This month has been chock full of news on Afghanistan and NATO’s enterprise there. There’s been talk of war and peace, and long-run effort to develop sustainable stability within and between tribes and political factions in and outside Kabul. It’s all interesting, rich stuff. Nevertheless, no piece of all that news can hold a candle to the strange story New York Times reported tonight.
It seems, at least one of the reasons why the NATO moves to get Taliban leaders to talk to Kabul failed, the reason why other high ranking Taliban leaders refused to accept that talks were moving forward, is that at least one of the individuals believed to represent Taliban leadership in Quetta is an impostor. The man claiming to be Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, a self-described Taliban leader fed off NATO and in exchange seemed to strike more moderate demands than the stridently defiant tone that Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, has struck in the very recent past.
No one knows who this man is. The Times:
It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”
NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from across the border in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.
The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.
Suprisingly, some individuals party to the routed discussions on peace and stability in Afghanistan, still hope that this gentleman shows up again. They think that he might pull along other Talib, that perhaps he might have more to say, to do to bring Kabul and Quetta closer together. The Times again:
While the Afghan official said he still harbored hopes that the man would return for another round of talks, American and other Western officials said they had concluded that the man in question was not Mr. Mansour. Just how the Americans reached such a definitive conclusion — whether, for instance, they were able to positively establish his identity through fingerprints or some other means — is unknown.
This is strange. Who is this man? Is he a Taliban plant to investigate NATO and Kabul’s bargaining position? An ISI spy to do the same, but in the service of Pakistani interests? After all, the Pakistani military routed Mullah Baradar, the deputy commanding leader of the Taliban in Pakistan because he was trying to cut his own deal with Kabul.
What now? NATO has been humiliated. How to trust NATO and the current government in Afghanistan to do the job that needs to be done, when they fail to invite the right people to the negotiation table?
