Daily brief: U.N. official held secret talks with senior Taliban commanders

Secret diplomacy

The outgoing chief of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, diplomat Kai Eide, reportedly met with members of the Afghan Taliban’s Quetta shura leadership council on January 8 in Dubai, at the request of the militant leaders (Reuters, FT, Guardian, WSJ, AFP, McClatchy, BBC). Though reconciliation is a key part of the U.S. and Afghan governments’ strategies for the country, it is unknown what was accomplished at the Dubai meeting or which Taliban envoys attended.

At yesterday’s international summit in London, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s announcement of a traditional tribal meeting with Taliban leaders reportedly went further than the approach preferred by many U.S. officials, which is reaching out to lower- and mid-level Taliban fighters (NYT, Tel, Reuters, Wash Post, Reuters, AP, CNN). A Taliban spokesman said that the movement’s leadership "will soon decide" whether to participate in the peace talks, which would not involve the international community but focus on the Afghan government — which says it will within weeks convene the jirga.

The conference also moved forward with plans for the Afghan government to assume responsibility for security "in a number of provinces" by late this year or early next year, and medium-term goals of taking the lead in in some insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and overall responsibility within five (Guardian, Times, Tel, Guardian, AJE, AFP, AP).

Gunfire in Afghanistan

Taliban militants launched an attack earlier today in the capital of the restive southern Afghan province Helmand, sparking a gun battle between NATO-backed Afghan troops and the extremist group (AP, Pajhwok, Reuters, ISAF). A Taliban spokesman said the militant organization had dispatched seven suicide bombers armed with machine guns to attack the local United Nations mission in Lashkar Gah and a guesthouse there frequently used by government officials.

U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan imam in Kabul as he and his son drove on the outskirts of the Afghan capital yesterday morning, prompting immediate outrage from local citizens and an apology from NATO, which said the convoy of troops had "fired on what appeared to be a threatening vehicle" (Wash Post, CNN, NYT, AP, ISAF). The shooting occurred about a mile from a U.S. base that has been frequently targeted by suicide bombers.

Bin Laden on global warming

Al Jazeera has received another purported audio tape from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in which he calls for the international community to boycott the U.S. dollar to "free humankind from slavery" and commented, "Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury — the phenomenon is an actual fact" (AJE, BBC, AFP, AP). The tape comes after one earlier this week in which bin Laden praised the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt.

An audit, a bombing, an election

A $46 million program run by the U.S.-based private contractor Development Alternatives, Inc. aimed at improving the local government in the tribal regions of northwest Pakistan and decreasing the influence of militancy "has achieved little" since beginning two years ago, according a newly released audit (FP, AP). In spite of a few successes, the audit criticized the DAI program for its planning and implementation, highlighting the difficulties of providing aid to Pakistan.

Earlier today, suspected militants carried out a bombing on a NATO supply truck in the Khyber Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and gunmen killed three Shiite Muslim pilgrims headed for Iran on the outskirts of Quetta in what is believed to be a sectarian attack (AP, Dawn, AFP). Pakistani authorities claim that security forces have killed 44 militants in the past three days in pitched fighting in the northwest tribal agency of Bajaur, and Dawn profiles a split within the Taliban in Bajaur (AP, Dawn).

In the nearby Swat Valley, the first election since the Pakistani military’s offensive there last year has brought the Awami National Party’s Rehmat Ali Khan to the provincial assembly (Dawn, Daily Times, BBC). The seat had been empty since early December after a suicide bomber killed Khan’s brother, who had held it; of the 80 polling stations open during the contest, 33 were designated exclusively for women, though the turnout was low.

The jihadist next door

Andrea Elliott has a fascinating, lengthy profile of Omar Hammammi, who now goes by the nom de guerre Abu Mansoor al-Amriki and has become an important figure in the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab movement in Somalia, and who was raised in Alabama and used to attend Bible camp as a child (NYT Magazine).

Sports for the deaf

Afghanistan has formed the country’s first official Sports Committee for the Deaf after a year of planning, according to the head of the National Olympic Committee (Pajhwok). There are 80 deaf athletes who can compete in 18 different disciplines.

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