Taliban 'buy out' fund to cost hundreds of millions
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 05:09AM LONDON // An international fund amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars will be established this week in a bid to buy off Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
An outline for the strategy, which will be principally funded by the US, Japan and Britain, was reported to have been drafted at a meeting in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago of top-level diplomats from 20 countries.
The announcement of the establishment of the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, which will seek to “split the Taliban” by luring into mainstream politics any leaders not connected to, or ready to break their links with, al Qa’eda is due to be announced at the end of Thursday’s summit on Afghanistan in London.
Some will see the plan as the most public acknowledgement yet that there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan.
But, assuming the scheme is approved on Thursday, it will represent the most comprehensive political attempt to draw the sting out of the insurgency since the fall of the regime in 2001.
According to The Times yesterday, the draft communiqué to be issued at the end of the conference also foresees Afghan troops “taking the lead and conducting the majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years”.
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