Taliban en al-Qaida hebben geen ideologische banden

Taliban en al-Qaida hebben geen ideologische banden (rapport)
       
WASHINGTON 07/02 (AFP) = De Afghaanse taliban en al-Qaida worden ten
onrechte beschouwd als ideologische bondgenoten. Het zou zelfs mogelijk zijn
om de taliban ervan te overtuigen het terroristische netwerk niet
meer te steunen. Dat blijkt uit een rapport van Amerikaanse
deskundigen, zo staat te lezen in de New York Times.
   

Er waren al wrijvingen tussen de leiders van de taliban en al-Qaida
voor de aanslagen van 11 september 2001 en die zijn sindsdien enkel
sterker geworden, zo luidt het in "Separating the Taliban from Al
Qaeda: The Core of Success in Afghanistan", een rapport van Alex Strick
van Linschoten en Felix Kuehn van de universiteit van New York.

Beide mannen hebben jaren in Afghanistan gewerkt en merken op dat
de intensivering van de militaire operaties tegen de taliban een
oplossing wel heel moeilijk zou kunnen maken.

Het rapport legt uit dat het uitschakelen van leiders van de
taliban leidt tot hun vervanging door jongere en radicalere strijders, wat
de invloed van al-Qaida enkel verhoogt. De onderzoekers raden de VS
aan zo snel mogelijk een dialoog op te starten met de ouderlingen
onder de taliban, alvorens die hun invloed verliezen. 

De auteurs zijn niet gekant tegen de Navo-aanvallen in Afghanistan,
maar ze vragen dat er parallel onderhandelingen gevoerd worden. "Er
is een politiek akkoord nodig, anders zal het conflict escaleren",
luidt het.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/asia/07afghan.htm...
arating%20&st=cse

Report Casts Doubt on Taliban’s Ties With Al Qaeda

By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: February 6, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Taliban have been wrongly perceived as close
ideological allies of Al Qaeda, and they could be persuaded to renounce the
global terrorist group, according to a report to be published Monday by New
York University.

The report goes on to say that there was substantial friction between the
groups’ leaders before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that hostility has
only intensified.

The authors, Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, have worked in
Afghanistan for years and edited the autobiography of a Taliban diplomat,
many of whose ideas are reflected in the report. The authors are among a
small group of experts who say the only way to end the war in Afghanistan is
to begin peace overtures to the Taliban.

The prevailing view in Washington, however, is “that the Taliban and Al
Qaeda share the same ideology,” said Tom Gregg, a former United Nations
official in Afghanistan and a fellow at the Center on International
Cooperation at N.Y.U., which is publishing the report. “It is not an
ideology they share; it is more a pragmatic political alliance. And
therefore a political approach to the Taliban ultimately could deliver a
more practical separation between the two groups.”

Some American officials have argued that the military surge in Afghanistan
will weaken the Taliban and increase the incentive to negotiate. But the
report cautions that the campaign may make it harder to reach a settlement.

The report, “Separating the Taliban from Al Qaeda: The Core of Success in
Afghanistan,” says attacks on Taliban field commanders and provincial
leaders will leave the movement open to younger, more radical fighters and
will give Al Qaeda greater influence. The authors suggest that the United
States should engage older Taliban leaders before they lose control of the
movement.

The authors do not oppose NATO’s war, but suggest that negotiations should
accompany the fighting. A political settlement is necessary to address the
underlying reasons for the insurgency, they write. Otherwise, they warn, the
conflict will escalate.

The report draws on the authors’ interviews with unnamed Taliban officials
in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost, and on published statements by the Taliban
leadership. The authors indicate that Taliban officials fear retribution if
they make on-the-record statements opposing Al Qaeda.

Nevertheless, Taliban leaders have issued statements in the last two years
that indicate they are distancing their movement from Al Qaeda. The report
says the Taliban will not renounce Al Qaeda as a condition to negotiations,
but will offer to do so in return for guarantees of security.

The report reflects many of the arguments put forward by Mullah Abdul Salam
Zaeef, whose autobiography, published in English as “My Life With the
Taliban,” the authors edited. Mullah Zaeef lives under a loose house arrest
in Kabul after being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and has been an
intermediary between the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the Taliban.

The report argues that Taliban leaders did not know of the Sept. 11 attacks
in advance and that they appeared to have been manipulated by Osama bin
Laden, who then lived in Afghanistan.

In November 2002, the report says, senior Taliban figures gathered in
Pakistan and agreed to join a process of political engagement and
reconciliation with the new government of Afghanistan. Yet the decision came
to nothing, since neither the Afghan government nor the American government
saw any reason to engage with the Taliban, the report says.

A member of the Haqqani family, which leads what American officials regard
as the most dangerous Taliban group, came to Kabul in 2002 to discuss
reconciliation, but he was detained and badly treated, the report states.

Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who prepared a strategic policy review
on Afghanistan and Pakistan for President Obama in 2009, places the Afghan
Taliban alongside Al Qaeda in the “syndicate of terrorists” threatening the
United States. Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader, has maintained an
“alliance, even friendship” with Mr. bin Laden that “seems to have remained
intact to this day,” Mr. Riedel writes in his book “Deadly Embrace:
Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad.”

Yet others say that there is a clear ideological divide between the two
groups and that the Taliban are not engaged in international terrorism.

“Al Qaeda is an organization that has a clearly articulated vision of global
jihad, and that is not the case with the Haqqanis and the Taliban,” Mr.
Gregg said. “Their focus is on Afghanistan, the country they are from.”