Afghan insurgents: 'no hope' for talks

An Afghan girl, from Kapisa province, stands outside a tent in a camp on Thursday east of Kabul, Afghanistan. People from the restive Kapisa province have fled to the camp in part because they are frightened of the Taliban fighters in the area. Photo: AFP

Mid-level Taliban insurgency commanders do not believe their leaders have begun tentative peace talks with the Afghan government, with many vowing on Friday not to give up the fight after nearly 10 years of war.
Nato and Afghan officials have confirmed preliminary contacts between President Hamid Karzai's government and the Taliban, although doubt surrounds when those contacts were made, who they were made with and what, if any, progress was made.
Karzai is pushing a negotiated settlement to the conflict and has launched a High Peace Council which has said it is prepared to offer concessions to bring insurgents to the table, although Kabul and Washington are adamant they must renounce violence.
However, insurgency commanders from across Afghanistan indicated they were not involved in the initial contacts.
"No one has come so far and sat with the government and there is no hope that the Taliban will come and negotiate with the government," said Abdullah Nasrat, the Taliban commander for Girishk district in southern Helmand province, one of the Taliban's traditional strongholds.
Girishk is in the strategically important Helmand River valley, along which mainly US and British forces launched a series of offensives last year.
"We basically hear the reports of talks through the press and do not believe in them," Nasrat told Reuters by telephone. "As long as foreign forces are in Afghanistan, there will be no talks. Our morale is high."
Violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001. Record civilian and military casualties -- and the possibility of peace talks -- will weigh heavily on U.S. President Barack Obama when he conducts a strategy review of the Afghan war in December.
It will also be a central part of discussions at a Nato summit in Lisbon next month.
The New York Times newspaper on Wednesday quoted an unidentified Afghan source as saying Taliban leaders from the "Quetta shura" -- the leadership of the Afghan Taliban who are based in Pakistan -- and one member of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network had taken part in "extensive" talks.
Salahuddin Ayoubi, a senior commander for the Haqqani network's Sirajuddin Haqqani, accused US General David Petraeus, the commander of the almost 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, of trying to drive a wedge through the insurgency.