The Associated Press has a scooptastic story tonight saying that Mullah Baradar, the Taliban's erstwhile No. 2 man, was "holding secret talks" with the Afghan government when he was arrested by Pakistan with the help of U.S. intelligence officials. The talks were something the initial reporting alluded to in general terms, but the AP, citing one of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's advisers, claims to have new details of the discussions:
Karzai ''was very angry'' when he heard that the Pakistanis had picked
up Baradar with an assist from U.S. intelligence, the adviser said.
Besides the ongoing talks, he said Baradar had ''given a green light''
to participating in a three-day peace jirga that Karzai is hosting next
month.
It's a single-sourced report, so caveat emptor. But several other Afghan officials seem to have confirmed in general terms that Baradar was, in fact, meeting with the Afghan government.
We also learn that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan, "has not yet solidified his opinion" on reconciliation with the Taliban. Neither has the White House, where the issue is still being debated at the highest levels. But it sounds from all accounts like the question for the administration is really "who and when," not "if."
Some less solid reporting suggests that Mullah Omar asked the Pakistanis to arrest Baradar. File this under "interesting if true." There's also the tricky question of all those other arrests of Taliban leaders in recent weeks; the story doesn't get into that.
Still, Joshua Foust's point here is well taken:
What’s shocking is the involvement of American intelligence agents in something so glaringly counterproductive. [...] As a well known “moderate,” such as they exist within the senior
Taliban today, [Baradar] was one of the few willing to actually discuss an end
to the war with the U.S. and Kabul. Even that hope is gone now—and the
result is a Taliban with documented evidence that approaching the
negotiation table earns one a place in an ISI prison.
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