Posted on 04/28/2005 6:51:01 PM PDT by death2tyrants
KHOST, AFGHANISTAN - When Taliban commander "Dr. Rasheid" handed himself over to the Afghan government three months ago, he half expected to end up in a US plane bound for Guantánamo Bay. ADVERTISEMENT
Instead, he was greeted with open arms and invited to help the government persuade his Taliban friends to turn themselves in as well.
His decision to accept Afghan President Hamid Karzai's amnesty offer has been followed in the past three weeks by at least five mid-level Taliban officials. It's too soon to tell if the trickle of hard-line Taliban commanders like Rasheid will become a torrent - and it's premature to declare the demise of the Taliban as a fighting force. With the warmer spring weather, in fact, the frequency and intensity of the Taliban attacks on some 16,000 US and 2,200 NATO forces is rising.
But the tide appears to be shifting. Fatigue is setting in among Taliban fighters. "We are tired of war; we don't want to continue with the destruction of our country," says Rasheid, who used a pseudonym for this interveiw because he continues to cross the border into Pakistan to persuade Taliban members to stop their fighting and support the Afghan government.
President Karzai offered an olive branch to rank-and-file Taliban fighters last year and said all but a core group of 150 militants wanted for human-rights violations would be able to rejoin the political process. "Not only the Taliban but all Afghans who are afraid of their past political affiliation can return home and resume their normal lives," says Jawed Luddin, a Karzai spokesman. "It is the time to rebuild our country."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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