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The Taliban and President Hamid Karzai's government have started secret peace negotiations to end to the war in Afghanistan, the Washington Post has reported.
The newspaper quoted unnamed Afghan and Arab sources who believe the Taliban representatives are authorised to speak for the Pakistan-based Quetta Shura and its leader, Mohammad Omar.
Talks are only in the preliminary stages, according to the Post following inconclusive meetings hosted by Saudi Arabia that ended more than a year ago.
President Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer declined to confirm or deny the report.
Peace overture: President Hamid Karzai
Training: An Afghan serviceman is taken through a replica village alongside a British soldier
Speaking in Kabul, he said: 'There were contacts in the past and may now be direct or indirect ones. There have been regular contacts over the past two years.There haven't been any substantive talks, there have been contacts only.'
Fighting has dragged on for nine years since U.S. forces led an invasion in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime who harboured the al Qaeda network responsible for the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers.
'They (the Taliban) are very, very serious about finding a way out,' one source close to the talks said.
Omar's representatives have insisted in the past that negotiations were impossible until foreign troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
But the Post said the Quetta Shura has begun to discuss a deal that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the Karzai government and the withdrawal of U.S. and Nato troops on an agreed timeline.
The Quetta Shura is the remains of the Afghan Taliban government overthrown and driven into Pakistan by the invasion.
The talks did not involve the Haqqani network, based mainly in Pakistan's North Waziristan, which has been the target of U.S. drone attacks.
Earlier this week, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said a broad Taliban shift toward reconciliation with the Afghan government was unlikely for now.
He said: 'I think it is too soon to suggest that there is.a wider movement afoot, that the tide is turning in terms of re-integration and reconciliation.'
President Karzai launched an effort this year to reach out to elements of the Taliban that might be willing to deal with the government, renounce violence and accept the new constitution.
He has formed a 70-member peace council in recent weeks to work toward negotiations.
General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. and the Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, has acknowledged contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
But he added it was premature to say whether those Taliban were willing to accept Karzai's terms for pursuing reconciliation.
Last week, a former senior UN official spoke of his concern that the Taliban has infiltrated the Afghan police and army.
Former executive director of the UN's Office of Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, Antonio Maria Costa said Taliban sleeper cells had been set up inside the security forces.
According to Dr Costa the Taliban have already carried out a number of attacks and have scheduled further hits on Nato-led troops.
Confiscated: Afghan police officers stand near weapons collected after private security firms in Kabul were disbanded
Under guard: A militant is taken away by Afghan security forces which are feared to have been infiltrated by the Taliban
Chart showing foreign troop deaths in Afghanistan since 2001
A memorial to British soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan
KABUL — A total of 100 foreign soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan have died in June, the deadliest month for NATO in nine years of conflict, intensifying concerns about the conduct of the war.
An announcement by the US Department of Defence of the death of an American soldier on June 24 in the strife-torn western province of Farah took the toll for the year to date to 320, compared with 520 in all of 2009.
Australian soldiers in Camp Russell salute their fellow soldiers killed in Afghanistan as their remains are repatriated.
US soldiers exit Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar City
Australian soldiers in Camp Russell salute their fellow soldiers killed in Afghanistan as their remains are repatriated.
AFP's figures are based on a tally kept by the independent icasualties.org website.
The Defence Department said 20-year-old Private Robert Repkie of Tennessee had died on June 24 of "injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident" that was under investigation.
A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said 81 international troops had been killed in combat so far in June.
He said 12 troops had died of non-combat related causes. The remainder, who are not counted by ISAF, had died of injuries after returning home for treatment.
No NATO troops deaths were reported in Afghanistan on Monday, the spokesman said, adding: "A rare good day for us this month."
The previous highest monthly toll was last August, at 77.
The United States and NATO have 140,000 troops in Afghanistan, set to peak at 150,000 by August in an effort to quell the intensifying war against the hardline Islamist Taliban.
The sacking last week of US General Stanley McChrystal for insubordination has concentrated concerns about the progress being made in bringing the insurgency under control.
His replacement, US General David Petraeus -- due to take up the post on July 4, according to military officials -- arrives to enormous pressure as casualties rise and Western public opinion continues to turn against the war.
The head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, also acknowledged at the weekend that there were "serious problems" with the Afghan war.
"We're dealing with a country that has problems with governance, problems with corruption, problems with narcotics trafficking, problems with a Taliban insurgency," he said.
Lack of action in cleaning up endemic official corruption is seen as an obstacle to progress, as many ordinary Afghans distrust the government the West is fighting to prop up.
On Monday, a senior US lawmaker angrily blocked billions of dollars for Afghanistan, vowing not to extend aid until President Hamid Karzai fulfills pledges to act against corruption.
Representative Nita Lowey, who sits on the powerful committee in charge of the budget, said: "I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that US taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords and terrorists."
President Barack Obama's administration requested 3.9 billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan in the 2011 fiscal year starting in October, an aide said.
While much of the anti-Taliban effort is concentrated on the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar -- the Taliban heartland -- a major offensive is under way in the border region of Kunar province, according to ISAF.
It said in a statement Sunday that more than 600 ISAF and Afghan troops were pursuing Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Kunar and that "a number of insurgents" had been killed.
Two US troops were also killed, ISAF said, though there was no immediate update Tuesday.
The Washington Post reported that up to 150 Taliban insurgents had been killed in battles along the Kunar border with Pakistan.
The US-led operation, which began Sunday, was one of the largest yet in the region around Kunar province, said the newspaper, citing US officials as calling it "one of the most intense battles of the past year" in Afghanistan.
NATO has said the dramatic upswing in casualty numbers has been caused by the alliance stepping up military operations and taking the fight to the Taliban in areas where the Islamist militia has previously been unchallenged.
The heavy toll can be largely attributed to the Taliban's use of homemade bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which are cheap and easy to make and account for the majority of foreign troops deaths.
The United Nations reported this month that IED attacks had risen by 94 percent in the first four months of this year, compared to the same period in 2009.
KABUL, June 29 — Afghan police clashed today with dozens of stone-throwing protesters who had gathered at a religious school on the outskirts of the capital to complain about arrests by foreign forces.
Reuters witnesses said police could be seen firing rounds in the air or ground to disperse the protesters and saw what appeared to be three lifeless bodies being carried away by a police vehicle.
The protest was at a madrassa, or religious school, in Qalacha on the southern outskirts of Kabul. Residents said US forces had caused outrage on Monday night when they entered the compound with dogs and detained several people.
A spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan was checking into the report.
No foreign forces appeared involved in today’s clash, which was being handled by Afghan police.
Afghan troops unload the remains of the bodies of victims of an aeroplane crash from a helicopter in Parwan province May 21, 2010. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
Afghan troops unload the remains of the bodies of victims of an aeroplane crash from a helicopter in Parwan province May 21, 2010. Fifteen dead bodies of the victims of the Afghan passenger plane which crashed five days ago have been found in mountains of Gorband district, in the country's northern Parwan province, officials said Friday.(Xinhua/AFP Photo)
Afghan troops leave a helicopter that has returned from the crash site of a Pamir Airways passenger jet which went down in the mountains north of Kabul, in Parwan May 21, 2010.
Fifteen dead bodies of the victims of the Afghan passenger plane which crashed five days ago have been found in mountains of Gorband district, in the country's northern Parwan province, officials said Friday.
"So far 15 bodies of the plane crash victims have been found," a member of parliament Fatima Aziz who visited the crash site told Xinhua.
People wait for news about the aviation crash victims outside a military hospital in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, May 21, 2010. Rescuers have found the bodies of 15 passengers on the Afghan plane, which crashed on May 17, said a government official on Friday
People wait for news about the aviation crash victims outside a military hospital in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, May 21, 2010. Rescuers have found the bodies of 15 passengers on the Afghan plane, which crashed on May 17, said a government official on Friday.
People wait for news about the aviation crash victims outside a military hospital in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, May 21, 2010. Rescuers have found the bodies of 15 passengers on the Afghan plane, which crashed on May 17, said a government official on Friday
People wait for news about the aviation crash victims outside a military hospital in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, May 21, 2010. Rescuers have found the bodies of 15 passengers on the Afghan plane, which crashed on May 17, said a government official on Friday.
She added that the wreckage of the plane was scattered in several places of the snow covered mountains.
Another official and shareholder of the private airliner company Pamir Airways Hajji Khalil Feroz said that the block box of the ill-fated plane was also found.
The passenger plane of Pamir Airways with 43 aboard including eight foreigners went missing en-route to Kabul minutes after taking off from the northern Kunduz province on Monday.
At least one person has been killed in a suicide bomb attack outside a Nato base in Khost province in south-eastern Afghanistan, police say.
The bomb targeted the same base where seven CIA agents were killed last year in one of the worst attacks against US intelligence officials.
Police said a car packed with explosives was detonated in front of the base, killing one civilian.
Meanwhile on Sunday, eight people died in a roadside blast in Paktia province.
Fourteen others were injured when a bomb hit a passenger van, Afghanistan's interior ministry said.
In Decmber 2009, a deadly attack by a suicide bomber who infiltrated the base in Khost killed seven CIA agents and a Jordanian officer.
Forward Operating Base Chapman, a former Soviet military base, is used not only by the CIA but also by provincial reconstruction teams, which include both soldiers and civilians.
After dining with Mr Karzai, Mr Obama donned a leather bomber jacket and addressed troops at Bagram.
United States president Barack Obama has urged Afghan president Hamid Karzai to clean up corruption and rallied troops to defeat the Taliban during a surprise visit to Afghanistan.
Mr Obama flew into Afghanistan under the cover of darkness aboard Air Force One and left before dawn after his first visit to the country since taking office more than a year ago.
He pressed Mr Karzai to step up the fight against corruption and the drugs trade and invited the Afghan leader to visit Washington on May 12.
Mr Karzai has pledged action against corruption, which infects every aspect of life in Afghanistan, as well as good governance and rule of law.
Mr Obama, whose relationship with Mr Karzai has been strained, urged his Afghan counterpart to "continue to make progress" on all fronts.
Afghan analysts say the visit sent a clear message to Mr Karzai that the US expects him to act on promises to eradicate graft before visiting Washington.
"Obama has set some homework for Karzai, reminding him that the anti-corruption issue must be taken more seriously and that not enough has been done so far," analyst Waheed Mujda said.
Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Centre for Research and Policy Studies, says Mr Obama's visit sent a "strong message" to Mr Karzai.
"It was a strong message to president Karzai and his administration that the US cannot remain indifferent to the internal politics in Afghanistan," he said.
"I am sure before [Mr Karzai] goes to Washington in May he will have to take some proper measures to show that he has the intention and the political will to create some changes."
The visit, which included briefings with US General Stanley McChrystal and US ambassador Karl Eikenberry, gave the president the chance to assess the progress of his new war strategy.
After dining with Mr Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr Obama donned a leather bomber jacket to tell cheering troops at Bagram he was confident they would stop the Taliban from regaining power and halt Al Qaeda.
"Our strategy includes a military effort that takes the fight to the Taliban while creating the conditions for greater security and a transition to the Afghans," he told US and NATO troops.
"But also a civilian effort that improves the daily lives of the Afghan people and combats corruption, and a partnership with Pakistan and its people, because we can't uproot extremists and advance security and opportunity unless we succeed on both sides of the border."
Bagram, the biggest US base in Afghanistan, came under mortar fire after the president's departure, a NATO spokesman said, adding there were no casualties.
Mr Obama's visit coincided with a Washington Post poll that said 53 per cent of Americans approve of how he is handling the situation in Afghanistan.
The war against the Taliban, now in its ninth year, is claiming record fatalities among the 121,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, where Mr Obama is deploying reinforcements in an effort to bring the war to an end.
Around 136 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan so far this year, compared to 78 in the first three months of 2009.
But Mr Obama remains confident the Taliban can be defeated.
"We're going to deny Al Qaeda safe haven," Mr Obama said.
The government said the attackers aimed to blow open Kandahar's prison and free its inmates, including militants
Kandahar was hit by five blasts on March 13
Kandahar was the Taliban's base during their rule of the country, which ended with the US-led invasion
A series of suicide attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar killed at least 27 people on Saturday, a senior official said, in the country's deadliest assault so far this year.
Kandahar authorities appealed for all health workers to immediately report for duty and for citizens to go to health centres to donate blood.
"We have now received 27 bodies and there are at least 52 people wounded, all figures include civilians and policemen," Abdul Qayoom Pukhla, Kandahar's public health director told AFP.
An official with an international aid organisation, who did not want to be identified, said there were 30 dead at Kandahar's Mirwais hospital, but the figure could not be immediately confirmed with city officials.
"We are in urgent need," said an announcement on local television appealing for residents to donate blood and all doctors and nurses to report to the hospital to offer help.
The attack comes as tens of thousands of extra troops are arriving in Afghanistan as part of a new US-led counter-insurgency strategy aimed at speeding an end to the war on the Taliban uprising, now in its ninth year.
The first major offensive of the new strategy is taking place in Helmand province, neighbouring Kandahar province, and US military leaders say Taliban strongholds in Kandahar are among future targets.
The explosions began around 8:00 pm (1530 GMT), interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery told AFP earlier.
An AFP reporter in the city said windows in buildings across a large area of the city had been shattered by the force of the blasts.
A police officer with the provincial police headquarters, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been a total of five explosions at different locations around the city.
"There were five suicide attacks using bicycles and motorbikes in Kandahar city," he said.
"One happened close to the provincial prison, the second one next to the Red Mosque," which is near the home of President Hamid Karzai's brother Wali Karzai, the elected leader of the Kandahar provincial council, he said.
Another attack took place close to provincial police headquarters, another near the home of Gul Agha Shairzai, former Kandahar provincial governor and now governor of Nangahar province, the police officer added.
The interior ministry's Bashery said the city's main prison was one of the main targets of what appears to have been a coordinated series of attacks bearing the hallmarks of the Taliban.
Up to 1,000 Taliban inmates escaped from the Sarpoza prison in June 2008 after a brazen suicide attack blew open the front gates and destroyed the walls.
BBC television said a Taliban spokesman had claimed responsibility for Saturday's carnage.
Kandahar was the site in late August of a massive truck bomb that killed 43 people and injured another 65, most of them civilians, in the deadliest attack for Afghanistan in 2009.
Taliban denials of involvement in that attack were dismissed as the militants often distance themselves from operations that claim high numbers of civilian lives.
The city, capital of the eponymous province, is symbolic of the Taliban uprising blighting the country. It is the seat of the movement and was its capital during the extremists' rule which ended in 2001 when US-led troops invaded.
Remnants of the movement have since regrouped to wage an increasingly deadly insurgency, which last year killed more than 500 foreign troops.
The insurgents have supplemented suicide vehicles -- usually sedans and off-road vehicles -- with roadside bombs, which have taken an enormous toll on the foreign troops leading the fight.
US President Barack Obama and NATO allies have pledged to boost troops to 150,000, from 121,000, by August this year, with most of the new deployments headed to the volatile south.
The first test of the new tactic is taking place in a poppy-growing plain of central Helmand, where Taliban militants have for years controlled the Marjah farming region along with drug traffickers.
Helmand is the source of most of the world's heroin in an illicit industry worth up to three billion dollars a year, which funds the insurgency and has transformed Afghanistan into a narco-state.
Afghan, US and NATO leaders have made clear that Kandahar is also slated for military operations aimed at paving the way for the reestablishment of Afghan government control.
Thirty-five people were killed in an assault on Kandahar described by the Taliban as a pre-emptive response to Western plans to eradicate them from the strategic city, officials said Sunday.
A series of massive explosions rocked the southern city late Saturday in what appeared one of the biggest coordinated assaults by the militants since their insurgency began more than eight years ago.
The governor of Kandahar province said he had requested more troops to help secure the city from further attacks by the Taliban, who regard it as their spiritual centre.
Interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashery said the attackers aimed to blow open Kandahar's prison and free its inmates, including militants.
He said the dead comprised 13 police officers and 22 civilians, and that another 57 people were injured.
The attack came as tens of thousands of extra troops are arriving in Afghanistan as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy aimed at concluding the US-led war on the Taliban.
Among the injured were 40 civilians -- including six women and three children -- and 17 police officers. Forty-two houses close to the city's prison and its police headquarters were destroyed or badly damaged.
"Initial information shows that after the prison attack the enemy attacked locations and routes that end up at or are en route to the prison in an effort to prevent police from going and securing the prison," Bashery said.
President Hamid Karzai branded the perpetrators "enemies of Islam and Afghanistan".
"Those who do not respect Islamic values and act against them no doubt will be cursed by God and will go to hell," he said in a statement.
The city was hit by five blasts at 8:00 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday. The first, caused by a huge suicide car bomb, occurred outside the prison and was followed by a similar blast outside provincial police headquarters.
Three other explosions were probably also suicide attacks, Bashery said.
"Most of the police casualties were outside the police headquarters where officers had stopped and surrounded the vehicle laden with explosives as it detonated," he said.
Early Sunday police seized eight explosive-packed suicide vests and three rockets from a house near the prison. The Taliban plan appeared to be to first break into the prison, then use suicide vests and rockets to burst open cells and free prisoners, Bashery said.
A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, told AFP the attack was a response to comments by the commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan that Kandahar would be targeted in military efforts to eradicate the Taliban.
Kandahar was the Taliban's base during their rule of the country, which ended with the US-led invasion in 2001.
"This was an answer to General (Stanley) McChrystal, who announced Operation Omaid in Kandahar," Ahmadi said, using the name of the battle plan.
"This was to sabotage the operation and to show we can strike anywhere, any time we want."
Kandahar governor Turyalai Wisa said at least 10 people attending a wedding party were among the dead. Rescue workers were still searching the rubble.
He told reporters he had asked the Kabul government to send more forces to improve security.
"We have asked the central government to send us more security forces, especially intelligence workers, and they have accepted our request in principle," he said.
Up to 1,000 Taliban inmates escaped from Kandahar's Sarpoza prison in June 2008 after a suicide attack blew open the gates and destroyed the walls.
Another explosion took place early Sunday close to the Kandahar office of a Japanese construction company, injuring five employees -- four of them Pakistanis and one an Afghan.
The first major offensive of the current war strategy is taking place in Helmand province, neighbouring Kandahar province.
Visiting Afghanistan last week, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told troops to brace for a tough fight as generals lay their plans to battle the Taliban in Kandahar.
The US and NATO are deploying an extra 30,000 troops over coming months, bringing to 150,000 the total number of foreign troops in Afghanistan, concentrated on the southern Taliban strongholds.
Further west in Farah province, where Taliban activity has escalated in the past year, police chief Mohammad Faqir Askar said nine Taliban including three Arabs were killed Saturday by Afghan and coalition forces in Gulistan district.
Iranian MPs queue to vote at the parliament in Tehran
What role Pakistan plays in any peace effort aimed at the Taliban is likely to rank high on the agenda during Afghan President Hamid Karzai's two-day visit to Islamabad that started Wednesday.
Pakistan has made it clear it wants a part in so-called "reconciliation" efforts between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but many Afghans resent Pakistani involvement in their affairs and question its motives. Still, Pakistan's history of links to the Afghan Taliban, a group it supported when the militants controlled Afghanistan in the 1990s, could make Islamabad an indispensable player.
In recent weeks, Pakistan also has reportedly arrested several Afghan Taliban leaders who were hiding on its soil. The military has confirmed that those held include Afghan Taliban No. 2 Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. What's still unclear is exactly why the arrests were made, with some analysts speculating Pakistan is trying to guarantee itself a seat at the negotiating table.
Pakistan has long tried to influence Kabul so that it can have an ally in the region and strengthen its position concerning its longtime rival, India. New Delhi, too, is trying to curry favor with the Afghans, and both Pakistan and India accuse each other of funding militant groups to destabilize their countries, with Afghanistan often the stage for the strikes.
An Afghan official recently alleged that a Pakistani-based group staged a recent attack in Kabul that killed 17 people, including seven Indians. The group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has also been blamed for the 2008 attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai, India. Pakistan has denied it had anything to do with either attack.
Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday evening and will stay through Thursday, said the state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan. He is to meet with top Pakistani officials including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, according to the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.
It is the Afghan leader's first trip to Pakistan since he was re-elected.
Asked whether Pakistan will discuss handing Baradar over to Afghan authorities — which would likely mean the U.S. would have greater access to the Taliban commander — Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said it was too soon to say.
"We are at present carrying out our own investigation," Basit told Pakistan's Express TV channel. "Once our investigations conclude we will take it from there."
The U.S. has sent thousands more troops to Afghanistan and is waging offensives in the country's south, the Taliban's primary stronghold. Officials say the U.S. is not engaged in any direct peace talks with the Islamist militia, but it has signaled support for the Afghan government's efforts.
Getting key Taliban leaders to agree to talks may be the toughest test. A three-day conference in Kabul starting April 29 is expected to lay out a way to pursue the peace effort and a "reintegration" program aimed at bringing lower-level Taliban fighters back into the broader Afghan society.
Iranian lawmakers on Tuesday scuppered President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plans to cut energy subsidies by approving only half the savings wanted by his government, news agencies reported.
Lawmakers had on Monday passed a broad outline of the budget for the year to March 2011, but on Tuesday blocked a specific proposal that would have saved the government 40 billion dollars.
Despite Ahmadinejad's pleas in parliament, 111 MPs voted against the subsidy cuts, while 105 were in favour and 15 abstained, ISNA news agency said.
Instead, "lawmakers agreed to allocate 20 billion dollars of income from a subsidiary plan in next year's budget," Mehr news agency reported.
Prior to the vote, Ahmadinejad had said the expected 40-billion-dollar budget boost would not stoke inflation.
"If this sum is allocated, inflation will not rise but will fall because there will be no increase in money supply," a lawmaker quoted Ahmadinejad as telling parliament, according to state media.
The budget for the year to March 2011 marks the start of a major plan to scrap costly subsidies on energy and goods, in turn reducing government expenditure.
Under the plan, subsidies which currently cost it as much as 100 billion dollars a year would have been withdrawn gradually, with the process due to end in March 2015.
On Monday, lawmakers had approved an overall 347-billion-dollar budget for the year to March 2011 based on an oil price of 65 dollars a barrel.
The approved bill is significantly higher than the 298-billion-dollar budget for the current Iranian year ending on March 20, but less than the 368.4-billion-dollar one Ahmadinejad put to parliament in January.
Iran earns 80 percent of its total revenues from oil exports but a high inflation over the past few years has severely hit economic growth.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traded barbs on Wednesday during briefly overlapping visits to Afghanistan, where Washington has troops at war but Tehran has growing clout.
Ahmadinejad, who arrived as Gates was wrapping up a three-day visit, told a news conference alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai that U.S. and Western troops would never defeat terrorism by waging war in Afghanistan.
Gates said earlier in the week Iran was playing a "double game" in Afghanistan by being friendly to the government while trying to undermine the United States. He said on Wednesday he had passed those concerns on to Karzai.
Washington, which will have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2010, says it believes Iran provides some support for militants there, although not nearly on the same scale as in Iraq, another Iranian neighbor where U.S. troops are fighting.
The Afghan insurgency is mainly led by Sunni Islamists, who are long sworn enemies of Shi'ite Iran.
Tehran blames Western military intervention in Afghanistan for causing instability and Ahmadinejad turned Gates' earlier comment around.
"Why is it that those who say they want to fight terrorism are never successful? I think it is because they are the ones who are playing a double game," Ahmadinejad said.
"They are the ones who set the terrorists on their course and now they say: 'Now we want to fight them'. Well they cannot, it is impossible," he told a news conference with Karzai.
As if addressing Gates, he said: "What are you even doing in this area? You are from 10,000 km over there. Your country is on the other side of the world. What are you doing here?"
Shortly before the news conference started, Afghan security guards anxiously collected half-empty bottles of mineral water from reporters. One said it was in order to prevent anyone from throwing the bottles at Ahmadinejad.
"UPFRONT GAME"
Gates left Kabul shortly after Ahmadinejad landed. Before leaving he described the timing of the Iranian leader's visit as "clearly fodder for all conspiratorialists."
"I told President Karzai that we want Afghanistan to have good relations with all of its neighbors. But we also want all of Afghanistan's neighbors to play an upfront game dealing with the government of Afghanistan."
Iran has wide and growing influence in Afghanistan, especially the west of the country where it has important economic ties. Millions of Afghans were refugees in Iran during three decades of war, and a dialect of Iran's Farsi language is one of the two state languages in Afghanistan.
Karzai said at the news conference with Ahmadinejad "we assured our brothers in Iran that we do not want our soil to be used against our neighbors."
Iran was the only major regional country to reject an invitation to an international conference on Afghanistan in London in January.
Despite their suspicions, Western countries have praised Tehran's efforts in combating the drug trade. Iran has a serious heroin addiction problem, while Afghanistan produces nearly all the world's opium used to make heroin.
Karzai is due to fly to Pakistan later on Wednesday, meeting the leadership of another big neighbor.
Brown talks with Afghan village elders at the Shawaz operating base, which until three weeks ago was a Taliban stronghold
Gordon Brown met some of the 4,000 British troops who took part in last month's Operation Moshtarak
The Prime Minister also met Afghan police trainees
The heavily-criticised Snatch Land Rover is to be replaced with 200 new patrol vehicles in Afghanistan to protect troops from booby-traps, it was revealed as Gordon Brown paid a surprise visit to the war-torn country.
News of a £118 million investment in new vehicles and equipment for came after former commanders accused the Prime Minister of deliberately misleading the Iraq inquiry over equipment shortages.
The Prime Minister flew to Afghanistan immediately after giving evidence at the Chilcot Inquiry yesterday, where he was challenged over the failings of the Snatch Land Rover in Iraq.
He denied claims that he starved the military of funds as Chancellor and instead blamed the military for failing properly to equip the Armed Forces for war.
Officials travelling with Brown during his swift tour of Helmand Province, said that Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth will announce within weeks a £100 million investment in the new British-built vehicles, which should arrive in Afghanistan by late 2011.
They will replace the lightly-defended Land Rovers, which have been blamed for the deaths of troops in roadside bomb blasts during the conflict.
The new vehicles are smaller and lighter than the Mastiff and Ridgeback armoured personnel carriers which are already taking over some of the tasks of the more vulnerable Snatch.
A further £18 million will provide equipment and training for Afghan forces to deal with the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by the Taliban against British and allied forces and 150 new instructors from the UK police and Army will be deployed to train Afghan police.
As part of his visit Brown met and thanked some of the 4,000 British forces who took part in last month’s assault on insurgent strongholds in the opening phase of Operation Moshtarak, which he said had “brought results which are better than anticipated”.
He visited the Shawaz operating base, which until three weeks ago was a Taliban stronghold, and met Afghan elders who are distributing tomato, onion and watermelon seeds to farmers to convince them to give up cultivating opium poppies.
He also toured a police training centre which is part of an effort to increase the Afghan domestic force to 134,000 officers by next year.
Brown said training Afghan forces was the "right approach" and would mean "our troops can come home.”
“My visit is an opportunity to say thank you to the thousands of British, Afghan and international troops involved and to the dozens of civilian experts working on stabilisation," he said.
“Their bravery, sacrifice and professionalism are an example of how the international community can and should intervene to make us all safer.
“The Afghan Army is already rapidly expanding. Around 7,000 Afghan troops are being trained each month. But we also need a strong Afghan police force to create enduring security. That is a key challenge for the next phase.”
Standing in front of a plaque commemorating the Britons who have died in Afghanistan, Brown told troops: "We will do everything we can to support you with the equipment necessary and the resources you need.”
But Brown has been criticised, following his appearance at the Iraq inquiry, for his role in equipping the armed forces, while Chancellor, when war broke out.
Brown said that every request for money for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and occupation of Iraq was swiftly approved by the Treasury. He shifted the blame on to generals when confronted with complaints from the relatives of soldiers killed in attacks on Snatch Land Rovers.
Admiral Lord Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff up to the start of the invasion in 2003, said: “He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed.
“There may have been a 1.5 per cent increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds.”
Year on year when Brown was Chancellor it failed to get the money it needed to meet the level of activity demanded by the Government, he said.
Colonel Stuart Tootal, former commander of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, said: “I am quite staggered by the lack of any sense of responsibility. He was the man with the purse strings.”
The Prime Minister repeatedly expressed sorrow for the British and Iraqi deaths. He told the inquiry: “I think this is the gravest decision to go to war. It was the right decision and it was for the right reasons.”
A No10 spokesman said: "The Prime Minister could not have been clearer in responses to repeated questions about military funding. Every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down."
Violence flares in Afghanistan amid reports that Taliban commanders met with U.N. officials.
As talk emerged about a secret meeting of U.N. and Taliban officials, the battlefield lit up in Afghanistan, with a joint Afghan-international force and Afghan soldiers exchanging fire when both sides mistook the other for enemy combatants.
The violence flared as a widely circulated news report said that senior Taliban commanders met in Dubai earlier this month with Kai Eide, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan. The meeting reportedly dealt with the prospect of peace talks with the Afghan government.
The United Nations won't comment on the reports, and the Taliban issued a flat denial of what it called "futile and baseless rumors."
But they surfaced on the heels of this week's London Conference on Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai pushed a reconciliation plan to attract "disenchanted brothers" into law-abiding society, a reference to Taliban foot soldiers who fight to earn wages.
Such breakthrough diplomacy would be welcomed by many Afghans weary and caught in the middle of the daily fight between Taliban and al Qaeda militants and Afghan security forces, backed by NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
ISAF said small arms fire targeted a joint Afghan-international security force conducting an operation in Sayed Abad district of Wardak province that apparently originated from an Afghan National Army combat outpost.
ISAF said the "subsequent air support called by the joint force likely killed at least four ANA soldiers." Wardak is near Kabul in the eastern part of the country.
"We work extremely hard to coordinate and synchronize our operations. This is a regrettable incident and our thoughts go out to the families of those killed and wounded," said Brig Gen. Eric Tremblay, ISAF spokesman.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said the clash occurred in the Akakhil village of Maydan in Wardak province, pointing out that it was a "joint operation of international forces" conducting a mission in an area where Afghan forces had been stationed.
Both sides thought the other was the enemy, the ministry said. The airstrike killed four Afghan soldiers and wounded several others, the ministry said.
Shahidullah Shahid, the Wardak governor's office spokesman, didn't mention the airstrike. He said four Afghan soldiers died and seven were wounded in what he said was an exchange of fire in the province's Sayed Abad district.
The incident infuriated the Afghans, with the ministry saying "the people responsible for this incident will certainly be punished according to military law."
In another part of Afghanistan, Ghazni province in the eastern region, two Afghan civilians died when NATO-led forces fired on a vehicle barreling toward troops, ISAF reported on Saturday.
The vehicle moving at a high speed "failed to heed several warning signs to stop" on Friday and troops firing at the engine block killed the two Afghans and injured one more. A fourth person in the car was not injured.
The incident, which occurred in the province's district, represents one of the trends bedeviling the international fight against the Taliban -- civilian deaths in the course of the war that have strained relations between Afghanistan and the United States and its allies.
The numbers of civilian casualties have fallen off in recent months, since Gen. Stanley McChrystal took over as U.S. commander in Afghanistan. But escalation-of-force incidents at checkpoints, air bombings and accidents that have led to civilian deaths have undermined international and Afghan efforts to win wider civilian support.
Earlier this week, a NATO convoy fired "on what appeared to be a threatening vehicle" and killed an imam, prompting angry demonstrations and an ISAF statement conveying regrets about the incident, which took place outside a U.S. military base on the outskirts of Kabul."
"Despite all the measures that we put in place to ensure the safety of the Afghan people, regrettable incidents such as this one can occur," Tremblay said about the Thursday shooting of the imam.
"On behalf of ISAF, I express my sincere regrets for this loss of life and convey my deepest condolences to his family."
International troops continue to endure violence, and the latest occurred on Friday in Wardak province.
A NATO official who asked not to be identified said two U.S. service members were killed by an Afghan interpreter, who was then killed. Initial inquiries by authorities have determined that the interpreter was disgruntled for work reasons and not a Taliban infiltrator.
As for the London Conference on Thursday, a central focus was a $500 million pay-for-peace proposal to bring Taliban fighters into the civilian fold if they promise to renounce violence. The money would create jobs and housing in an effort to moderate the Taliban fighters, helping them return to civilian life. Major international donors are expected to pledge money for the effort.
Karzai also said he would establish a national council for peace reconciliation and integration, followed by a "peace jirga" -- a traditional gathering of Afghan tribal leaders -- and said he hoped Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah would play a "prominent role."
Karzai has suggested that high-level Taliban commanders could take part in the Afghan government in the future. This week, the United Nations removed several members of the Taliban from a blacklist, suggesting negotiations could take place in the not-too-distant future.
Hamid Karzai and Gordon Brown in Downing Street this morning.Hamid warn that Afganishtan require 15 years of help to recover and rebuild.
The Taliban have been unmoved by talk of peace overtures . Said it is war mongers meeting to deceive and continue to occupy Afganisthan.
Security, reconciliation and withdrawal of foreign forces by 2015 were key policy announcements
Whether Taliban would accept an invitation to a 'peace jirga' is a mute point.
The Afghan Taliban on Thursday dismissed the London conference on Afghanistan as a propaganda ploy and said the summit will fail to produce results, the SITE monitoring service reported.
"The war-mongering rulers under the leadership of (US President Barack) Obama and (British Prime Minister Gordon) Brown want to deceive the people of the world by holding the London conference to show that people still support them," SITE quoted an Internet statement as saying.
If the decision is taken to "once again try to prolong the military, economic, cultural and political occupation of (Afghanistan), this conference will be a mere eye-wish like other conferences."
The London conference, which aims to chart the way forward in Afghanistan, opened on Thursday with nearly 70 countries and organisations taking part.
The Taliban must deny sanctuary to Osama bin Laden before Saudi Arabia will agree to act as a mediator in any Afghan peace deal, the kingdom's foreign minister said on Thursday.
Prince Saud al-Faisal was responding to Afghan President Hamid Karzai who had called on Saudi Arabia, which has hosted talks between Afghan government and Taliban representatives in the past, to help bring peace to Afghanistan.
"Unless the Taliban give up the issue of sanctuary (to bin Laden) I don't think the negotiations with them will be possible or feasible to achieve anything," Prince Saud told reporters on the sidelines of a London conference.
"We have two conditions for Saudi Arabia's involvement: that the request comes officially from Afghanistan and the Taliban has to prove its intentions in coming to the negotiations by cutting their relations with the terrorists and proving it," he said.
"By keeping their contacts with bin Laden they won't be coming to any negotiations with a positive attitude.
POLICY CHANGE
Saudi Arabia froze ties with the Taliban in 1998 over the group's refusal to hand over bin Laden, who had been stripped of his Saudi citizenship for militant attacks in the oil-producing kingdom and activities against the al-Saud royal family.
"I think the important theme in this conference is the intention to change policy in Afghanistan, a recognition first that the settlement in Afghanistan is not going to be a military question alone but there has to be a political and economic side to the settlement," Prince Saud said.
"If peace is brought between Afghans and the terrorists are isolated then the war against the terrorists would be successful," he added.
The United States has insisted that insurgents can only be included in a political settlement if they sever all ties with al Qaeda, renounce violence and respect the Afghan constitution.
Karzai said that Afghanistan needed the support of its neighbours, particularly Pakistan, to secure peace.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the only three countries to recognise the Taliban government before it was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
Asked whether Saudi Arabia shares the concern of the West and other allies that Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at building an atomic bomb and not for creating electricity as Tehran claims, Prince Saud said:
"If they are working on a peaceful nuclear programme they certainly have a strange way of showing it. All the countries that are working on a peaceful programme are not acting like Iran.
"There is one sure way of stopping that, that is to take a decision at the Security Council that no weapons of mass destruction, nuclear or otherwise will be allowed in the Middle East and that includes Israel."
Control over some of Afghanistan's provinces is to be handed over to the Afghan government by the end of 2010, according to foreign ministers attending a one-day international conference in London.
UK Foreign Minister David Miliband said on Thursday that 2010 was a "decisive" year because a new government was in place, adding that security of all provinces would be under Afghanistan leadership within five years.
Miliband also announced a new fund to allow the Afghan government to woo Taliban fighters away from the conflict.
"Today alone there have been over 140 million dollars worth of commitments for the first year of the national reintegration programme and we are committed to seeing that through," Miliband said.
In a communique published at the end of the conference that was attended by delegates from 70 countries, support was also offered for the continued growth and expansion of the Afghan National Army and police force.
Delegates agreed a target of recruiting some 171,600 soldiers and 134,000 police officers by October 2011.
But Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said that plans to gradually transfer Afghan security from international to domestic forces was "not an exit strategy".
"We . . . support the NATO transition plan," Clinton said. "But I want to make clear - to Afghans, to our partners, to our citizens, and to the extremists who hope for our failure: This is not an exit strategy."
Taliban reaction
Taliban dismissed the London conference as a propaganda ploy, saying the summit would fail to produce results, according to the AFP news agency, quoting an internet statement.
"The war-mongering rulers under the leadership of [US President Barack]Obama and [British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown want to deceive the people of the world by holding the London conference to show that people still support them".
If the decision is taken to "once again try to prolong the military, economic, cultural and political occupation of [Afghanistan], this conference will be mere wishful thinking like other conferences."
The statement also dismissed a plan by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to woo Taliban moderates with offers of money and jobs.
"They announce that they will provide money, employment and opportunity to have a comfortable life abroad for those mujahedeen who agree to part ways with jihad," the statement said.
"This is baseless and futile," it said. "Had the aim of the mujahedeen of the Islamic Emirate been obtainment of material goals, they would accept dominance of the invaders in the first place."
Presidential view
Earlier on Thursday, Karzai said that his country must reach out to its "disenchanted brothers" in an effort to stabilise the war ravaged nation, saying fighters who are "not part of al-Qaeda or other terror groups" must be reconciled with the government.
The Afghan leader said his government would set up a national council for peace and reconciliation, and has asked Saudi Arabia to help guide the process.
Karzai was seeking support for a $1 billion plan that would offer cash, jobs and other incentives to the Taliban and fighters in other armed groups, in an attempt to bring them back into mainstream society.
Taliban fighters have also been invited to a "peace jirga", or a traditional gathering of tribal elders, expected to be held early this year, a government spokesman confirmed.
Saudi role?
Hamid Elmi, Karzai's deputy spokesman, said: "We are using all kinds of possibilities - our neighbouring countries, the international community, the king of Saudi - to encourage the Taliban to come".
However, Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that it would only take part in Afghan peace efforts if the Taliban denies sanctuary to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, according to the kingdom's foreign minister.
"Unless the Taliban give up the issue of sanctuary (to bin Laden) I don't think the negotiations with them will be possible or feasible to achieve anything," Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters on the sidelines of a London conference.
"We have two conditions: that the request comes officially from Afghanistan and the Taliban has to prove its intentions in coming to the negotiations by cutting their relations with the terrorists and proving it."
But Haroun Mir, deputy director for the centre for research and policy studies in Kabul, told Al Jazeera that Karzai's proposal could be hampered by plans to increase the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan.
"Karzai has been talking for a long time for reaching out to the Taliban.
"But ... the US military surge and additional Nato forces in Afghanistan in the coming months [will see] the intensity of fighting increase.
"I don't know how president Karzai could implement his own strategy of reaching out to the Taliban if there is increased fighting going on in Afghanistan," he said.
Secret talks
And Abdullah Abdullah, the presidential candidate who withdrew from last August's fraudulent elections, said obstacles remain to implementing such a policy.
"I don't think the Taliban at this stage are willing to enter negotiations. Also, their association with terrorist organisations, like al-Qaeda - that's the main issue at the moment - and they are working like one organisation."
Thursday's conference comes nearly a week after a meeting between Afghan government officials and members of an armed opposition group fighting alongside the Taliban.
Al Jazeera's David Chater, reporting from Kabul, said the talks were held with the group Hezb-e-Islami, in the Maldives islands, between January 23-24.
He said a Taliban leader had been due to attend the meeting but dropped out in the last minute citing health reasons.
President Karzai of Afghanistan warned today that his country's security forces would require another 15 years of Western support before they are able to sustain themselves.
Ahead of the opening of the London Conference on Afghanistan, Mr Karzai told the BBC that he foresaw a gradual reduction in support over a lengthy timeframe.
“With regard to training and equipping the Afghan security forces, five to 10 years will be enough,” he said. “With regard to sustaining them until Afghanistan is financially able to provide for our forces, the time will be extended to 10 to 15 years.”
His comments were at odds with the tone of Gordon Brown’s opening address to the conference, which sought to stress a timeframe of less than a year until Western forces begin a transition of responsibility to their Afghan counterparts.
The Communique that will end the conference, a document already leaked to The Times, forsees a gradual transfer starting late this year or early next in the more benign provinces. Afghan forces will be in the lead of the majority of provinces within three years and overall control will pass to Afghan forces within five years.
Concurrent with the military surge, led by 30,000 new US troops, the Prime Minister set out details to leaders from more than 60 countries of a complementary “civilian and political surge” that will include a drive to reconcile and reintegrate Taliban fighters.
After a bloody year for Nato forces in Afghanistan, during which 520 troops died including 108 from Britain, Mr Brown told delegates: “By the middle of next year, we have to turn the tide in the fight against the insurgency.”
Standing alongside Mr Karzai, the Prime Minister went on to detail plans that Western leaders hope will lead to the reintegration of what the Afghan President called the “disenchanted brothers” of the Taleban.
The Prime Minister detailed a new £500million fund that is to offer inducements to Taleban fighters who promise to lay down their arms and sever their ties with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks.
The exact nature of the proposed engagement remains unclear, with Afghan officials and some British officials appearing to push a more conciliatory line than is coming from Washington.
Speaking at the start of the conference President Karzai told leaders that he wished to “reach out to all” and asked that the Saudi leader King Abdullah act as an intermediary in a process of engagement with the Taleban leadership. Saudi Arabia, one of only three countries to recognise the original Taleban government, has played a discreet role in previous unofficial talks between the Karzai government and representatives of the Taleban
The Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said yesterday that any reconciliation with the Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was "probably a bridge too far" after he gave safe haven to al-Qaeda to launch the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"He has the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands," he told reporters in Washington.
But Mark Sedwill, the former British Ambassador and newly appointed Nato civilian representative in Afghanistan, suggested that talks with the Taleban would inevitably lead to engagement with “unsavoury characters.”
"If we are going to bring conflicts like Afghanistan, civil conflicts, to an end, that means some pretty unsavoury characters have to be brought within the system," he said.
The Taleban has been dismissive of suggestions that fighters can be “bought” by the new plan and today restated on its website that the withdrawal of Western forces is a precondition to any negotiation with the leadership. However, the insurgent movement has been careful in recent months to distance itself from Al-Qaeda’s agenda stressing that it poses “no threat to the West”.
Among the measures that are to accompany the reconciliation drive as part of a concurrent “civilian surge” in Afghanistan are plans for a new training programme for some 12,000 Afghan bureaucrats, a key deficiency in a country beset by both literacy rates of less than 30 per cent and endemic corruption. Agriculture, the mainstay of the Afghan economy, is to receive another £72 million from the British taxpayer.
As the West tries to accelerate a transition to Afghan control that will provide an ultimate exit strategy, Mr Brown said that the proportion of development money channelled through the Afghan government is to be increased to 50 per cent of the total, a move matched by Afghan government commitments to clamp down on endemic corruption. The International Monitory Fund and the World Bank are to announce further debt relief for Afghanistan totalling $1.6 billion.
British police training and mentoring teams are to be doubled from April, Mr Brown said, as part of an international effort to build Afghan forces that will see the Afghan Army expanded from 134,000 this October to 171,600 by October 2011. The Afghan police are to grow in number from 109,000 in October to 134,000 by October 2011.
