Qaeda would face pressure from Afghan deal-making

LONDON (Reuters) - Bringing the Taliban into reconciliation talks with the U.S.-backed Afghan government would strain the insurgents' ties to al Qaeda and lift Western hopes of denying Osama bin Laden the refuge his hosts provide.

Any pressure on al Qaeda's link to its Pashtun protectors could also spur bin Laden's group to expand ties to militants in other Muslim nations out of self-preservation as much as ideology.

The Afghan government on Thursday invited the Taliban to a peace council, expected early this year, raising the prospect that attempts at political deal-making could eventually move to the forefront of efforts to end the war in Afghanistan.

Analysts said the Afghan Taliban headed by Mullah Omar did not have much incentive yet to join any talks following a year of territorial gains, and its link to al Qaeda remained intact.

But its more nationalist long-term goals differed from those of al Qaeda, whose militant ideology makes violent jihad an obligation for all Muslims, and an eventual rift was possible.

That reality, combined with regular missile attacks by U.S. drones on its hideouts in the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, meant al Qaeda was facing multiple pressures.

"Al Qaeda faces a big threat," Edwin Bakker, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague: "The Taliban is a local group able to strike local deals and that's a worry for al Qaeda."

A Western intelligence source said the prospect of such talks would put "a great deal of pressure on al Qaeda."

"If the Taliban are in reconciliation contacts with the Afghan government the implications for al Qaeda are nothing but negative, because they would be losing allies and possibly territory," the source said.

The Taliban have so far shown no willingness in public to enter talks, though some analysts say they realize they are no better placed than the United States and its allies to win the war by military means alone.

RADICAL SPLIT UNLIKELY FOR NOW

The guerrilla group said it would decide soon on the offer.

In an indication of the quickening diplomatic tempo, a U.N. official said members of the Taliban's leadership council had secretly met the United Nations representative for Afghanistan to discuss the possibility of laying down their arms.

"The Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda have got pretty different agendas in the long term," said Anna Murison, Head of Global Jihad Forecasting at consultancy Exclusive Analysis.

"The Taliban have got their eye on what's going to happen when the Americans leave and are thinking about it pragmatically. ... Al Qaeda is much more radical and outward-looking. Long-term their interests are going to diverge quite considerably."

But a "radical split" was unlikely for now, she said.

Meanwhile al Qaeda's core leadership was focusing on building ties to highly effective militant groups in neighboring Pakistan "and they are doing very well at that."

Nigel Inkster, an expert on transnational threats at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said al Qaeda was helping such groups with technology and communications but its own operations were contained by "relentless" drone attacks.

"They are also losing funding and such funding as they get is increasingly devoted to paying bribes to tribal leaders to protect figures like bin Laden," he said.

Referring to a Pashtun code of honor that demands unfailing hospitality toward guests, he added: "Pashtunwali is all very well. But it does seem to require money to grease the wheels."

(Editing by Charles Dick)