Christina Lamb in Washington and Miles Amoore in Wardak
After giving up on winning victory in Afghanistan by military means, the international community is resorting to the centuries-old method of buying its way out.
In London this week, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, will launch a British and American-backed plan for "reintegration" of the Taliban and call for international funding to offer jobs and bribes to bring insurgents in from the cold.
The conference, which starts on Thursday, will be the first big international gathering on Afghanistan since President Barack Obama announced his military strategy last month, including a surge of 30,000 American troops.
The aim was to accompany the surge with a new political strategy and ways for the Afghans to provide their own security by setting up local militias, which could include former Taliban.
With intelligence reports warning that Taliban influence is spreading, both aims now appear in jeopardy.
Divisions between civilian and military officials have led to a reported suspension of the militia programme, while Karzai's newly appointed cabinet is regarded by many as even more corrupt than his last. Failure to offer effective government is seen as a critical factor in growing Taliban influence.
In Wardak, a province bordering Kabul, the risks of adopting American tactics are clear. Over the past two years, Karzai's government has gradually lost control of the province to the Taliban.
Most local religious leaders are now bankrolled by the insurgents but one, Mullah Azizul Rahman Sediqi, known as "Super Mullah", pledged his full support for a US-sponsored plan to arm militiamen so they could fight back.
He has since lived in constant fear of assassination. First the Taliban planted a bomb inside the mullah's mosque. He removed the crude device and took it to a nearby field to detonate. Days later the Taliban fired mortars at his home, blowing out the windows.
Some believe the creation of militia forces in areas where the Afghan police force, army and Nato troops are too thinly spread - or too unpopular to maintain control - could be a critical part of handing over control of security to Afghans.
The first government-sponsored local militia in Wardak was set up last March in Jalez district and has doubled in size in the past 10 months to a force of more than 350.
Its commander, Mohammed Ali, claims his men, a ragtag bunch of lightly armed villagers aged from 17 to 50, have recaptured most of the villages in the district, pushing the Taliban into the barren mountains that surround it.
But despite repeated assurances of improved security, it was not possible to travel to the district last week without an armed escort.
"The Taliban still use the mountains to fire grenades at our convoys," Ali explained with a toothless grin as he squatted in one of his mud-hut checkpoints on the road into Jalez. "They lay IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the route into the district and ambush us."
Hopes that Karzai would boost the prospects for security by cleaning up his administration were set back by the announcement of his new cabinet. Ten of his 17 nominees were rejected by parliament this month.
"I don't think it's a weaker government but it's not as strong as it could have been," David Miliband, the foreign secretary, said in Washington last week. However, he insisted: "The alternatives to this very, very difficult project in which we're engaged are worse."
Many people were disappointed with a government they regarded as weaker, according to Barmak Pazhwak, Afghan officer for the US Institute of Peace. "It's more corrupt and more full of local power groups who Karzai did deals with to get elected," he said.
Miliband insists the international community can exert leverage by withholding funds from ministries that don't perform.
But the West's toothlessness was highlighted by Karzai's failure to take any action against his half-brother, Ahmed Wali, widely regarded as one of the biggest drug lords in southern Afghanistan.
In a gloomy prognosis for 2010, Major-General Michael Flynn, the most senior allied intelligence officer in Afghanistan, has warned that the Taliban have tightened their grip on the civilian population and believe they have only to keep on blowing up soldiers to achieve victory.
Last Monday, the Taliban showed their ability to penetrate the capital with a series of attacks that killed 20 and injured 70, leaving a shopping centre in flames.
Western officials tried to put a positive spin on the assault, pointing out that in contrast to the last big attack in October on a UN guest house, Afghan troops arrived on the scene promptly, taking on the insurgents and preventing wider bloodshed.
Given the spread of Taliban influence, however, it is unclear how much support there will be for Karzai's reintegration plan to persuade Taliban militants to switch sides.
Central to the plan will be a grand peace council. This will include representatives from all sectors of Afghan society, including religious leaders, with the aim of giving armed opponents a guarantee that their views will be heard.
"The government will provide the Taliban and other insurgent groups who wish to respect the constitution a dignified way to renounce violence and peacefully reintegrate into their communities," says a draft version of the plan.
The international community has insisted that key Taliban leaders such as Mullah Mohammed Omar would not be part of any such plan. "The red line is links to Al-Qaeda," Miliband said. But the document offers "key leaders of the Taliban movement" an opportunity for amnesty and reintegration.
Aside from differences between nations over who to negotiate with, there is scant evidence that the Taliban wish to come in from the cold.
US officials admit that it was a bad tactical error for President Obama to cite a target date of July 2011 to start withdrawing troops in his speech announcing the surge.
The date, which was inserted by the White House at the last minute to assuage disgruntled Democrats, has led the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan to believe they just have to wait.
"The Taliban are telling the local population the Americans will be gone in 18 months and we'll be in charge so you better not cross us or we'll kill you," said an adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan.
McChrystal is circulating among his field commanders a paper written by a special forces major called "one tribe at a time", which backs partnerships with tribal militias.
But reports yesterday claimed that the US had suspended the militias, fearing they could lead to the creation of new warlords. According to The New York Times, Hanif Atmar, the Afghan interior minister, said that while some of the militias had been effective in combating the Taliban, others were out of control.
"In Kunduz, after they defeated the Taliban in their villages, they became the power and they took money and taxes from the people," he said.
Troops target opium town
American patrols were probing Taliban defences this weekend around a town of mud-walled compounds that may become the first big battlefield of the American "surge" in Afghanistan.
Their target is Marjah, a Taliban-controlled farming town in Helmand province that is expected to be the focus of an American-led offensive in coming weeks.
"It's been clear for weeks about the need to clear out Marjah, so that's going to happen," said Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, during a tour of the province.
The Americans plan to field three battalions against fighters in the town, 380 miles southwest of Kabul. They will be joined by units of the Afghan national army. Some of the 9,500 British troops in Helmand are expected to mount a parallel operation.
About 30,000 troops will pour into Afghanistan as President Barack Obama's "surge" intensifies.
Military sources believe the Taliban may fight to hold Marjah, because it lies at the heart of Helmand's opium production.
US marines are gathering intelligence in advance of any battle. On Friday, three squads of the marines' 1st battalion, 6th Regiment, were fired on from nearby houses as they moved into a desiccated poppy field.
Additional reporting: Michael Smith
Article Source : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article6999943.ece
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