Afghan tribal elders discussed ways to reach out to the Taliban yesterday, despite a rocket and gunfire attack by the insurgents aimed at disrupting a national conference seeking an end to nearly nine years of war.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who launched the traditional “peace jirga” of tribal elders on Wednesday amid the gunfire is hoping to get national support for his plans to reach out to the the Taliban ahead of a gradual US military withdrawal beginning next year.
Nearly 1,600 delegates, many wearing turbans and long beards, were huddled in a giant tent in the west of the capital to finalize a resolution on a peace plan to end the deadly insurgency.
It consists of luring Taliban foot soldiers back to the mainstream with cash and job incentives while seeking reconciliation with senior figures by offering them asylum in a Muslim country and striking their names off a UN blacklist.
“The main deliberations have begun on how we can come up with a peace formula for talks with the Taliban,” Mohammad Shah Hemad, head of one of 28 groups, set up to discuss the proposals.
The delegates will report back to former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabani who was named the jirga chairman.
Even if Karzai does win the backing of the delegates, it would amount to little more than symbolic support, since the Taliban have vowed to press their campaign until all foreign troops leave.
“The jirga is itself mostly for show. They have these things every few years, and they don’t change anything,” said Joshua Foust, a US-based independent analyst focused on Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Critics have also said that the jirga is packed with delegates loyal to Karzai and hence its decisions did not reflect the full spectrum of Afghan politics, tribes and geography.
About a 100 people staged a demonstration in Asadabad, the provincial capital of eastern Kunar Province, saying three delegates they had chosen to represent them at the meeting were not invited.
A fifth of those assembled in the big tent are women, reflecting the progress they have made since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001. Karzai’s administration is keen that the gains made in developing democracy and civil rights are not compromised in any opening to the hardline Taliban, delegates said.
The women were seated separately from the men in the big tent, but came together in the meeting rooms to discuss the peace proposals.
The government is spending an estimated US$3 million on food, shelter, and transport of the delegates not counting the security costs. Hundreds of police and security forces have been deployed on the streets as well as the hillsides overlooking the tent where the conference is taking place.
On Wednesday, three insurgents breached a security cordon by disguising themselves with the all-enveloping burqa worn by women. Rockets fell near the tent and gunfire erupted. Two gunmen were killed and a third captured.
Meanwhile, a clash between Afghan forces and Taliban militants left four civilians dead in a district of Helmand Province where a major NATO operation early this year was meant to reassert government control, a provincial official said yesterday. A roadside bombing in the Helmand killed four other civilians.
The clash happened early on Wednesday after militants fired on an Afghan forces patrol in Marjah district, triggering a gunbattle, the officials said. The civilians were caught in the crossfire, he said.
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