Why the Afghan reconciliation process has become irrelevant given splits in the Taliban which can be exploited to neutralise them rather than engaging in peace talks.

1. IRRELEVANCE OF
AFGHAN
RECONCILIATION
PROCESS
Why the Afghan Reconciliation Process has
become irrelevant in December 2015?

2. Reasons for irrelevance
 Afghan reconciliation process has always been tendentious.
 Supposedly Afghan led and Afghan owned, there are too many
stake holders and spoilers ranging from regional to
international – state and not state actors who have continued
to undermine the Afghan government as well as the people.
Thus there has been no forward movement in the past six
years since the same was mooted in January 2010 London
Conference.
 Importantly today the Taliban is a much fragmented force,
disunited, with many top leaders including the so called
successor to Mullah Omar – Mullah Mansoor either killed or
injured. Other key leaders as Mullah Dadullah Mansour also
decapacitated.
 Internecine fighting with the Daesh (ISIS) is also noticed.

3. Reasons for irrelevance
 Splits and fragmentation provides the Afghan
National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) an
opportunity to target each group separately and
neutralise the same.
 An effective military strategy to neutralise these
factions is therefore the order of the day and not
talks.
 Encouraging intra factional infighting is another
option.
 Talks could be held at the subterranean level with
groups amenable to the same directly by the
Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) without
involvement of external elements.