Karzai move to talk with Taleban could lead to civil war: Ex-Afghan spy chief

LONDON - Afghanistan former spymaster has warned that the country risks fracturing along bloody ethnic lines if President Hamid Karzai continues misguided efforts to reach out to the Taleban.

In an exclusive interview with The Scotsman in his mountain bolt hole, Amrullah Saleh compared the Taleban to Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and accused the government of being “ultra soft” on the brutal, mediaeval insurgents.

Karzai named 68 people charged with negotiating a settlement on Tuesday, after a tearful appeal for peace in which he begged the insurgents to lay down arms.

His High Peace Council includes warlords, a former civil war president, at least two well-known opium barons and just eight women. In June, the president welled up calling for his “dear Taleb brothers” to come home.

“These soft policies have demoralised the people of Afghanistan and it portrays the Taleban as the only winning side,” Saleh said, as he sat on a verandah surrounded by fruit orchards, only accessible via a footbridge over the roaring Panjshir River.

The former head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) worked with MI6 and the CIA from 2004 until last June, when he resigned after losing Karzai’s confidence.

He then spent weeks touring northern Afghanistan, building grass roots support for a political movement before joining forces with leading opposition politician Dr Abdullah Abdullah.

Both men served under Ahmad Shah Massoud, a legendary Northern Alliance commander who was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers two days before the 11 September 200 attacks on the US.

Dr Abdullah claimed the Taleban see Karzai’s tears as weakness.

Civil rights groups fear the rush to make peace will undo precious gains in areas like women’s rights.

Yet with America due to start withdrawing troops in July 2011, few powerbrokers see any alternatives to talks and most are manoeuvering for a post-NATO environment.

Many of Karzai’s former allies, particularly those from the north, have begun distancing themselves from the government and their rhetoric has grown increasingly warlike. (ANI)