Taliban impostor warnings ignored by Afghan leaders, says former spy chief
Desperate for a peace deal with the Taliban, officials dismissed security advice over bogus go-between
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Jon Boone
The Observer, Sunday 28 November 2010
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose chief of staff said last week that the British were responsible for bringing the imposter from Pakistan.
Photograph: Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images
Hamid Karzai's desperation for a "Good Friday agreement forAfghanistan" led officials to ignore repeated warnings from their own spy chief that they should not trust a man who orchestrated a humiliating face-to-face meeting between the Afghan president and a shopkeeper who pretended to be the Taliban's second most powerful leader.
Amrullah Saleh, the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's equivalent of MI5, said his agency first vetted the man, who claimed to be a representative of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, one of the highest-ranking figures in the Taliban, in mid-2008, but rejected him after he was unable to prove his credentials.
However, the go-between, who said he was a Taliban leader from Kandahar called Muhammad Aminullah, subsequently approached the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, the following year and was enthusiastically embraced by an Afghan government desperate for a breakthrough in peace talks.
Saleh, a highly regarded administrator who was sacked by Karzai earlier this year, said all his warnings were ignored. "I tried time and again to convince my colleagues in the ministry and subsequently at the palace that he is not a genuine representative of anybody," he told theObserver.
The rare public statement by Afghanistan's former top spy contradicted attempts yesterday by the Afghan government to deny that "Mansour" had ever held high-level meetings in Kabul. It also further undermines claims by the Afghan government that MI6 was entirely to blame for the fiasco.
Saleh said it was Karzai and senior officials trying to find an opening for negotiations with the Taliban leadership who were primarily at fault. "This became so exciting that even certain figures were thinking of either an Afghan Dayton agreement or Good Friday agreement for Afghanistan," he said. "It shows the desperation of the leadership in Kabul, detachment from the reality and lack of sophistication on the most sensitive issues."
The impersonator was given large sums of money as a goodwill gesture and had three meetings with Afghan officials, including one with Karzai, where an Afghan government official who had met Mansour before rumbled the impersonator. "I have to say taking him to the president was the biggest mistake," Saleh said. "That shows lack of insulation around the top leadership of this country."
He was first contacted by a man called Aminullah in mid-2008 who carried a letter of introduction supposedly from Mansour. Saleh said he was open to exploring the potential avenue, saying the NDS wanted to "develop the source, test his access, enhance his access and then decide what to do politically".
However, the spies soon became "very suspicious" of Aminullah, who failed the tests the NDS developed for him, and then "lost track of him".
The former NDS chief, who was removed from his post after the Taliban attacked a high-profile peace conference in Kabul in August, insisted that by publicly criticising the way the government handled the affair he was in no way making a political attack on Karzai or his former colleague Atmar.
"I am not criticising anyone personally, I enormously respect Minister Atmar, but there has to be proper system of government. They should have respected the views of the intelligence community."
Atmar, who was sacked at the same time as Saleh, yesterday told theObserver that he was unable to comment on state secrets, but said he was angry at the way Karzai's chief of staff had publicly put all the blame for the fiasco on MI6, the British intelligence service.
Hamid Karzai's desperation for a "Good Friday agreement forAfghanistan" led officials to ignore repeated warnings from their own spy chief that they should not trust a man who orchestrated a humiliating face-to-face meeting between the Afghan president and a shopkeeper who pretended to be the Taliban's second most powerful leader.
Amrullah Saleh, the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan's equivalent of MI5, said his agency first vetted the man, who claimed to be a representative of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, one of the highest-ranking figures in the Taliban, in mid-2008, but rejected him after he was unable to prove his credentials.
However, the go-between, who said he was a Taliban leader from Kandahar called Muhammad Aminullah, subsequently approached the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, the following year and was enthusiastically embraced by an Afghan government desperate for a breakthrough in peace talks.
Saleh, a highly regarded administrator who was sacked by Karzai earlier this year, said all his warnings were ignored. "I tried time and again to convince my colleagues in the ministry and subsequently at the palace that he is not a genuine representative of anybody," he told theObserver.
The rare public statement by Afghanistan's former top spy contradicted attempts yesterday by the Afghan government to deny that "Mansour" had ever held high-level meetings in Kabul. It also further undermines claims by the Afghan government that MI6 was entirely to blame for the fiasco.
Saleh said it was Karzai and senior officials trying to find an opening for negotiations with the Taliban leadership who were primarily at fault. "This became so exciting that even certain figures were thinking of either an Afghan Dayton agreement or Good Friday agreement for Afghanistan," he said. "It shows the desperation of the leadership in Kabul, detachment from the reality and lack of sophistication on the most sensitive issues."
The impersonator was given large sums of money as a goodwill gesture and had three meetings with Afghan officials, including one with Karzai, where an Afghan government official who had met Mansour before rumbled the impersonator. "I have to say taking him to the president was the biggest mistake," Saleh said. "That shows lack of insulation around the top leadership of this country."
He was first contacted by a man called Aminullah in mid-2008 who carried a letter of introduction supposedly from Mansour. Saleh said he was open to exploring the potential avenue, saying the NDS wanted to "develop the source, test his access, enhance his access and then decide what to do politically".
However, the spies soon became "very suspicious" of Aminullah, who failed the tests the NDS developed for him, and then "lost track of him".
The former NDS chief, who was removed from his post after the Taliban attacked a high-profile peace conference in Kabul in August, insisted that by publicly criticising the way the government handled the affair he was in no way making a political attack on Karzai or his former colleague Atmar.
"I am not criticising anyone personally, I enormously respect Minister Atmar, but there has to be proper system of government. They should have respected the views of the intelligence community."
Atmar, who was sacked at the same time as Saleh, yesterday told theObserver that he was unable to comment on state secrets, but said he was angry at the way Karzai's chief of staff had publicly put all the blame for the fiasco on MI6, the British intelligence service.
Western sources say that the UK did play a role in the debacle, with MI6 acting as a key intermediary because the CIA is not authorised to talk directly with insurgents. However, the decision for the British to proceed was taken by General Stanley McChrystal, the former US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan. (the guardian co.uk)
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