KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the repeated appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.
But now, it turns out, Mansour was apparently not Mansour at all. U.S. and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.
“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”
U.S. officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mansour or even a member of the Taliban leadership.
NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from across the border in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.
The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraftand ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.
The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with the assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid.
Many in the Taliban leadership, which is largely made up of barely literate clerics from the countryside, had not been seen in person by U.S., NATO or Afghan officials.
Doubts were raised about the man claiming to be Mansour - who by some accounts is the second-ranking official in the Taliban, behind only the founder, Mullah Mohammed Omar - after the third meeting, held in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. A man who had known Mansour years ago told Afghan officials that the man at the table did not resemble him.
“He said he didn’t recognize him,” said an Afghan leader who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Western diplomat said the Afghan man was initially given a sizable sum of money to take part in the talks - and tohelp persuade him to return.
While the Afghan official said he still harbored hopes that the man would return for another round of talks, U.S. and other Western officials said they had concluded that the man in question was not Mansour. Just how the Americans reached such a conclusion - whether, for instance, they were able to establish his identity through fingerprints or some other means - is unknown.
As recently as last month, U.S. and Afghan officials held high hopes for the talks. Senior U.S. officials, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, said the talks indicated that Taliban leaders, whose rank-and-file fighters are under extraordinary pressure from the U.S.-led offensive, were at least willing to discuss an end to the war.
The U.S. officials said they and officials of other NATO governments were helping to facilitate the discussions by providing air transport and securing roadways for Taliban leaders coming from Pakistan.
Since the last round of discussions, which took place within the past few weeks, Afghan and U.S. officials have been puzzling over who the man was. Some Afghans say the man may have been a Taliban agent sent to impersonate Mansour.
“The Taliban are cleverer than the Americans and our own intelligence service,” said a senior Afghan official who is familiar with the case. “They are playing games.”
Others suspect that the fake Taliban leader may have been dispatched by the Pakistani intelligence service, known by its initials, the ISI. Elements within the ISI have long played a “double game” in Afghanistan, reassuring U.S. officials that they are actively pursuing the Taliban while at the same time providing support for the insurgents.
Publicly, at least, the Taliban leadership is sticking to the line that there are no talks at all. In a recent message to his followers, Omar denied that there were any talks unfolding at any level.
“The cunning enemy which has occupied our country istrying, on the one hand, to expand its military operations on the basis of its double-standard policy and, on the other hand, wants to throw dust into the eyes of the people by spreading the rumors of negotiation,” his message said.
Neither U.S. nor Afghan leaders confronted the fake Mansour with their doubts about his identity. Indeed, some Afghan leaders are still holding out hopes that the man really is or at least represents Mansour - and that he will come back soon.
“Questions have been raised about him, but it’s still possible that it’s him,” said the Afghan leader who declined to be identified.
The Afghan leader said negotiators had urged the man claiming to be Mansour to return with colleagues, including other high-level Taliban leaders whose identities they might be able to verify.
The Afghan leader said both the Americans and the Afghan leadership were initially cautious of the Afghan man’s identity and motives. But after the first meeting, both were reasonably satisfied that the man they were talking to was Mansour. Several steps were taken to establish the man’s identity;after the first meeting, photos of him were shown to Taliban detainees who were believed to know Mansour. They signed off, the Afghan leader said.
Whatever the Afghan man’s identity, the talks that unfolded between the Americans and the man claiming to be Mansour seemed substantive, the Afghan leader said. The man claiming to be representing the Taliban laid down several surprisingly moderate conditions for a peace settlement: that the Taliban leadership be allowed to return to Afghanistan safely, that Taliban soldiers be offered jobs and that prisoners be released.
Sayed Amir Muhammad Agha, a onetime Taliban commander who says he has left the Taliban but who acted as a go-between with the movement in the past, said in an interview that he did not know the tale of the impostor.
But he said the Taliban leadership had given no indications of a willingness to enter talks.
“Whenever I talk to the Taliban, they never accept peace and they want to keep on fighting,” he said. “They are not tired.”
Across Afghanistan on Monday, bombs and gunbattles killed 34 insurgents, five civilians and two NATO coalition service members, officials said.
Two children were among four civilians killed Monday in eastern Paktia province when a bomb ripped through the tractor they were riding on, said Ghulam Dastagir, deputy provincial police chief.
In northern Kunduz province, insurgents attacked a local police checkpoint, sparking heavy fighting. Two police officers were killed, along with 17 of the attackers, said local Police Chief Mohammad Ayub Haqyar.
Information for this article was contributed by Rahim Faiez and Rasool Dawar of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/23/2010