KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that an action plan to reintegrate low- to mid-level insurgent fighters into society and negotiate with the Taliban's top echelon will be crafted next month at a peace conference aimed at ending the war.
Karzai has already extended the government's offer to members of the Taliban who renounce ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist networks and agree to embrace the Afghan constitution. Karzai is finalizing details of a plan to offer jobs, vocational training and other economic incentives to tens of thousands of Taliban foot soldiers willing to switch sides.
Getting top Taliban leaders to the negotiating table, however, may prove difficult. Among other demands, the main Taliban leaders have said foreign troops must leave Afghanistan before they will attend talks.
Afghan Education Minister Farooq Wardak, who is working to set up the three-day gathering in the Afghan capital, told members of the parliament on Monday that 1,400 people will attend the "peace jirga," which he said will start on April 29. Jirga is an Afghan term for a meeting of elders who represent their people.
"On the peace jirga that we will be convening nearly a month and a half from today, we will have the participation of the people of Afghanistan from all walks of life, from all across the country," Karzai said at a news conference at the presidential palace with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
"The objective will be to get guidance from the Afghan people on how to move forward towards reintegration and reconciliation -- where reconciliation may be possible -- and chart out an action plan in consultation with the Afghan people," he said.
Gates said he and Karzai were of "like mind" on the issue. He said the government has already begun to see some Taliban fighters quit the insurgency. NATO officials have confirmed that small groups of fighters have laid down their weapons during the ongoing three-week-old military offensive to seize the Helmand province town of Marjah from the Taliban.
"We believe thousands of those fighting for the Taliban do so out of economic necessity, or because their families have been intimidated," Gates said. "It is important to create the condition for them to rejoin Afghan society and rejoin the Afghan political system."
On the issue of reconciliation with top Taliban leaders, Gates said it was important that it be done under terms set by the Afghan government. Recent captures of Afghan Taliban leaders by the Pakistani intelligence service have increased speculation that Pakistan is attempting to put its own imprint on any talks that materialize.
Karzai's announcement comes a day after the Taliban fought fierce battles in northeastern Baghlan province with another Islamist insurgent group that it has been allied with for years. The clashes ended with the Taliban taking over several villages and nearly 70 members of the Hezb-e-Islami insurgents -- loyal to regional warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar but usually allied with the Taliban -- retreating and defecting to government troops that had massed near the battle zone.
Baghlan officials said the insurgent infighting appeared to be a grab for territory, but might also have been triggered by Hekmatyar's apparent willingness to join the government-led peace process, officials said.
One of the Hezb-e-Islami militants who defected said Monday that the fighters in the area are now willing to join the government and fight the Taliban.
"If the government protects us and supports us, we will finish the Taliban in Baghlan," said Noorullaq, one of 11 Hezb-e-Islami commanders who turned their weapons over to the government. He spoke at a news conference Monday in the provincial capital of Pul-e-Khumri.
It was unclear if Baghlan fighting represented any shift in the allegiances of Hekmatyar himself. The warlord, who has worked closely with al Qaeda and is on a UN terrorist blacklist, has switched sides several times during Afghanistan's decades of war.
The Taliban's decision to flex its muscle in the northeast also could be its way of trying to show that it remains a potent force in the nation after being driven from Marjah in the south.
The Marjah campaign is considered a small-scale rehearsal for a larger assault on Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, said the Kandahar operation will not begin until after a larger U.S. and NATO troop buildup, which is expected to be in place in a few months.
Violence continues daily across the country. Britain's military said Monday that one of its soldiers was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol in Helmand. The Ministry of Defense said the death Sunday wasn't connected to the Marjah operation.
In the eastern city of Khost, Afghan police backed up by U.S. troops killed two gunmen who detonated a bomb Monday and then holed up in an unused police building. The attackers were the only people to die in the shootout, but one police officer and an Afghan army soldier were wounded, said provincial Gov. Taher Khan Saberi.
International forces also fought other insurgent attackers outside the Khost governor's palace, and two suicide bombers detonated their explosives. Five NATO troops were wounded, said military spokeswoman Master Sgt. Sabrina Foster.
In the northwestern province of Badghis, a total of 13 Afghans were killed by three separate roadside bombs laid by insurgents, the Ministry of Interior said.
