U.S. Envoy Reportedly Eyes Introduction to Taliban Leader

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Fox News:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- With the U.S. looking for a way to reconcile Afghanistan's warring factions and get out, the top U.S. envoy is possibly looking to make a negotiating partner out of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader.

Imtiaz Gul, head of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, told The Associated Press that the United States is trolling for Taliban officials to talk peace with before the July drawdown of American troops.

Washington's special envoy Marc Grossman, therefore, is trying to access the one-eyed Taliban leader, Gul said, recounting a meeting last month in Islamabad.

Gul said Grossman told him that he was looking for "persons or groups who can provide us access to Mullah Omar, who can demonstrate their ability to approach Mullah Omar and get him onboard, who can get through to Mullah Omar to open talks."

Finding a genuine interlocutor is a slippery business. The U.S. was duped last year when a Quetta, Pakistan, shopkeeper posed as the Taliban's former aviation minister, Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, and met twice with Western officials before they realized they had been tricked.


But that hasn't stopped the U.S. from reaching out. According to The Associated Press, the United States held a series of meetings with more than one Taliban member, and has reached out to former Taliban information minister Qatradullah Jamal.

It has also contacted representatives of alternative terror groups Hezb-e-Islami, led by U.S.-declared terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the Haqqani network, considered by NATO and the U.S. to be their deadliest enemy in Afghanistan. According to western diplomats in the region, the U.S. is trying for exploratory contacts with Ibrahim Haqqani, a brother of group leader Jalaluddin Haqqani.