Leave Taliban Alone, Afghan President Tells West

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By Jason Burke

Karzai says US and British troops are undermining his authority and stopping insurgents from laying down their arms.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has called on British and American troops to stop arresting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, saying that their operations undermined his government's authority and were counter-productive.

The stinging attack, made in an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, is the latest in a series of rows between Western governments with troops in Afghanistan and the elected leader of the country. Western diplomats expressed surprise at the Afghan leader's criticism and the Foreign Office played down the row yesterday.

'We fully support the Afghan government and continue to work with it, President Karzai and the international community in the interests of the Afghan people and the long-term peace and stability of Afghanistan,' said a spokesman.

Karzai is facing re-election next year and may be hoping to bolster flagging support with a populist stance. However, in recent months relations have deteriorated seriously, with Western officials openly doubting the ability of the Afghan president, who was heavily backed by the US and the UK in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban regime, to manage rampant corruption and combat drug trafficking in the war-wracked southwest Asian state.

Karzai said he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban members and their supporters, saying that fear of arrest and their past mistreatment were discouraging them from coming forward to lay down their arms. 'It has to happen,' he said. 'We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan ... he is safe from arrest by the coalition.'

Efforts at winning over Taliban fighters or sympathisers are mired in confusion: Nato allies in Afghanistan are divided over the exact nature of the amnesty or 'reconciliation programme' for insurgents. British policy, despite official insistence that 'there are no negotiations with the Taliban', is to weaken the radical Islamic movement by splitting off foot soldiers tempted by money or misled by tribal chiefs, religious leaders and ideologues from a 'hardcore' of leaders.

'We fully support efforts to bring disaffected Afghans into society's mainstream, providing they renounce violence and accept Afghanistan's constitution,' said the Foreign Office spokesman. 'We have always said there is no military solution in Afghanistan - a fully comprehensive approach is needed ... and that will involve reconciliation of those Taliban prepared to integrate into the new Afghanistan.'

However, Washington is more sceptical of such efforts, and has been fiercely critical of some British tactics aimed at winning over key Taliban commanders in the past, as has Karzai himself.

Karzai also attacked the number of civilian deaths inflicted by the coalition. Although levels of 'collateral damage' inflicted by Nato operations have dropped substantially, deaths still continue. Two women and two children were killed recently in an air raid by Nato troops on a suspected Taliban position after a firefight. Up to 9,000 civilians have died since 2001.

'I want an end to civilian casualties,' the Afghan president said in the interview. 'And as much as one may argue it's difficult, I don't accept that argument.'

Relations between Karzai and London were strained last month by the Afghan premier's rejection of Lord Paddy Ashdown, the favoured candidate to take up a post as 'aid tsar' in Kabul with a brief to coordinate the international aid flowing into the country. Karzai blocked the appointment amid negative local press coverage, a historic popular distrust of the British and advisers' fears of a potential crackdown on corruption.

With casualties and costs mounting and little obvious progress, Western governments are looking increasingly for an exit from Afghanistan, where 94 British servicemen have been killed since 2001. 'Nato now wants a way out which is not failure,' said Mike Williams, of London's Royal United Services Institute. 'They need to redefine the situation which will allow them to leave without failing.'

A key problem for policymakers is 'battle fatigue' among Western populations. 'We are going to get bored of the war long before the Taliban are,' said one Nato official.