As international pressure mounts for negotiations with insurgents, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that he would guarantee the security of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar if he decides to enter into talks. Striking a defiant tone, Karzai said during a news conference in the Afghan capital that he would not bow to demands from the international community to turn Omar over to U.S. authorities if the Taliban leader agreed to negotiate a peace settlement with Karzai's government. "As for Mullah Omar and his associates, if I hear from him that he is willing to come to Afghanistan or to negotiate for peace and for liberty so that our children will not be killed anymore, I as the president of Afghanistan will go to any length to provide him security," Karzai said.
"If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choices: remove me or leave," he added.
Karzai delivered his remarks after weeks of speculation that negotiations are already underway between the Afghan government and insurgent leaders. In September, several representatives from Karzai's government met with former Taliban leaders in Saudi Arabia. That meeting was widely viewed as the potential first step on what could be a long road to a negotiated settlement to end the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan.
With violence hitting new highs as the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan enters its seventh year, U.S. and NATO officials have recently indicated increasing support for talks with Islamist insurgents as one way to rein in fighting across the country. While U.S. military officials have called for NATO allies to augment the estimated 62,000 foreign troops already operating in Afghanistan, Afghan and U.S. officials have tacitly acknowledged that negotiating with moderate Taliban commanders is a key part of a strategy currently under consideration by U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David H. Petraeus.
Omar, the enigmatic and highly reclusive Taliban leader, hardly fits the profile of a moderate. Since his public refusal to turn over al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to U.S. authorities following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he has held a prominent place on a list of U.S.-designated global terrorists. Known to his followers as the Commander of the Faithful, Omar rose to power in the southern province of Kandahar in the mid-1990s after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan plunged the country into a chaotic civil war.
A fierce military commander who was wounded several times in battle, Omar ruled the country until the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
Intelligence experts believe Omar now leads his fighters from a safe haven near the southern Pakistani city of Quetta. The U.S. has offered a multi-million dollar reward for Omar's capture.
Omar's alliance with other insurgent groups, most notably the pro-Taliban network of Afghan commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, has given insurgent forces greaterreach across the country, enabling insurgents to carry out near-daily attacks.
Taliban spokesmen have so far rejected the idea of talks.