The Taliban can never be brought into the political process in Afghanistan as long as the group’s fanatical leader is still a fugitive, top U.S. officials told The Washington Examiner. With Osama bin Laden dead, finding and neutralizing Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive leader who has headed the Taliban since the mid-1990s, has become a top priority for American military and intelligence officers. Mullah Omar’s death would be as important to securing Afghanistan’s future as killing bin Laden was to destabilizing al Qaeda, U.S. officials said.
The Obama administration’s policy is to seek reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban, but little has been achieved toward that goal. Negotiations aimed at reaching some agreement with the Taliban this year were destroyed by the suicide attack that killed Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, who headed President Hamid Karzai’s High Peace Council. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
With the clock ticking on the beginning of the announced U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, a sense of urgency is growing around efforts to remove the Taliban leader, and improve chances for a peaceful settlement with the Taliban.
The U.S. lists Mullah Omar as a terrorist and there is $10 million reward for information leading to his capture or killing. His views toward America were captured in an interview with the BBC in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks. “The current situation in Afghanistan is related to a bigger cause — that is the destruction of America,” he said. “The real matter is the extinction of America. And, God willing, it [America] will fall to the ground.”
The intervening decade of living as a hunted man has not softened Mullah Omar’s views, analysts said.
“Right now, the Taliban senior shura believes they are executing the will of God,” said an official. Mullah Omar’s extreme political and religious views have made it impossible to negotiate a settlement with Taliban factions. “As long as Mullah Omar is alive — the prospects for a settlement are dim,” said another U.S. official. “If he were removed from the scene this would create new political possibilities.”
Killing or capturing Mullah Omar has proven just as difficult as the hunt for bin Laden which took nearly 10 years before Navy SEALs killed him in May in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
He is believed to have crossed Pakistan’s border soon after the invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. forces in 2001. Targeting Omar could require operations inside Pakistan. That would create huge diplomatic challenges because of severely strained relations between the countries. The bin Laden mission into Pakistan’s territory had deepened an already growing estrangement. Then, in late November, a U.S. airstrike killed 25 Pakistani soldiers during border skirmishing between NATO troops and insurgents. Pakistan has moved to cut important intelligence gathering ties with the United States since that attack.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and senior adviser to three U.S. presidents, said if the U.S. and Afghanistan have any chance to reconcile with members of the Taliban, Mullah Omar would have to removed.
“Omar is an ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence: Pakistan’s intelligence agency) trained fanatic who dreams of ruling again,” said Riedel, who is now a senior analyst at the Brookings Institution. “But he is not alone. Many of his lieutenants are fanatics too and the Pakistani army, at least for now, also opposes political reconciliation. Like Omar they want to win.”
Pakistani officials deny that they are protecting Mullah Omar.
“To say that Mullah Omar was trained by the CIA and ISI during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is probably right,” said a Pakistani official, who asked not to be named. “During the time Mullah Omar was head of the Taliban government, we were following our own policy and there were disagreements between our governments. It is absolutely not true that Pakistan is protecting Mullah Omar.”
Andy Laine, senior spokesman for the State Department, declined to talk about whether the U.S. considered Mullah Omar an impediment to the reconciliation process. “The Taliban must renounce violence; they must abandon their alliance with al Qaeda; and they must agree to abide by the laws and constitution of Afghanistan, including respecting the rights of women and ethnic minorities,” he said.
While removing Mullah Omar would greatly enhance chances for success in Afghanistan, it would be far from a guarantee of a breakthrough, said officials.
“The policy of reconciliation is not necessarily an achievable one,” said a former senior U.S, official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “You can’t negotiate with extremists who don’t believe in democracy, freedom or an Afghan republic.”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
