Oops ... wrong man!

[Fighter488]

Oops ... wrong man!​

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Afghan government were duped into believing they were holding preliminary peace talks with Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, a senor aide to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The imposter was paid a large sum of money before being exposed. Asia Times Online's Syed Saleem Shahzad has reported on the real Mansoor.

Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, the "senior Taliban leader" flown secretly to Kabul and paid a large amount of money to open negotiations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and President Hamid Karzai's administration, was not who he claimed to be.

The man was probably a shopkeeper from the Pakistani city of Quetta in Balochistan province and may have been planted by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Afghan officials now say.​

The ISI has dismissed the accusation as "preposterous".

General David Petraeus, the top United States commander in Afghanistan, was reported as saying he was not surprised about the reports, adding there was skepticism "all along, and it may well be that that skepticism was well-founded".

An Afghan official said the man claiming to be Mansoor had been introduced to NATO and the government by "one of our partners with a long history with the Taliban". He was flown from Pakistan to meetings in Kabul and Kandahar in the belief that he was a deputy to Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

"We met him three times. We always had our suspicions. It seems he was more likely a shopkeeper or something, sent by the ISI. On the last meeting he was met by someone who knew Mullah Mansoor well, who could tell it wasn't him," the official said.

A member of a 70-member peace council set up in Afghanistan to advise on reconciliation was scathing, "It is ridiculous that people are willing to meet anyone who introduces themselves as a high authority within the Taliban. This is why we have this council - to vet people," the Financial Times reported.

To read about the real Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, see Syed Saleem Shahzad's Taliban's mood swings against talks in Asia Times Online on February 23, 2010, and for the latest on the talks with the Taliban, see Taliban peace talks come to a halt.


Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan

 

[Spring Onion]

bwahahha old news yara

and i wonder if NATO/pentagon and Afghan intelligence can be duped by a shopkeeper ?