Taliban ministers could join coalition

An outline peace plan for Afghanistan is being hammered out under US stewardship in which some members of the Taliban will be allowed to remain in power providing key players are ousted.

A "hit list" names key Taliban members who must be removed - and probably arrested - as the price to pay for allowing part of the regime to form a coalition government with the rebel Northern Alliance.

The deal is understood to have been first mentioned in talks between US and Pakistani officials in Islamabad.

Talks have also been held between US and Alliance representatives, ending with the Alliance reportedly giving the green light.

Pakistan is anxious that the Taliban, which it still recognises as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, is not swept away in its entirety.

But the big breakthrough is the tacit acceptance of this idea by the Northern Alliance.

The list of Taliban men who must go would reportedly include the regime's leader, Mullah Omar, plus senior cabinet colleagues including defence minister Hamid Ullah, justice minister Mullah Noorud Din Turabi and Mullah Daud Ullah, commander of the Fourth Corps, now guarding Kabul.

Osama Bin Laden's 3,000 guerrillas now in the country from the Middle East, Chechnya and Uzbekistan would also face jail or deportation.

Those Taliban allowed to stay in office include foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil and the minister for frontier areas.

A Northern Alliance official said: "The Taliban are a system of terror. The Taliban are not acceptable for the coming Afghanistan.

"But some people maybe could remain. It would be possible that some people there could have the right to participate."

Anxiety is spreading among the Northern Alliance that their lack of cohesion will see them miss out in peace talks.

Alliance president Burhanuddin Rabbani has left for the southern Pansjir Valley, trying to impose order on talks aimed at forming a united council that can negotiate with one voice.

The US hopes the United Nations would supervise a new coalition government.

But the bigger question is how those members of the Taliban allowed to stay can hope to remove the men now running the army, police and secret services.