Brits claim success in talks with Taliban that they may or may not be having

Independent:

Secret talks between British officials and elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan have delivered significant military and strategic successes, according to senior defence sources. Gordon Brown's Government has denied that the UK has been involved in any negotiations with the Taliban despite the Prime Minister's declaration during his recent visit to Afghanistan that the time has come to talk to the Islamist movement.

However, senior British officers currently involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed to The Independent that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as bringing intelligence which has led to their leaders being killed or captured.

The British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different "tiers" of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.

However, the policy of engaging with the Taliban is hugely contentious. Critics, some of them members of Hamid Karzai's government, argue that this betrays the principle of establishing democracy in the country and also allows the Taliban to re-establish control under another guise. It is also claimed that large sums of money have changed hands on occasions in return for information.

To maintain the public stance that it is the Karzai government which is solely responsible for contact with the insurgents, all clandestine meetings take place in the presence of Afghan officials. Similarly, the defections of Taliban commanders are credited to purely Afghan efforts. However, according to UK and Afghan sources, British military as well as intelligence officials have travelled from the capital, Kabul, and Lashkar Gar in Helmand to meet members of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

One of the most successful military operations resulting from these contacts, it is claimed, was the killing seven months ago of Mullah Dadullah, the movement's commander in Afghanistan. Dadullah is said to have been tracked from information supplied by rivals in the Taliban movement before he was shot dead by a unit of the Special Boat Service in Helmand.

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Prime Minister Brown has indicated negotiations were taking place and then later denied it this week, but this story suggest the clandestine talks have achieved some results.

Meanwhile the Taliban continue their heinous war crimes according to the Daily Mail:

Taliban militants have beheaded an old woman and her grandson accused of spying, officials said.

The shocking executions took place in Uruzgan's Dihrawud district, said provincial police chief, Juma Gul Himat. The militants accused the woman of spying for government and NATO forces.

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No mention was made of the Geneva Conventions or war crimes in the story, but there does appear to be some mild outrage at the conduct. When will the left demonstrate against Taliban war crimes? How about a cursory response from the terrorist rights organization?

Richard Littlejohn has some fun with Brown's plan for Taliban talks.

If I could talk to the Taliban, just
imagine it,
Chatting with the chaps
in Pakistan,
I could be rapping with
Al Qaeda,
And all the foreign fighters,
In the Tora Bora, east
Afghanistan.

If I could talk to the Taliban
in Arabic,
Or the dialect of
deepest Kazakhstan,
Try a phrase or two of Farsi,
A word of Gujarati,
I'm sure that I could make
them understand.

...

He has several more verses.