Reach out to moderate Taliban, say regional Afghan leaders

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHANK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan must focus more on identifying Taliban moderates who can be persuaded to lay down their guns and turn to the government's side, regional Afghan leaders said.

An increasingly fierce Taliban insurgency, despite the presence of nearly 100,000 NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, has prompted debate on engaging moderate Taliban fighters in more talks to help coax them into surrender.

On a visit to a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan, governors of two strategic provinces south of the capital, Kabul, said they regularly met some Taliban members as part of state-backed reconciliation talks.

"The government could do more. It should do more," Atiqullah Ludin, governor of Logar province, told Reuters late on Monday at the U.S.-run Shank forward operating base in his region.

"If the Taliban feel it (our approach) is truthful and adequate then, of course, the Taliban would want to join this process because they will see it as a better option."

He said he believed 250 fighters operated in Logar, where the United States sent about 3,000 additional troops earlier this year to contain a growing insurgency. He said he hoped 100 of them would soon come to the negotiating table.

"We talk to them. They say: 'Listen. We have problems with the government, we have problems with the army, with the Americans, we have all these problems'," said Ludin. "We listen and we are going to try our best to solve these concerns."

TALKS?

Up to 15,000 Taliban operate in Afghanistan, according to the defense ministry. With a control center in Pakistan, they fight alongside smaller groups like the Haqqani network.

Some analysts say reaching out to moderate Taliban will fail to end the Afghan insurgency as it is the inflexible Taliban leaders who are orchestrating the war, not moderates.

"We will have a result only when we speak to the Taliban troublemakers if we are to seriously get engaged in the negotiations," said Waheed Mozhdah, an analyst who served under the Taliban government.

The Taliban's core has repeatedly rejected peace talks and vowed to keep fighting until all foreign troops have left Afghanistan.

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, in power since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban, has backed talking to moderate Taliban but the policy has yielded little result and many oppose the idea, fearful that it could bring the Taliban back to power.

Karzai has in the past tried to reach out for talks, using ex-Taliban members and Saudi officials as potential go-betweens. The government also runs a reconciliation program whereby it seeks to approach fighters through respected village elders.

"We believe reconciliation is a first step," Mohammed Halim Fedayi, governor of Wardak, another strategic province near Kabul, said. "We must give these people an opportunity to reconcile."

U.S. President Barack Obama has also spoken about the need to integrate moderate Taliban members in broader reconciliation, which, along with a military buildup, could help win stability.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has said he needs more troops to turn the tide in Afghanistan while calling for more focus on winning ordinary people's support.

On the ground, the U.S. military seem to be in favor of talking to some Taliban to realign them with Afghan society.

"A lot of it is economics," Lieutenant Colonel Steve Osterholzer said at the Shank base in Logar -- a province near the Pakistan border lying on a key supply route from the south.

"Say, the Taliban pay him (Taliban fighter) $150 to shoot an RPG at us, but if we can pay him $150 to put a shovel in his hand instead of an RPG he will then see economic opportunity."

But is it really working? "Have we had Taliban leaders and commanders who have come over and turned down their arms? Yes, we have," said Osterholzer. "As far as how effective is this going to be, I think it's too soon to tell."

(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Sugita Katyal)