Once again, Team Taliban shattered Team Obama’s dream of peace in the Swat Valley.
Taliban militants said the idea of reconciliation offered yesterday by Secretary of State Clinton was a “lunatic idea.”
Reuters reported:
Taliban insurgents reject a U.S. offer of “honorable reconciliation,” a top spokesman said on Wednesday, calling it a “lunatic idea” and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops.
With the Afghan conflict now in its eighth year, NATO-led forces and the Taliban are locked in a bloody stalemate with violence set to rise further this year as more U.S. troops arrive and seek to contain the insurgency ahead of August elections.
President Barack Obama is redoubling U.S. efforts with more troops, more diplomatic effort and more economic assistance, but he has also already spoken of the need for an “exit strategy.”
If the U.S. plan fails to show results, analysts say, time is on the Taliban side.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told an international conference on Afghanistan on Tuesday that those members of the Taliban who abandoned extremism must be granted an “honorable form of reconciliation.”
“This matter was also raised in the past,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, referring to comments last month by Obama, who spoke of reaching out to moderate Taliban.
“They have to go and find the moderate Taliban, their leader and speak to them. This is a lunatic idea,” Mujahid said by telephone from an unknown location.
Last month President Obama announced that America was losing the war and he was going to reach out to moderate Taliban members.
The Taliban replied, “We’re not moderate.”
The Taliban blew up the house of Ex-Federal Minister Ameer Muqam in the Swat region of Pakistan today.
