ppen when “handpicked jirga members from Pakistani side would not be independent” in their decisions.President General Pervez Musharraf has backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s idea of forming jirgas on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border to contain the Taliban insurgency. “They (jirga members from the Pakistani side) would say what the Pakistani government tells them to say,” warlord Badshah Khan Zadran from Khost province said at the discussion. Zadran, who opposed Karzai as interim head of Afghanistan after the Taliban ouster in late 2001, said the Pakistani side’s jirga members would not be independent in their views on the situation in Afghanistan since “the political agent will pick these members”. He suggested using military means to crush the insurgency instead of resolving the issue politically.
Afghan sources close to the Karzai government in Kabul told Daily Times on Monday that it was likely that the two jirgas would ask the Taliban and the coalition forces to agree on a ceasefire. “You can say we may have a Musa Kalay-like accord,” said a source asking not to be named. “The Taliban will have to listen to the Afghan elders and clerics because their insurgency is successful due to these people’s support,” he added.
Local elders and clerics brokered a ceasefire between British forces and the Taliban in Musa Kalay district of Helmand province following fierce clashes last month. Sami Yousafzai, an Afghan journalist working for the American Newsweek magazine, said he found great support for the Taliban in Afghan villages and towns and added that the insurgency increased because of “poor governance” by President Karzai.