THE Afghan government's official peace and reconciliation organ, the High Peace Council, cautiously accepts the Taliban opening an office in Qatar; a report in The Guardian suggests Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be on the verge of extinction in the region; and a pamphlet distributed in South Waziristan warns of retaliatory attacks against Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan for the killing of an Al Qaeda leader, Tehsin bin Ali Abdul Aziz, in a drone strike in August. Reports published in this newspaper yesterday about these three developments suggests that perhaps new movement in the peace process in Afghanistan may occur soon. While the warning pamphlet distributed in South Waziristan suggests Al Qaeda still has some presence in at least the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the more general sense is that Al Qaeda has suffered heavy losses in Afghanistan and Pakistan recently. The killing of Osama bin Laden, which provided some of the most visible evidence of a sophisticated and relentless campaign to track down and eliminate Al Qaeda types, was only the most prominent of numerous successes in the fight against the 'internationalist' jihad of Al Qaeda and affiliated networks.

With the strength of Al Qaeda diminished, the incentive for the US to engage the Taliban, who by and large have more of a 'nationalist', Afghanistan-focused agenda, ought to increase. Seen in that context, the Afghan High Peace Council's cautious acceptance of a political office for the Taliban in Qatar, from where the Taliban can be engaged on peace and reconciliation, is a welcome move. With suspicions and mistrust so high between Pakistan, the Afghan government and the US when it comes to engaging the Taliban in talks — all sides worry that the others may use talks with the Taliban to their own advantage, and so to the disadvantage of the other sides — anything that signals a small step forward ought to be welcomed.

Still, the challenges ahead are immense. By conflating the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda for many years after the post-9/11 war began in Afghanistan, the US inadvertently drove the Taliban and Al Qaeda closer and made them interdependent to some extent. So the belated recognition of the different goals and agendas of the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda will have to contend with the history of mistakes and bad policy in the years before and it remains to be seen how successful that will be. Then there is Pakistan's position. Will it help or hinder a joint reconciliation attempt? On that answer may hinge much of the future of talks with the Afghan Taliban.