War-weariness?: Taliban may launch political party

“We are waiting for conducive conditions to make a formal announcement,” says Mutasim.

ISLAMABAD:

Contrary to their public war rhetoric, the Afghan Taliban are considering a ‘political solution’ to over a decade-long conflict in Afghanistan, a senior Taliban leader has revealed.

“We must launch a political movement to achieve the goals for which we have made so many sacrifices,” said Mullah Agha Jan Mutasim, former head of the Taliban Political Commission and a close confidant of the militia’s elusive leader Mullah Omar.

“The Taliban leaders whose names have been removed from the UN black list will play an important role in the political process,” he told The Express Tribune. However, he added that the warring faction was the “vital part of the Taliban.”

Of late, Pakistan’s influential politico-religious leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman met with Taliban representatives in the Qatari capital of Doha in an effort to broker peace talks between the ultraorthodox militia and the Hamid Karzai administration. Officially, both sides denied the meeting.



The Taliban spokesperson has said umpteen times that his group would not talk to the administration of President Karzai who, he says, is a puppet and that the real power-wielder is the United States.

However, political analysts believe the Taliban are war-weary. “The Taliban are tired of war and it will be a step in the right direction if they launch a political movement,” Rashid Waziri, an adviser at the Regional Studies Centre of Afghanistan, said on Sunday.

“We are waiting for conducive conditions to make a formal announcement,” said Mutasim, when asked about the possible launch of their political party.

Mullah Mutasim was a minister in the Taliban regime before it was toppled by the United States and its allies in 2001. He had survived an assassination attempt in Karachi in 2010, and now lives in Turkey.

Mullah Mutasim is also concerned about possible civil war in the post-2014 Afghanistan. “This concern deepens when one considers possible interventions [in Afghanistan] by greedy neighbours and other regional powers,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2013.