President Hamid Karzai is seen during a joint press conference NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (unseen) held after a Meeting on Afghanistan on 010 in Lisbon, as part of a NATO Summit of the Heads of States and Government held on 19-20 November 2010. President Karzai denied meeting the fake Taliban leader in the presidential palace in Kabul [AFP], Aljazeera
Remember those high-level ceasefire talks in Afghanistan with Taliban officials that were heading in such a promising direction? Well it turns out that the guy we thought we were making so much headway with is a complete impostor.
The New York Times came out with the discouraging news this morning.
ITS LIKE AN EPISODE LIFTED
FROM A SPY NOVEL
by DEXTER FILKINS and CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.
But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.
“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”
American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.
NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.
The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.
The episode underscores the uncertain and even bizarre nature of the atmosphere in which Afghan and American leaders search for ways to bring the nine-year-old American-led war to an end. The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with the assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in American aid.
