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Afghanistan

Taleban Guantanamo detainees agree to Qatar transfer

2012-03-11

KABUL: Five Taleban detainees held at the US Guantanamo Bay military prison have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move Afghanistan believes will boost a nascent peace process, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said on Saturday. Do we have to transfer them alive? Are we allowed put put the implants into their heads? Such important questions... Can we use the 14-inch implants? Or are we stuck with the microchips? Perhaps the microchip implants attached to the 14-inch spikes? The transfer idea is part of US efforts to bring the Taleban to the negotiating table to avoid prolonged instability in Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014. "We are hopeful this will be a positive step toward peace efforts," Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said, adding the Taleban detainees would be re-united with their families in Qatar if the transfer takes place. It would be one of a series of good-faith measures that could set in motion the first substantial political negotiations on the conflict in Afghanistan since the Taleban government was toppled in 2001 in a US-led invasion. Ah yes, 'good-faith' measures. The Taliban of course will reply with good-faith measures of their own, such as .. as .. hmmm... Despite months of covert diplomacy, it remains unclear whether the prisoner transfer will go ahead. Doubts are growing about whether the Taleban leadership is willing to weather possible opposition from junior and more hard-core members who appear to oppose negotiations. Yes, the senior guys like Blinky are the souls of moderation. If it were up to them this whole thing would have been over years ago... Karzai's top aide, Ibrahim Spinzada, visited the Guantanamo facility this week to secure approval from the five Taleban prisoners to be moved to Qatar. Karzai's government has demanded the five former senior members of the Taleban government, held at Guantanamo Bay for a decade, give their consent before they are transferred to the small Gulf state where they would be under Qatar's custody. Wonder what Qatar says... US officials hope the peace initiative will gain enough traction to enable Obama to announce the establishment of full-fledged political talks between the Karzai government and the Taleban at a NATO summit in May. That would mark a major victory for the White House and might ease some of the anxiety created by NATO nations' plans to gradually pull out most of their troops by the end of 2014, leaving an inexperienced Afghan military and fragile government to face a still-formidable insurgency. The Taleban detainees are seen by some US officials as among the most dangerous inmates at Guantanamo. Their possible transfer has drawn attack from US politicians from both parties even before the administration formally begins a required congressional notification process. Among the prisoners who may be sent to Qatar is Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk" detainee alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of minority Shiite Muslims between 1998 and 2001. Release him in the Tajik or Uzbek regions of Aghanistan, and let him walk to Kandahar. Make sure Dostum knows beforehand... They also include Noorullah Noori, a former senior military commander; Abdul Haq Wasiq, a former deputy intelligence minister; and Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former interior minister. Afghan foreign minister will visit Qatar in the "near future" for peace discussions with the Taleban, his spokesman said yesterday. The minister will hold talks on the relationship between the nations and also "discuss the Afghan peace process," including "the idea of establishing an office... in Qatar to facilitate the peace process," Mosazi said.

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Afghanistan

'US after Taliban's return to power'

2012-01-05

[Iran Press TV] A senior Iranian politician has said that the United States is seeking to help Talibs back into power in Afghanistan. Admittedly, that is what it looks like our honourable president is doing... Deputy Chairman of the Majlis (parliament) Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Ebrahimi said on Wednesday that Washington was after toppling Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's government. "The US pursues its goals in the area of foreign policy with a profit-seeking outlook," he stated, citing the White House's USD-100-million aid package, which is headed for a Taliban liaison office, planned to be set up in Doha, Qatar. The MP said the US had a history of fostering terrorism, accusing Washington of equipping and training Talibs in Pakistain and Soddy Arabia to use them against the other countries in the region. In line with the US policy, "this group rebelled against the government of the late [Afghanistan's Caped President] Burhanuddin Rabbani ... the gentlemanly murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan... ," he explained. Ebrahimi also pointed out the close cooperation between Taliban elements and al-Qaeda beturbanned goons during Taliban's rule in Afghanistan -- which lasted from 1996 until 2001. "The US, after the September 11 [, 2001] incident, took on fighting terrorism in Afghanistan as a pretext to pour its troops into the region and occupied Iran's eastern neighbor with the help of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... forces," he noted. The Iranian parliamentarian criticized the u-turn made in Washington's policy and its support for the Taliban and blamed the US for turning a blind eye to Taliban's atrocities against the Afghan nation as means of promoting the US own interests in the region. On Wednesday, Karzai bowed to pressure from the White House to agree on the opening of a liaison office by the Taliban bad boy group in the Qatari capital towards the alleged aim of saving Afghanistan from 'conflict, conspiracy and the killings of innocent people.' Washington had previously agreed with Taliban leaders on the setting up of the office in a deal, which also guaranteed the release of several high-ranking Taliban figures by the US. Pak media also reported last week that the name of Taliban's founder and leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has been in hiding since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, has been taken off the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists. The move infuriated the Afghan government, which has asked the US embassy in Kabul for an explanation. Top Taliban capo Mullah Mohammed Fazl, who has been held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since early 2002, is reportedly among those slated for release by the US. The potential release, which has been described as an alleged attempt to facilitate peace talks between the beturbanned goons and Kabul, comes despite Fazl being accused of human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... abuses.

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Afghanistan

Obama Admin Reportedly Mulls Transfer Of Taliban Prisoner As Part Of Long-Shot Peace Bid

2011-12-30

The Obama administration is considering transferring to Afghan custody a senior Taliban official suspected of major human rights abuses as part of a long-shot bid to improve the prospects of a peace deal in Afghanistan, Reuters has learned. The potential hand-over of Mohammed Fazl, a 'high-risk detainee' held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison since early 2002, has set off alarms on Capitol Hill and among some U.S. intelligence officials. As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan's minority Shi'ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001. According to U.S. military documents made public by WikiLeaks, he was also on the scene of a Nov. 2001 prison riot that killed CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, the first American who died in combat in the Afghan war. There is no evidence, however, that Fazl played any direct role in Spann's death. Senior U.S. officials have said their 10-month-long effort to set up substantive negotiations between the weak government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban has reached a make-or-break moment. Reuters reported earlier this month that they are proposing an exchange of "confidence-building measures," including the transfer of five detainees from Guantanamo and the establishment of a Taliban office outside of Afghanistan. Now Reuters has learned from U.S. government sources the identity of one of the five detainees in question. The detainees, the officials emphasized, would not be set free, but remain in some sort of further custody. It is unclear precisely what conditions they would be held under. In response to inquiries by Reuters, a senior administration official said that the release of Fazl and four other Taliban members had been requested by the Afghan government and Taliban representatives as far back as 2005.

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