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Man involved in Afghan talks said to be impostor

24 November 2010 03:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A man leading the Taliban side of peace talks with the Afghan government was an impersonator, an Afghan close to the negotiations said Tuesday, in a setback to efforts to negotiate an end to the war, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
President Ahmed Karzai has moved quickly to dampen the fallout from his alleged meeting with a man named Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour â€” supposedly one of highest ranking members of the Taliban council leading the insurgency â€” by denying the encounter even took place.
He dismissed the reports as propaganda.
"I did not see Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour and Mullah Mansour did not come to Afghanistan. Don’t accept this news from the foreign press regarding meetings with the elders of the Taliban because most of them are propaganda," Karzai said.
The report about the impostor first appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
An Afghan familiar with the reconciliation efforts, confirmed that a delegate claiming to be Mansour "was a fraud." He spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his contacts with both sides.
NATO, which was reportedly deeply involved in the meetings and purportedly flew the impostor to Kabul, did not immediately comment on the reports.
In Paris, the top American commander in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus waved off questions from the AP seeking comment about the incident. Petraeus was giving an address at Paris’ Sciences Po institute.
Mansour, a former civil aviation minister during Taliban rule, is a senior member of the Taliban’s ruling council in the Pakistani city of Quetta. That council, or shura, is run by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
According to the reports, the impostor met with Afghan and NATO officials three times â€” including once with Karzai â€” before they discovered he was not Mansour. He was allegedly paid to attend.
Mansour was well-known and it is unclear why officials would have had such a difficult time identifying him. There are a number of former Taliban in parliament and in the 70-member High Peace Council recently formed by Karzai to find a political solution to the insurgency. It was reported that the man was believed to be a shopkeeper in Quetta.
If confirmed, the claims that he was not really involved would be a blow to the Afghan government’s push to find a political resolution to the nine-year-old war. It also raised questions about the credibility of some NATO officials who have said they facilitated contacts between Taliban figures and Afghan officials.
The final results of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections were also expected to be announced on Wednesday by the Afghan electoral commission.
The election is being watched carefully by Karzai’s Western allies for signs that the Afghan president is committed to reforming his corruption-ridden government. The election was the first since a fraud-marred presidential poll last year nearly undermined the legitimacy of Karzai’s government and pushed some NATO countries to threaten to pull troops and aid.
Karzai said the elections were an opportunity for Afghanistan to strengthen its democracy and not a potentially destabilizing event.
"Destabilization of the country I am sure will not happen, and we will not allow it. But of course we want an election that will reflect the aspirations of the Afghan people," Karzai said.
The president also took the opportunity Tuesday to complain about some of NATO’s military operations aimed at crushing the insurgency.
Karzai expressed his concerns about night raids, which have caused friction between him and international forces, at a weekend summit with NATO leaders in Lisbon, Portugal.
NATO says the night raids have taken a significant toll on the leadership of insurgent networks.
"The position and stance of the Afghan government was very clear and is very clear," Karzai said. "Those night raids which cause civilian houses to be destroyed, cause civilian causalities or they are entering people’s houses without coordinating with the Afghan forces ... we are against them."
The coalition hopes night raids will weaken the Taliban by pressuring the midlevel commanders to abandon the battlefield and force top insurgent leaders to the negotiating table. NATO says it conducts the operations jointly with Afghan soldiers and that shots are fired in less than 20 percent of the operations.
Karzai did praise the long-term partnership agreement that NATO has made with Afghanistan, and reassured the Afghan people that NATO’s support would not cease after 2014 when NATO’s combat role is set to end.
Meanwhile, there were developments in the ongoing dispute over the rule of private security companies in Afghanistan. Gen. Abdul Manan Farahi, the Interior Ministry official in charge of overseeing security firms told the AP, they could continue protecting aid and economic development projects in the country until their current contracts expire.
The decision comes despite an earlier order that all security companies disband by mid-December.
It also clears up uncertainty that had been hanging over large companies involved with ongoing aid and development projects for the U.S. and other foreign governments since a presidential decree to disband them was issued in August.