Afghanistan Expels Officials from UN, EU

[Dog Walker]

Two stories from today’s news. I wonder if they are connected. (If they are the Taliban already know more about it then we do.)


Afghanistan Expels Officials from UN, EU
By VOA News
25 December 2007
Afghanistan on Tuesday ordered a top European Union official and a United Nations employee to leave the country for allegedly threatening national security.
Government spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said authorities had detained the pair -- one British, the other Irish -- along with their Afghan colleagues who are being investigated. 
The spokesman said the two, based in southern Helmand province, were involved in activities outside their mandate.  He said they have been declared persona non grata and have been given 48 hours to leave.
The two men are accused of having meetings with different tribes and groups, including possibly the Taliban.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-12-25-voa11.cfm?rss=politics

Britain in secret talks with the Taliban
By Thomas Harding and Tom Coghlan
Last Updated: 12:56am GMT 26/12/2007
Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.
An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban."
The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."
Opposition leaders said that Mr Brown had "some explaining to do".
The Government was apparently prepared to admit that the talks had taken place but Gordon Brown was thought to have "bottled out" just before Prime Minister's Questions on Dec 12, when he made his denial instead.
It is thought that the Americans were extremely unhappy with the news becoming public that an ally was negotiating with terrorists who supported the September 11 attackers.
The delicate balance in Afghanistan was underlined as it emerged that two diplomats had been ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration's knowledge.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/26/wafg126.xml

 

[tomahawk6]

Hey it worked so well last year with Musa Qala so why not repeat it ? If we let the Brits run ISAF after McNeill leaves we will see alot more of this. I just dont think the Brits can be trusted.

 

[a_majoor]

From the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/world/asia/26afghan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print

December 26, 2007
Afghanistan to Expel 2 Envoys, Citing Threats to Its Security
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

KABUL, Afghanistan (Agence France-Presse) — Afghanistan has ordered a high-level European Union official and a United Nations staff member to leave the country, accusing them of threatening national security, government and diplomatic officials said Tuesday.

The two men were declared unwelcome in the country, apparently after reports said that they had met with Taliban insurgents, a European diplomat said.

The office of President Hamid Karzai had at first announced at a news conference that the two had been arrested.

A spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, later said that the two, whom he did not identify, had been asked to leave the country. Another official said that two of the men’s Afghan colleagues had been arrested.

“The foreign nationals have been declared persona non grata, and their Afghan colleagues have been arrested and are being investigated,” Mr. Hamidzada said.

He said his earlier statement that the two foreigners were in custody resulted from a misunderstanding, but he insisted that the government still believed that they were a threat to national security.

A European diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the men had been given two days to leave, but the United Nations Mission here said it was not aware of any deadline.

The two men had been accused of “having had contacts with the armed opposition out of the knowledge of the government,” the diplomat said. “Afghans claim they have documents proving these guys had contacts with the Taliban but have not given any proof.”

The United Nations Mission said it was not sure on what basis the government had made the accusations.

“The government has not made clear its justification for this action, and we are trying to clarify this misunderstanding,” said a spokesman, Aleem Siddique. “We have no reason to believe that there is any justification for such a request.” He said that the United Nations official was British and that the European Union staff member was Irish.

An Afghan Foreign Ministry official said the men had been asked to leave because they had done something “not in their mandate.”

Britain is one of the main countries helping Afghanistan recover after the Taliban rulers were ousted in an American-led invasion in 2001.

In December 2006, an aide to the Briton who was then the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan was arrested on charges of passing secrets to “the enemy,” reportedly Iran. The aide, Daniel James, who was born in Iran, denied the accusations. He is to go on trial in February.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

 

[retiredgrunt45]

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.

Seems like Mr. Bond and his friends has stirred up a few to many martini's...

Or the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. Go figure.

 

[Kirkhill]

Hey it worked so well last year with Musa Qala so why not repeat it ? If we let the Brits run ISAF after McNeill leaves we will see alot more of this. I just dont think the Brits can be trusted.

Well, you could always continue with the CIA and State in the lead.  They seem to be working the plan well....

 

[Kirkhill]

Further to my last:

From Tom Coghlan and the Daily Telegraph.

Envoys' expulsions 'result of misunderstanding'
By Tom Coghlan in Helmand
Last Updated: 9:17pm GMT 26/12/2007

Two Western officials are expected to leave Afghanistan after the Afghan government expelled them for holding meetings with Taliban leaders.

Analysis: Talk of negotiation is simplistic
Mervyn Patterson, a British political adviser to the United Nations mission in Kabul, and Michael Semple, the Irish-born acting head of the European Union mission, were given 48 hours to leave after claims that meetings held in the troubled southern province of Helmand meant they posed a "serious threat" to national security.

Several Afghan colleagues of the two men were arrested by the Afghan authorities.

Aleem Siddique, a UN spokesman, said that the expulsions were the result of a "misunderstanding" that arose after the two men visited the town of Musa Qala, which was recaptured recently after 10 months under Taliban control.

The two men - both experts who speak Afghan languages fluently - had been involved in "stabilisation" work after the military offensive, said Mr Siddique, and had been working in co-ordination with the Afghan government.

They had held talks in Musa Qala with a variety of people including some who are "perhaps undecided whether they are supportive of the government of Afghanistan", Mr Siddique said.

But he rejected the charge that they had been negotiating with the Taliban. "We do not talk to the Taliban - full stop. That is not what we were in Helmand province to do," he said. "Efforts are ongoing in talks with the ministry of interior and ministry of foreign affairs so we can clarify what we are doing in Helmand province, so these people can stay here and do the important work they do."

Speaking on condition of anonymity, colleagues of the two men said that the allegations against them were coming from Assadullah Wafa, the governor of Helmand, who had "taken umbrage" at activities he felt circumvented his authority.

"This is a local-level issue involving Governor Wafa," said one

The expulsion of the two men has not been linked to reports by The Daily Telegraph that British intelligence officers were negotiating with the Taliban in the build-up to the recent operation to retake Musa Qala. It is understood that there were high hopes within the Special Intelligence Service before the town was retaken that a major tribal revolt against the Taliban was imminent in north Helmand.

That did not happen, but one Taliban commander, named Mullah Abdul Salaam, defected.

There is a growing conviction within the diplomatic community in Kabul that negotiation to split less ideologically driven elements from the Taliban represents the key to neutralising its potency.

President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly called on Taliban figures to enter into negotiation with the Afghan government; even calling directly on Mullah Omar, the Taliban spiritual leader, to contact him. Officially, the Afghan government offers amnesty to any Taliban figure who will lay down his arms and accept the Afghan constitution..

Earlier this year, the Taliban reportedly delivered a set of preconditions for peace talks which included guaranteed Cabinet positions in the government, control of a number of southern provinces and a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops. That offer was rejected out of hand.

Yesterday, Mr Karzai and Pervez Musharraf, the president of neighbouring Pakistan, vowed at a meeting in Islamabad to boost intelligence co-operation.

And:

Analysis: Talk of negotiation is oversimplisticBy Tom Coghlan
Last Updated: 9:01pm GMT 26/12/2007



Allegations that British intelligence officials have been "negotiating with the Taliban" are less clear cut than they may sound. Most people in the south of Afghanistan maintain links with both the government and the Taliban. It is a time-honoured Afghan survival mechanism.

Within the culture of the southern Afghan Pashtuns, from whom the Taliban draw their strength, there is little stigma in switching sides, particularly where cash or self-preservation is involved. Indeed the recent history of Afghanistan is littered with figures famous for switching sides not once, but many times.

When they rose to power between 1994 and 1996, the Taliban were able to take much of the south without firing a shot. Local warlords loyal to other factions simply switched sides as they saw the Taliban's inexorable momentum. Many of them performed the same manoeuvre in 2001 as the US-backed Northern Alliance swept south. It simply matters to be on the winning side when the shooting stops.

The idea of "talking to the Taliban" is itself something of a misnomer. Unlike a monolithic terrorist organisation such as the IRA, the Taliban has the loosest of command structures.

There is the so-called Quetta Shura, a council of senior Taliban leaders that includes Mullah Omar, the Taliban's spiritual leader, but it only loosely controls the direction of the organisation. There is no sign at this time that British officials are dealing directly with the Quetta Shura.

Instead, British intelligence appears to be dealing with some of a vast array of Taliban-aligned leaders whose allegiance to the Taliban has more to do with local power politics than issues of ideology.