Taliban is that he sits in the presidential palace and the Taliban sit in the mountains.'

Mr. Karzai's overtures, formally launched at a June peace conference where he called insurgents 'brothers' and 'dear Talibs,' included asking the United Nations to remove Taliban leaders from the international sanctions black list and ordering the freeing of Taliban suspects from government custody. A separate government-sponsored conference of clerics in Kabul passed a resolution singling out insufficient enforcement of Sharia Islamic laws, the Taliban's key demand, as the obstacle to peace. This month, Mr. Karzai created a formal negotiating committee for talks with Taliban leaders."

Read it all. It's a very good way of considering if NATO troops are doing a good job supporting this "new" regime....

Photo: Winds of Jihad.

Footage of Taliban fighters swarming a former U.S. military mountain-top base in Afghanistan has been aired on a major satellite TV station.
Just days after American forces withdrew from the Korengal Valley – which has seen some of the toughest fighting in the Afghan war – armed insurgents can be seen over-running the area.
The video, which was shown yesterday on Al-Jazeera television, will be seen as a morale boost for Taliban fighters – even though the U.S. insists the area has no strategic value.
American soldiers spent five years defending the base, which the U.S. dubbed the ‘Valley of Death’ after 42 servicemen were killed in battle.
Taliban fighters said they wanted to see how the troops lived – and collected the abandoned fuel and ammunition, which they say they will use against the U.S. who they have pledged to follow and fight.
The footage shows men walking through the former U.S. base, which was strewn with litter and empty bottles, and sitting atop sandbagged gun positions overlooking the steep hillsides and craggy landscape.
Locals also visited the site. One who was interviewed said: 'We don't want Americans, we don't want Germans or any other foreigner.
‘We don't want foreigners, we want peace. We want Taliban and Islam - we don't want anything else.’
But a U.S. military spokesman said ammunition had been evacuated and the fuel handed over to local residents.
Another man identified by Al-Jazeera as a local Taliban commander said the militants intended to use the base for attacks on U.S. forces.
Major TG Taylor, a spokesman for U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, said the Americans destroyed major firing positions and observation posts before they left, and if militants tried to use the base 'we have two companies that can do an air assault there anytime we want'.

Spain welcomed the efforts made by Morocco in fighting illegal immigration, drug trafficking and international terrorism.

“Morocco is making significant efforts to fight illegal immigration, drug trafficking and international terrorism,” Spanish Defence Minister, Carme Chacon said during a meeting on Wednesday in Madrid with Inspector general of the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) and Commander of the southern zone, General Abdelaziz Bennani, who led a delegation to the 6th Moroccan-Spanish Joint Military Commission (April 13-15).

A statement of Spain’s Defence ministry said that Carme Chacon expressed her country’s support to Morocco’s contribution to Operation Active Endeavour, a naval operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It operates in the Mediterranean Sea and is designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general.

But no word about harrasment of Christians by Moroccan autorities. Of course, that is not an important fact, isn't it? The important move here is to tell Moroccan authorities what they want to hear: that they are doing everything so right. If not, there would be more international problems.