Word: kabul
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...During President Barack Obama's surprise visit to Kabul on Sunday, he was briefed by Karzai on his efforts to bring insurgents like Hekmatyar into truce talks. The White House says it favors "reintegration" of mid-level commanders but has expressed doubt over Karzai's offer to extend a peace accord to senior leaders of the insurgency...
...opted to surrender to nearby government troops as a way to save themselves. That incident, however, underscores how abysmal Hekmatyar's relations are with the Taliban and casts doubt over his ability to deliver Taliban leaders to the negotiating table. No sooner was the new peace plan announced in Kabul than did the Taliban vigorously reject it. "What we want is the expulsion of foreign occupation forces unconditionally," a Taliban spokesman told the New York Times. (See pictures of a priest who ministers to troops in Afghanistan...
...Hekmatyar earned his fearsome reputation first in the fight against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and then by shelling Kabul into rubble in a fight with rival mujahedin commanders. Having been forced into exile by the Taliban after they took over the country in 1996, he made common cause with them after the U.S. invasion of late 2001. The Taliban have always disliked Hekmatyar, and their loathing is shared by the many Kabul residents who saw thousands of innocents killed by his militia's repeated rocket barrages on the capital in his power struggle with rival mujahedin commanders...
...establishment. Pakistani officials are keen to demonstrate to the Obama Administration that reconciliation between Karzai and the insurgents can succeed, but only if Pakistan makes it happen. That may also explain the recent arrests of 14 senior Taliban commanders in Pakistan - according to the U.N. and Afghan officials in Kabul, some of those held by Pakistan had been engaged in secret talks, and were more open to a peace deal than their hard-core brethren inside the movement's war council...
...Pakistan is also letting the Obama Administration know that it is willing to exercise its leverage over the Afghan insurgents - but at a price, first and foremost in restoring the Pakistani influence in Kabul that was lost when the U.S. ousted the Taliban. Just before a high-level Pakistan delegation set off for Washington, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi declared, "We've done our bit ... We've delivered. [Now you] start delivering...