The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.
The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.
It alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
A BBC correspondent says the report is painful reading for international forces and the Afghan government.
Pakistan has strenuously denied any links with the Taliban on previous occasions.
"We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks," said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not seen the report.
'Informational'
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report - on the state of the Taliban - fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) and the Taliban.
The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
It notes: "Pakistan's manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly". It says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
The report states: "As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical."
"Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption”
Leaked Nato report
Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military.
Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said the document was "a classified internal document that is not meant to be released to the public".
"It is a matter of policy that documents that are classified are not discussed under any circumstances," he said.
The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban, our correspondent says.
It paints a picture of al-Qaeda's influence diminishing but the Taliban's influence increasing, he adds.
Taliban influence
Afghan President Hamid Karzai Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants peace talks with the Taliban
In a damning conclusion, the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.
It adds: "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption."
The report has evidence that the Taliban are purposely hastening Nato's withdrawal by deliberately reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign.
It says that in areas where Isaf has withdrawn, Taliban influence has increased, often with little or no resistance from government security forces. And in many cases, with the active help of the Afghan police and army. [my bold]
When foreign soldiers leave, Afghan security forces are expected to take control.
However according to the report, rifles, pistols and heavy weapons have been sold by Afghan security forces in bazaars in Pakistan.
Follow BBC Kabul correspondent Quentin Sommerville on Twitter @mrsommerville
Marc Grossman, left, an American envoy, and the Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin. Musadeq Sadeq/Associated Press
By ALISSA J. RUBIN January 28, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — Several Taliban negotiators have begun meeting with American officials in Qatar, where they are discussing preliminary trust-building measures, including a possible prisoner transfer, several former Taliban officials said Saturday.
The former officials said that four to eight Taliban representatives had traveled to Qatar from Pakistan to set up a political office for the exiled Afghan insurgent group.
The comments suggested that the Taliban, who have not publicly said they would engage in peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, were gearing up for preliminary discussions.
American officials would not deny that meetings had taken place, and the discussions seemed to have at least the tacit approval of Pakistan, which has thwarted previous efforts by the Taliban to engage in talks.
The Afghan government, which was initially angry that it had been left out, has accepted the talks in principle but is not directly involved, a potential snag in what could be a historic development.
The former Taliban officials, interviewed Saturday in Kabul, were careful not to call the discussions peace talks.
“Currently there are no peace talks going on,” said Maulavi Qalamuddin, the former minister of vice and virtue for the Taliban who is now a member of the High Peace Council here. “The only thing is the negotiations over release of Taliban prisoners from Guantánamo, which is still under discussion between both sides in Qatar. We also want to strengthen the talks so we can create an environment of trust for further talks in the future.”
The State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland has said only that Marc Grossman, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had “a number of meetings” related to Afghanistan when he visited Qatar last week.
The Taliban’s announcement this month that they would open an office in Qatar, which could allow for direct negotiations, drew fire from some Afghan factions as well as some American policy makers, who fear the insurgents would use negotiations as a ploy to gain legitimacy and then continue their efforts to reimpose an extremist Islamic state in Afghanistan.
Mr. Grossman, at a news conference in Kabul last week, said that real peace talks could begin only after the Taliban renounced international terrorism and agreed to support a peace process to end the armed conflict.
The Afghan government and the Qataris must also come to an agreement on the terms under which the Taliban will have an office. Mr. Grossman has been regularly briefing the Afghan government but Afghan officials have complained that they were being kept out of the loop.
The Taliban officials now in Doha, Qatar, include a former secretary to the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, as well as several former officials of the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, according to Mr. Qalamuddin and Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister of higher education.
The former Taliban officials here described fairly advanced discussions in Qatar about the transfer of prisoners. One former official, Syed Muhammad Akbar Agha, who had been a Taliban military commander, said that five Taliban prisoners were to be transferred in two phases, two or three in one group and then the remainder.
There has also been discussion in Qatar of removing some Taliban members from NATO’s “kill or capture” lists, the former Taliban officials said.
Mr. Grossman, in his comments last week, played down talk of detainee releases, saying the United States had not yet decided on the issue. “This is an issue of United States law first of all, that we have to meet the requirements of our law,” he said.
He said the Obama administration would also consult with Congress. Under American law, the defense secretary must certify to Congress that the transfer of any Guantánamo prisoner to a foreign country would meet certain requirements, including that the country maintains control over its prisons and will not allow a transferred detainee to become a future threat to the United States.
If any detainees were released, Western and Afghan officials said, they would likely be transferred to Qatar and held there, perhaps under house arrest.
The former Taliban officials said that they were most surprised by Pakistan’s decision to allow the Taliban delegates to obtain travel documents and board a plane to Qatar. The former officials have long contended that Pakistan has obstructed talks. “This is a green light from Pakistan,” Mr. Rahmani said.
Pakistan “definitely supported this and is also helping,” Mr. Qalamuddin added. He said that if Pakistan did not approve of the talks, it would have arrested the Taliban delegates to Qatar, just as it did with Mullah Baradar, a senior Taliban official, after he began secret talks with the Afghan government in 2010.
I have no idea what they are saying today .. ;) haven't checked yet, but I do remember talking about 'talking to the Taliban' ..wasn't it even under Pres. Bush ? ...I mean, it seems that we have been TRYING to do this FOREVER .. Let's hope this is TRUE ... ;)
Australian soldiers patrol with Afghan National Army soldiers. A man in an Afghan uniform has shot dead a NATO soldier. [ABC]
Last Updated: 16 hours 42 minutes ago
Australia's Defence Minister Stephen Smith has announced Australia could be ready to pull out of Afghanistan before its current 2014 deadline.
Mr Smith said he's confident Australia will achieve its objectives within its existing time frame.
"Australia continues to believe that we are on track in Uruzgan Province to transfer responsibility for security to the Afghan ational security forces by 2014 and perhaps earlier," Mr Smith said.
Mr Smith said Australia will maintain a presence in Afghanistan after handing over to Afghan security forces.
The Federal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott said on Tuesday, Australia's soldiers should be withdrawn from Afghanistan when their objectives had been secured and not when a fixed date had been reached.
NATO soldier killed
A man in an Afghan army uniform shot dead a soldier with NATO-led forces in southern Afghanistan, just days after four French soldiers died in a similar shooting.
The latest shooting happened on Tuesday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, without giving further details or the nationality of the victim.
"An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against an International Security Assistance Force service member in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing one service member," ISAF said in a statement.
On January 20, a renegade Afghan army soldier turned on his French trainers in Kapisa near the capital Kabul, killing four.
The killings prompted French President Nicolas Sarkozy to briefly suspend the French training mission in Afghanistan. He later ordered the withdrawal of all French combat troops by 2013, a year earlier than a planned NATO exit.
Dozens of NATO troops have been killed by their Afghan colleagues, and while some deaths have been claimed by Taliban insurgents, analysts say they are seldom ideological but stem from personal antagonism and arguments.
Between May 2007 and May 2011 at least 58 US and NATO personnel were killed in 26 attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police, according to details of a classified coalition report published last month in the New York Times.
The report emphasises the killings are the result of a decade of contempt that each side has for each other, despite being supposed allies in the fight against the Taliban.
The US-led international force is training Afghan's military to take full responsibility for security after NATO ends all combat missions in 2014.
Secret report
A secret NATO report on Afghanistan reports the Taliban are being directly assisted by elements in Pakistan and have widespread support among the Afghan people.
The report reveals elements in Pakistan knows where senior Taliban leaders are living, and in one area the insurgent fighters live near the office of the Pakistan secret service, the ISI.
It also claims that members of the Afghan Government are joining the Taliban and that the insurgents are seen as more popular than President Karzai's Government which is viewed as corrupt.
A senior foreign ministry official has described them as "frivolous".
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