Afghan opposition says it's been talking to Taliban

(04-16) 01:08 PDT KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) --
An opposition group says its leaders, including a former president, have been meeting with the Taliban and other anti-government groups in hopes of negotiating an end to rising violence in Afghanistan.
The contacts have taken place between leaders of the opposition National Front and "high level" militant leaders during the last few months, party spokesman Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki said in an interview Sunday.
He said among those at the meetings were former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, now a member of parliament, and Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who is President Hamid Karzai's security adviser and a powerful northern strongman.
Rabbani said Afghanistan's six-year war must be solved through talks, echoing a view held by many in the country.
"There's no doubt that some inside the Taliban are not willing to negotiate, but there are some Taliban who are interested in solving problems through talks," Rabbani, Afghanistan's president from 1992-96, told The Associated Press in an interview.
"We in the National Front and I myself believe the solution for the political process in Afghanistan will happen through negotiations," he said.
Support for talks to end the increasingly bloody Afghan conflict have gained steam over the last year. President Hamid Karzai said for the first time in April 2007 that he had met with Taliban militants in attempts to negotiate peace.
Rabbani said opposition leaders will soon discuss and possibly select a formal negotiating team and that Taliban fighters, in their talks with Karzai, have also proposed sending a formal team for talks with the government.
The behind-the-scenes maneuverings come just as the United States is pouring more troops into the country. Some 32,000 U.S. forces are in Afghanistan, the most since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Two NATO soldiers died and two others were wounded Wednesday in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the military alliance said.
It did not disclose the nationalities of the casualties or the exact location of the blast. The wounded were evacuated to a military base for treatment, NATO said in a statement.
Despite the violence and heightened military posture, U.S. ambassador William Wood has said the U.S. supports talks with militants who will lay down arms and recognize the Afghan constitution. The U.S. does not support talks with al-Qaida fighters.
Across the border in Pakistan, where militant violence has spiked over the last year, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani late last month offered talks to militants ready to renounce violence there.
Negotiations will ultimately be the only way to end the Afghan conflict, said Wadir Safi, a professor of public and international law at Kabul University.
"Negotiations," he said. "Find the address of all of the Taliban, find out what they want. They will have their own suggestions, and if it's not anti-civilization, you can come to terms with them instead of spending money on military budgets."
Karzai, in a news conference this month, said the National Front efforts are good for the country. He said many rebels are Afghans who need to be brought back into society. For months, Karzai has trumpeted reconciliation, even offering to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
But the National Front says Karzai has not followed up his words with action. He needs to put a formal negotiations process in place involving all parties, Rabbani said.
"I told Karzai that when a person starts something he should complete it. On the issue of the negotiations it is not right to take one step forward and then one step back," he said. "This work should be continued in a very organized way."
Rabbani and Sancharaki declined to say who the National Front has met with. Sancharaki said their militant interlocutors were "important people."
The Taliban, through spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, denied there had been any contact. "If they are claiming they have contact with somebody, we don't know who," he said.
Thousands of former members of the hard-line Taliban regime, including a sprinkling of former senior commanders and officials, have made peace with the government through its national reconciliation commission.
But Safi, the university professor, said that because the National Front does not represent the government, its negotiations are "nonsense."
He said the group, whose leaders fought each other and then the Taliban in Afghanistan's devastating civil wars during the 1990s, only wants to advance its own power.
"They want the Taliban side to be on their side," Safi said. "It's an unholy alliance ... and the Taliban want to use Rabbani and Fahim against Karzai."

Presidential candidates clash over Iraq withdrawal

The rival US presidential hopefuls have aired bitter disagreements over the Iraq troop surge as they put questions to American military commander General David Petraeus.

Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama say they would end America's military involvement within the first year or two of their presidency, should they win.

But Republican John McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, said he believed US forces were succeeding and it would be irresponsible to pull out before the Iraqi government and security forces could stand on their own.

"I do not want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interests there," he said.

"Our goal, my goal, is for an Iraq that no longer needs American troops.

"But I also believe that the promise of withdrawal of our forces, regardless of the consequences, would constitute a failure of political and moral leadership."
Democrat Hillary Clinton said she "fundamentally disagreed" with McCain's view.

"Rather, I think it could be fair to say it might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again," she said.

The former first lady also raised the cost of the war and the issue of the withdrawal of British troops from Basra.

Meanwhile, Clinton's rival Democrat candidate Barack Obama called for a "diplomatic surge" including talks with Iran, to help stabilize the situation in Iraq.

General Petraeus warned that pulling troops out of Iraq too quickly would jeopardize the "fragile" security gains made in recent months.

He said the "surge" in US troop numbers had resulted in a "significant but uneven" improvement in the security situation across the country.

Testifying before the Senate, he warned al Qaeda could "still stage a resurgence".

The general said troop levels would be reduced to the levels before the "surge", at which point there would be a 45-day review period.

This would be used to work out how many troops would be needed in the future.

The war in Iraq is seen as a key issue in the forthcoming presidential election in November.

The American death toll in Iraq has passed 4,000 as the conflict stretches into its sixth year and recent figures confirm a reversal of a trend of gradually decreasing violence.

Canada To Pull Out Of Afghanistan War By 2011

Canada has no plan to extend its Afghan mission and will withdraw its troops in time at the end of 2011, Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Sunday.

MacKay made the remarks after NATO allies agreed to send 1,000 more troops to southern Afghanistan, satisfying Ottawa's condition for extending its 2,500 troops by two years. The troops were originally scheduled to leave in February 2009.

Canada will not extend the mission "from a military perspective," said MacKay, who just came back from the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, where France and the United States promised to send more troops to help Canada in military operations against the Taliban militia.

But Canada will continue to help with development after 2011, MacKay said during an interview with Canadian Television.

The House of Commons voted to extend the mission last month. But rising casualties during the past two years have led to strong domestic demands for troop withdrawal. Polls suggest that about 50percent of Canadians want an immediate pullout.

Since Canada first sent troops to Afghanistan in 2002, 82 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died there.

The Latest News In The Iraq War.

Biden: Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared last year's troop buildup in Iraq a failure. He said that U.S. troops remain committed there in large numbers and that political reconciliation has not been achieved.

Contractor: A civilian contractor working for the U.S. military in Iraq was charged with aggravated assault under military law, the first such prosecution since the Vietnam War. Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, who holds dual Iraqi-Canadian citizenship, is the first person facing criminal charges since Congress in 2006 gave the military authority to prosecute crimes committed by civilians working for the armed forces.

Kurds: Massoud Barzani, head of the semiautonomous Kurdish region, has offered his Peshmerga fighters to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to help fight anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia.

Priest: Gunmen using silencers killed an Assyrian Orthodox priest as he and his wife returned home after a trip to the market in Baghdad. The latest attack against Iraq's Christian minority drew a new plea from Pope Benedict XVI for Iraqis to "find the way of peace to build a just and tolerant society."

Violence: At least 28 people were killed or found dead nationwide, victims of political or sectarian violence, authorities said.

U.S. war toll: As of Saturday, at least 4,012 members of the U.S. military had died in the war, according to an Associated Press count. Included are eight Defense Department civilians.