Al-Qaeda disarms Afghan Taliban commanders

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KABUL – Al-Qaeda is blocking Taliban fighters who favour peace talks from negotiating with Kabul.

The terror movement has disarmed two Taliban commanders, Mullah Laal Muhammad and Mullah Alaoddin of the Haqqani network, who were interested in starting peace talks with the Afghan government, Kunduz Provincial Governor Engineer Muhammad Omar said.

“Al-Qaeda has disarmed two prominent commanders of the Haqqani Network in Kunduz in the past two weeks, and nine others in fear of being disarmed have buried their weapons and fled to Pakistan,” Omar told Central Asia Online.

“The Afghan Taliban (have accepted) reality now and want to participate in peace talks with the Afghan government, but the Pakistani, Uzbek and Chechen militants don’t want the reconciliation process to start," he said.

After President Hamid Karzai’s election to a second term, he expressed willingness to talk to those who lay down their arms and accept the Afghan constitution.

Kunduz representative to the Afghan parliament Moyeen Merastyal confirmed the governor’s statement.

“The groups that are supporting the Taliban from outside don’t want peace talks in Afghanistan as they consider stability detrimental to their interests,” Merastyal said. “They want terrorism in the region, not only in Afghanistan, so anyone who looks interested in peace talks is being disarmed or captured,” he said, referring to the arrest of some Taliban figures in Pakistan.

“Those prominent Taliban commanders who have been captured in Pakistan in the past few months were interested in starting peace talks, but they were stopped as well,” he added.

On the other hand, since the arrest of the Taliban’s chief military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi last February, some disagreements between Taliban factions and al-Qaeda have been visible, Omar said.

The reconciliation and reintegration plan is aimed at encouraging the Taliban’s followers, estimated by NATO officials at 25,000 to 30,000 active fighters, to renounce violence, sever ties with al-Qaeda and respect the constitution.

Taliban leaders and spokesmen have said negotiations can begin only after international forces leave Afghanistan.