Talks with the Taliban have assumed center stage over the past few months. The United Kingdom has long had a keen interest in the issue, and even the United States seemed to have abandoned its skepticism about negotiations and had given a green light to talks. As for the Afghan government, President Hamid Karzai has been enthusiastically backing the idea of reconciliation with the Taliban, whom he calls “our disgruntled brothers,” for more than two years now.

So it was with a great deal of excitement that the world learned of “high-level talks” with “senior Taliban leaders” last month. A breakthrough seemed imminent.

But on the heels of the reports came another bombshell: the senior Taliban negotiator turned out to be an imposter, which has driven all sides of the reconciliation debate to start pointing the finger of blame at one another.

The buildup to the present debacle has been intense. In September, General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told the media that senior Taliban officials had been “reaching out” to the Karzai government. Other reports stated that the international military coalition was providing safe passage for Taliban leaders engaged in talks.

Senior Afghan and U.S. officials have publicly confirmed that some kind of negotiations have been going on. At a press conference on November 23 in Kabul, Karzai himself said that his government had held talks with members of the armed opposition.

These comments raised expectation that serious discussions had begun, and a political settlement to the nine-year war was, for the first time, a real possibility.

But now it has been disclosed that the most senior Taliban member involved in the negotiations was a fraud. He has been described as a shopkeeper from Quetta, while others insist that he is a member of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI). While it unclear who exactly the impostor is, it appears fairly certain that he is not who he claimed to be: Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the Taliban’s second in command.

By most accounts, the intelligence services of the United States, the United Kingdom and Afghanistan were all involved in the case of the impostor. But now that the scandal has broken, American and Afghan officials have tried to put the main responsibility for the debacle with MI6, the British intelligence agency.

Mohammad Omar Daudzai, Karzai's chief of staff, was the first to make comments about the British involvement in the scandal.

On Thursday November 25, the Washington Post quoted Daudzai as saying that British officials brought the fake negotiator to meet with Karzai In July or August 2010.

Western media outlets quote an American official who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that that MI6 agents in Pakistan believed they had made great progress after making contact with a man claiming to be Mansour, and flew him from Quetta to Kabul on British aircrafts several times.

The Washington Post has quoted a senior American official familiar with the case who said that the false Mansour was ”the Brits’ guy” and that it was the British who has brought him forward.

According to Western sources, MI6 was acting as a key intermediary in the negotiations because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is not authorized to speak directly with insurgents. However, say the sources, the decision for the British to proceed was taken by General Stanley McChrystal, the former US commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

British officials confirmed their logistical role, but told the BBC that the man they had assisted was actually introduced by Afghan intelligence agents; the British authorities had only provided opportunities for Afghan officials to meet him. 

While Karzai’s chief of staff insists that British agents were the major player in the game and emphasizes that it was the British who brought the man to Kabul, Amrullah Saleh, the former chief of Afghanistan intelligence agency (NDS) who was sacked by Karzai last June, told the Observer that it was Karzai and senior officials trying to find an opening for negotiations with the Taliban leadership who were primarily at fault.

"I tried time and again to convince my colleagues in the ministry [of interior affairs] and subsequently at the palace that he is not a genuine representative of anybody," he told the British newspaper.

Saleh added that he believed that taking the fake negotiator to the president was a big mistake and showed the lack of insulation around the top leadership of the country.

According to Saleh, desperation for an agreement in the presidential palace had led officials turn a blind eye to his cautious stance.

"This became so exciting that even certain figures were thinking of either an Afghan Dayton agreement or Good Friday agreement for Afghanistan," he said to the Observer. "It shows the desperation of the leadership in Kabul, detachment from the reality and lack of sophistication on the most sensitive issues."

Another former senior Afghan official who was involved in the case has also disputed that the British did anything more than providing logistical help to bring Mansour to Kabul. Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the former interior minister who was sacked at the same time with Saleh, told the Observer that he was angry at the way Karzai's chief of staff had publicly put all the blame for the fiasco on MI6.

But the incident has proved a huge embarrassment for all.

Abdul Hadi Khalid, an intelligence expert and a former deputy interior minister of Afghanistan, said that the lack of coordination between Afghan and Western spy agencies was the main reason for the shambles.

“Most of the current Taliban leaders were been governors or ministers, so it is easy to recognize them if we follow the issue properly,” said Khalid. “But a shopkeeper can turn into Mansour and the real Mullah Omar can turn into a shopkeeper if our intelligence bodies do not do their job.”

There are some analysts who question the whole scenario.

Sarwar Jawadi, a Member of Parliament from Bamian believes that some networks inside the Afghan government provide logistical or even intelligence support for the Taliban, so the man who received large sums of money from the Afghan government could be the real Mullah Mansour.

“Contrary to popular belief, the imposter could have been the real Mansour,” said Jawadi. “The scenario is not very new as hundreds of Taliban members were released over the past nine years by the Peace and Reconciliation Program, led by Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, head of the legislature’s upper house. They received large sums of money and then went back to the Taliban.”

According to Jawadi, a lack of honesty in the Karzai government over reconciliation, along with the absence of any real agreement on bottom-line issues could have easily provided an opportunity for the pro-Taliban elements in the government to plot this conspiracy. 

Massoud Ansari, a political analyst in Kabul agrees.

“Mr. Mansour was the civil aviation minister of the Taliban during their rule, how is it possible that Western and Afghan spy agencies could not recognize him?” Ansari asked.

Ansari pointed out that some senior members of the Taliban who were actually colleagues of Mansour during the Taliban rule are members of the Afghan government. In addition, a significant number of Taliban are parliamentarians or members of Karzai’s High Council of Peace.

“Any of these former Taliban knows Mansour,” said Ansari. ”Some of these people are currently in direct contact with the Taliban, so why didn’t the Afghan government ask them for help?”

Both Jawadi and Ansari raised concerns about other possible scenarios which might seem unlikely at present, but could become a reality. One such scenario revolves around the large sums of international assistance that has been directed to the South over the past nine years.

 “Billions of dollars have been sent to the South,” MP Jawadi said. “Who knows, tomorrow a cable could be leaked which will reveal that half of the aid money has been directly paid to the insurgents.” 

Mullah Abdusalam Zaeef, the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, also questioned the reality of the case.

“Who can believe that an imposter negotiated in the name of Mullah Mansour three times, but the CIA, MI6 and Afghan government could not recognize him?” Zaeef asked.

According to Zaeef, reports of possible success on reconciliation with the Taliban were an American rumor that had domestic use for Barack Obama and Petraues during the American Congressional Elections.

“After the elections, they raised the issue of the imposter in order to put end to their rumor,” he said.  “I insist, as I have in the past, that there were no talks between Afghan government and the Taliban.”