Taleban fighters to be 'bought off' with $500m

[chitown]

Taleban fighters to be 'bought off' with $500m - contains video

Britain is ready to contribute millions of pounds to a fund to buy off Taleban gunmen who are fighting British troops in southern Afghanistan.
More than 60 delegations, from Colombia to Australia, will gather in Lancaster House this morning to draw up an exit strategy from Afghanistan. Much of it is based on reintegrating the Taleban rank and file, wooing the Taleban leadership and gradually handing security to the Afghan Army and police.
The conference is expected to agree a $500 million (£310 million), five-year fund for President Karzai to “buy off” insurgents who are not ideologically committed to destroying the West.
Downing Street confirmed that Britain will make a contribution of a “few million”. Germany has agreed to $70 million over five years and the bulk of the money will come from the Japanese aid budget to Afghanistan, diplomats suggested.


In return, the Afghan leader will have to agree to international monitors to strengthen an anti-corruption campaign in his Government.
President Karzai, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State and Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, flew in yesterday for the talks, which will be chaired by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.
Before he arrived, Mr Karzai insisted that Afghanistan wanted to take responsibility for its affairs as soon as possible. “Afghanistan does not want to be a burden on the shoulder of our allies and friends,” he said.
Nevertheless, foreign money and experience will be needed for the delicate reintegration programme, which is being co-ordinated by American and British officers.
Officials believe that many young Afghan men in the south and east of the country join the Taleban because they have little else to do. They hope that the fund, which will be managed by President Karzai, will be used to offer them jobs as guards and in agriculture. They do not expect the money to be used for cash payments.
“The overwhelming majority of these people are not ideological supporters of Mullah Omar [the fugitive Taleban leader] and al-Qaeda,” Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said. “Based on interviews with prisoners, returnees, experts, there must be at least 70 per cent of these people who are not fighting for anything to do with those causes.”
The Taleban, who are monitoring the conference, predicted that the approach would fail and described the move as a trick. In a statement on their website, the group said that offers of economic incentives would not draw away fighters because the militants were not fighting for “money, property and position; but for Islam and to end the foreign military presence”.
A separate reconciliation effort will be made to bring the Taleban leadership into the political process. The Karzai Government has been reaching to Taleban leaders for some time and yesterday the UN announced the removal of five former senior Taleban officials from a sanctions list.
The officials delisted on Monday included the present governor of Uruzgan province and a member of the Afghan Parliament.
Western officials want the entire blacklist, which contains 137 alleged Taleban members, reviewed.
“That list ... should be re-examined and scrubbed down,” Mr Holbrooke said. “There are people on it who are dead, there are people on it who should not be on it.”
Shaida Mohammed Abdali, the Afghanistan deputy national security adviser, told The New York Times: “There’s an ideological motive for an insurgency like this and the trouble will not be resolved unless you reach out to the leadership, they are the food of the foot soldiers and where they are getting ideological and political incentives. If we only concentrate on the foot soldiers it will not be a sustainable programme.”
British officials said that the plan was to split the Taleban between an ideologically driven hardcore and the rest.
President Karzai is understood to be keen to embrace the plan, although other members of the Afghan Parliament expressed reservations to a delegation of MPs last week.
Senior Pakistan figures expressed scepticism, suggesting that if the strategy excluded Omar it was doomed to fail. Sultan Amir Tarar, a retired brigadier and former senior member of Pakistan’s main Inter Services Intelligence agency, said that the Taleban fighters would not break with their leader Omar.
Brigadier Tarar said that Omar was a “symbol of resistance” against the foreign forces in Afghanistan.



AP

[dirtydog]

Another war won, they wont be too keen to mess with us again cos we certainly showed erm this time, fokwits.

[nedwalk]

thats the go..lets give some more money to re equip..ferk me just who really is stearing this ferkin ship

[chitown]

If I was in charge, I would have given the same 500 million.

500 million tons of explosives dropped on them, that is.

[Thetyim]

I think I'll send an email to Gordon and declare war on UK
Should be worth a mil

[Another Farang]

UNbelievable!!!
these towelhead monkeys are extorting the western world....

[kmart]

Great way to honour all the dead coming back from that shithole. Firstly to prop up a corrupt regime that has no influence outside Kabul, and now trying to buy off his enemies..? For shame.

[DrB0b]

Death to the infidel! Any chance of a hundred quid?

[AntRobertson]

This is a bit reminiscent of the payments to the Northern Alliance forces for bounties on 'Al Qaeda' members.

I guess the main difference this time is that you'll have innocent people handing themselves in rather than being kidnapped and handed over for indefinite incarceration for the crime of looking a bit Arabic.

[SunTzu]

thats the go..lets give some more money to re equip..ferk me just who really is stearing this ferkin ship

my feeling as well...


Still can't figure what we were doing there in the first place, and now we buy our way out ?!?!?!?

[StrontiumDog]

Nothing like encouraging them to repeat the whole thing again...nice work if you can get it! I think I'll join the Taleban. Seems to pay well.

[Larn]

Isn't there a middle eastern country now regretting doing the same years ago.

For years they paid off AQ not to attack them. Now they're paying out wads to fend them off.