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Forces targeting Taliban leadership
 Afghan and international military forces battling the resurgent Taliban are increasingly targeting the insurgencys hardline leaders, believing that foot soldiers can be persuaded to lay down their arms, officials have said. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been pushing this strategy for the last three weeks in a new operation in the volatile Panjwayi district of Kandahar province, officials confirmed. ISAF spokesman in Kabul, Major Dominic Whyte, said the approach was twin-track. That basically means there are some Taliban out there who want the Taliban regime and will not negotiate and they will not stop fighting until they are killed or captured, he said. However, Whyte added that ISAF believed other recruits could be persuaded to stop fighting by being shown that the hardliners offered no future, unlike the government and its allies, which were pushing development alongside military action. This group, he said, included fighters who had been principally lured by money, since Taliban reportedly pay them around five to 12 dollars a day. In Panjwayi, development projects worth several million dollars are intended to win over fighters. Posted by: Fred 2007-01-04 |
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