Afghan peace mediators in contact with Mullah Omar

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Ex-Taliban officials now acting as intermediaries have contacted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and other senior militants in a bid to set up peace talks with the Afghan government, a member of the team said on Wednesday.

"We are not talking to junior people, certainly, but with the leadership council, Mullah Sahib and Hekmatyar," said Arsala Rahmani, using a respectful term for Mullah Omar and also referring to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a hardline Islamist guerrilla leader wanted by the United States.

Rahmani is part of a team of senior former Taliban officials trying to mediate between President Hamid Karzai and the insurgents since late last year.

The mediators are pushing the government to provide asylum for members of the Taliban and other armed opposition groups as part of an effort to pave the ground for future peace talks, he told Reuters in an interview.

Since starting the initiative, the team has held discussions with Karzai, the Western powers who have troops in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, as well as with the militant leaders, Rahmani said.

More than seven years after Mullah Omar's followers were driven from Kabul, the Taliban are making a comeback in Afghanistan and militants sharing their ideology are also on the march in neighbouring Pakistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken about the need to reach out to "moderate" Taliban as part of a new strategy this year.

Rahmani, a veteran of the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, once served as a deputy premier and later as a minister in the Taliban government.