343 Carlos Setas Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the peace process with the afhgan taliban While the last decade has seen various organisations and international representatives come into contact with the Taliban, these have been on an informal basis and on no account can be classed as negotiations. The first serious contact between the Taliban and the Karzai government occurred in 2009 in an attempt to ensure that the presidential election of that year took place peacefully. Rapprochement efforts were brokered by the brother of the Afghan president, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who at that time was governor of Kandahar province.25 A short while afterwards, in February 2010, the Taliban leader Mullah Baradar26 was arrested in Karachi as part of a joint operation between the ISI and the CIA that proved to be quite controversial in the media.27 The Afghan president, Hamid Kar-zai, accused Pakistan of sabotaging attempts to bring about a negotiated peace in his country. Following Baradar’s arrest, contact with the government in Kabul ceased. The Taliban’s rapprochement with the government in Kabul was carried out behind Pakistan’s back, which did not sit well with the ISI. The detention of Baradar, number two of the Taliban movement ranked only below Mullah Omar, has widely been construed as an ISI warning to the Taliban that they were not going to tolerate any negotiation attempt without their direct involvement. Western interest in entering into negotiations and the difficulty of contacting genuine contacts within the Taliban movement were highlighted in November 2010 thanks to revelations made by the New York Times28. These revealed that NATO and the Afghan government had maintained contact for months with an individual who they supposed was a Taliban representative. This person, who passed himself off as the successor to Mullah Baradar and number two in the movement, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had held three meetings with high-ranking Afghan and NATO officials, as well as pocketing a considerable sum of money. The contact with the supposed Taliban leader had been supplied by the British intelligence service MI6 in what proved to be a major intelligence flaw.29. At the time, it was rumoured that 25 BOONE, Jon, “Taliban chiefs agree ceasefire deals for Afghan presidential elections”, The Guardian, 13 August 2009. 26 Other relevant leaders from the Taliban movement were arrested together with Baradar: Maulvi Abdul Kabir (Taliban governor of the province of Nangharar); Mullah Abdul Qayoum Zakir (mili-tary commander of the Gerdi Jangal shura); Mullah Muhammad Hassan (ex-foreign minister of the Taliban government); Mullah Abdul Rauf (ex-commander of the Peshawar shura); Mullah Ahmad Jan Akhundzada (ex-governor of the Zabul province); and Mullah Mohammad Younis (ex-head of police in Kabul during the Taliban regime). 27 See the articles published by Syed Saleem Shahzad in the Asia Times Online between 23 February and 2 March 2010. 28 FILKINS, Dexter and GALL, Carlotta, “Taliban leader in secret talks was an impostor”, The New York Times, 22 November 2010. 29 BORGER, Julian and BOONE, Jon, “US general McChrystal approved peace talks with fake
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