KABUL — He was one of the Taliban regime’s most feared figures: a scowling cleric whose Islamist vigilante squads roamed the Afghan capital. But at 60, Maulvi Qalamuddin has mellowed his rhetoric since Taliban rule ended in late 2001, and last year President Hamid Karzai named him, along with five other former Taliban officials, to the High Peace Council set up to negotiate with the insurgency.
Now, the Karzai government, in a further bid to bolster the fledgling peace process, has asked the U.N. Security Council to remove Qalamuddin and 19 other former Taliban members from a sanctions list that has prevented them from traveling or sending money abroad since 1999. The United Nations is expected to announce a decision within weeks.
“All human beings need peace, even if they were once enemies,” Qalamuddin said this week.
The Washington Post
