Tribesmen gather to discuss post-Taliban Afghanistan

About a dozen Afghan tribesmen, resplendent in their traditional turbans and robes, settled themselves into garden chairs on the front lawn of Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani’s walled villa on Monday afternoon to haggle over their role in the future of their country.

There have been numerous such gatherings in recent days at an assortment of villas in Peshawar, which is fast becoming the center of efforts to craft a new post-Taliban order in Afghanistan. Exiled warlords, current and former military commanders, tribal elders from across the border in Afghanistan and their well-armed bodyguards have been converging on this frontier city in droves to plot ways to hasten the collapse of the hard-line fundamentalist Taliban regime.

Much money is changing hands, say people involved in the discussions, and many alliances are being broken as swiftly as they are formed. But as the U.S.-led assault on Afghanistan continues to wear down the Taliban’s defenses, a new momentum is building around efforts to drive a wedge between the Taliban and the traditional Pashtun tribal leaders whose support will be critical to the success of any future government.

Gailani, 69, whose front lawn has become a focal point of many of these meetings, is emerging as a key figure in the negotiations. A senior Pashtun spiritual leader and head of one of the main jihad organizations that fought the Soviet Union in the 1980s, his chief credential is that, unlike most warlords, he did not join in the inter-Afghan bloodletting that followed the ouster of the pro-Soviet regime in 1992.

He is also regarded as a moderate, a rarity in Afghan politics, and is close to the exiled former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, whose reinstatement is seen by many as perhaps the only hope of salvation for Afghanistan.

Gailani returned to Peshawar during the weekend from discussions with Afghanistan’s former king in Rome to host an Assembly of Peace and National Unity on Wednesday, at which, it is hoped, a consensus will be reached by a broad cross-section of Afghan society on the country’s future. More than 500 representatives have been invited, including, somewhat optimistically, the Taliban, the former king, the Northern Alliance, which is battling the Taliban in the north of the country, as well as dozens of Afghan tribal leaders.

The event will be closely watched for clues as to who may be aligning their loyalties with whom at this time of fast shifting allegiances.

“I am confident that a majority of the people we have invited will come,” said Gailani, who has lived in Peshawar for the past nine years. “Those who don’t come, we will know they didn’t come.” But although the assembly’s declared goal is to unite all Afghan factions, in the privacy of Peshawar’s walled villas, discussions are focusing on ways to align the powerful Pashtun tribal leaders living in Afghanistan against the Taliban, paving the way for an internal revolt.

Already, hundreds of tribal elders have trekked across the border to Peshawar over the past week, including the group encountered in Gailani’s garden Monday who had come over the weekend from the region around Jalalabad, an important Taliban stronghold that has come under heavy U.S. bombardment.

Many have pledged their allegiance to the king and can be expected to support the new coalition, say those involved in the discussions. A majority of Afghans living under Taliban control are Pashtuns, as are most of the Taliban. But tribal elders have quietly bristled under the rule of the Taliban mullahs, whose fierce brand of fundamentalism has overturned the traditional tribal hierarchy and undermined the elders’ authority.

The meeting organizers hope that some Taliban leaders will defect. Two prominent figures, Foreign Minister Wakeel Ahmad Mutawakkil and army chief Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, have both been spotted in Pakistan in recent weeks, prompting speculation that they may be switching sides. Both have since resurfaced in Afghanistan, where they have appeared to reaffirm their loyalty to the Taliban.

But sources close to the Peshawar discussions say the two indeed indicated their willingness to desert the Taliban, when the right moment comes, and that up to a dozen other Taliban leaders can be expected to join them.

It would be a mistake, however, to count on any support promised at this critical and uncertain time, cautioned Shaer Zaman Tiazi, a Pakistani Pashtun elder and scholar who has helped facilitate some of the negotiations.

“At the moment, nobody knows who stands with whom because changing sides is very common these days,” he said. “This is a tribal society, and people naturally want to change their loyalties to the winning side.”

The stream of tribal leaders visiting Peshawar suggests that, for now, the Taliban is perceived to be faltering, he said. But the Taliban knows it is in danger of losing the support of tribal leaders, and has also been wooing them with promises of cash and power to maintain their loyalty. Some leaders are taking money from both sides, while biding their time to see who comes out on top, he said.

Conversely, there are fears also that progress on the battlefield will run ahead of the political discussions being held in distant capitals and on villa lawns. The sustained U.S. bombardment is weakening the Taliban’s grip in the south and east, while the Northern Alliance is claiming progress in its bid to break through Taliban lines from the north and reach the capital, Kabul.

If Taliban control unravels before a political deal is reached by the opposition, Afghanistan could find itself back where it was in 1992, with the rival factions taking up arms to stake their claim on the battlefield, said Rasul Amin, an Afghan academic and spokesman for the former king in Peshawar.

“The biggest fear is a vacuum in Kabul,” he said. “If the warlords return, it would be seen as a big betrayal by the people.”