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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 21, 2001
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Pakistani government said Saturday that the Taliban's top army commander is in the country and has been holding talks on the possibility of forming a post-Taliban government for Afghanistan.
A foreign ministry spokesman said that Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, commander of all Taliban forces on a crucial 1,000-mile stretch of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, has been in Pakistan's capital as part of a search for a "broad-based government" to succeed the Taliban. The spokesman did not say how far the negotiations have proceeded, or the degree of support given to the initiative by Haqqani, a veteran commander from the 1980s guerrilla war against Soviet forces and a hero in Afghanistan. The hard-line clerics of the Taliban named him to the top army post early in October. He previously was dismissive of opposition attempts to topple the Taliban government by luring high-level defectors.
Yet, Haqqani appeared to dash hopes that he could be the catalyst for the fall of the Taliban government with a newspaper interview published in Pakistan in which he spoke contemptuously of the very notion of a coalition government to take over from the Taliban.
"No one from the Taliban will be part of such an unacceptable government, which will be filled with American, Russian and Indian stooges," he said in an interview with the News, which said the interview had been conducted from "an undisclosed location," apparently a house in Islamabad belonging to Pakistan's military intelligence agency.
The Taliban commander spoke of his loyalty to the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who has been one of the principal targets of American military attacks, saying that other Taliban leaders would never abandon Omar "as long as he keeps serving Islam."
The interview added a new level of murkiness to the diplomatic maneuverings under way in Pakistan. But the Foreign Ministry official who disclosed Haqqani's presence in the capital, Riaz Muhammad Khan, insisted that the talks with the Taliban commander had centered on ways of constructing a post-Taliban government.
Military officials in Pakistan said the fact that Haqqani could leave Afghanistan in the midst of the intense bombing campaign, and remain in Islamabad for at least the past three days, pointed to a decision by the Taliban that it was in no position to mount an effective defense against the bombing.
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- The foreign minister of Afghanistan's opposition government on Saturday rejected the idea of including some members of the Taliban in a post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, mindful of neighboring Pakistan's wishes, recently suggested allowing moderate members of the hard-line Islamic militia a role in a multifaceted government.
But Abdullah, the foreign minister of the government recognized by Western powers as Afghanistan's legitimate leadership, reaffirmed its opposition to including Taliban.
"There are no moderate Taliban. The term 'moderate' does not apply to the Taliban. The Taliban have as their international agenda cruelty and terrorism," said the minister, who uses one name.