Momentum builds for Taliban negotiations

KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. and British officials have concluded there can be no military victory over Taliban insurgents, Time Magazine says.

All are privately, and to a greater degree publicly, advocating negotiation of a political deal with the Islamist militants as military force has proved largely ineffective at eliminating their insurgency, the magazine reported Monday.

Karzai last week appealed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace and offered to talk, it said. The overture came after last month's Ramadan meeting of government representatives, former Taliban leaders and Saudi King Abdullah in Mecca.

Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, Britain's top military officer in Afghanistan, told a British newspaper, "We're not going to win this war," and that at best NATO troops could only hope for is to reduce it "to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat." British Ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles reportedly said in a leaked diplomatic briefing the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan "is doomed to fail."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates this month said the Bush administration now believes the only way to win the Afghan war is "through political means."