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Taliban diplomats arrive in Qatar
A team of senior Taliban diplomats
The Taliban has 'diplomats' ?
has arrived in Qatar in preparation for the opening of a political office to host negotiations between America, the insurgents and the Afghan government. The envoys from the former regime have assembled in the past month and the first tentative talks could begin within weeks according to former Taliban officials now part of Hamid Karzai's peace council.

A Taliban declaration earlier this month that the movement would open an office "to come to an understanding with other nations" is seen as the most significant political breakthrough in ten years of conflict.

The delegation was apparently granted safe passage to the Gulf state despite several members still being on a United Nations' sanctions blacklist banning international travel.

It includes Tayeb Agha, former secretary to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has acted as go-between with American and German diplomats for more than a year.

He is joined by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a former deputy foreign minister, and Shahabuddin Delawar, a former envoy to Riyadh, according to Mohammed Qalamuddin.

Mr Qalamuddin, once chief of the Taliban's "vice and virtue" police, told The Daily Telegraph the envoys were all well-educated, fluent in English and considered moderate, but committed to the movement.
So they still favor beheading infidels, oppressing wimmin and preventing anything after the 12th century from coming into Afghanistan, except for their own creature comforts...
It's so much easier to bug their phones and laptops -- and follow their messengers home -- when they're so helpfully out there in the open.

Posted by: tipper 2012-01-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=337894