Agence France Presse

Kabul, March 20:

The Taliban insurgency will be “fractured” by an Afghan government amnesty offer to allow fighters to lay down their guns and rejoin the political process, the top commander of US troops in the country said today. “Clearly this is something that will be attractive to large numbers of the Taliban ... it will actually have the effect of fracturing the entire Taliban terrorist organisation,” Lieutenant General David Barno told reporters at a ceremony to rename US-coalition headquarters in Kabul. The Kabul Compound downtown in the Afghan capital was renamed Camp Eggers after special forces Captain Daniel Eggers who was killed in May 2004 in bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.

“I think its too early to tell yet how the Taliban strengthening peace programme will directly affect our operations. “President Karzai and the Afghan government when they make the official announcement of that, I think we’ll have to assess in the weeks and months to come what kind of impact it has,” Barno said. Karzai and Afghan officials are currently in talks with members of the ousted regime toppled by the US in late 2001 after refusing to surrender Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks.