On Sept. 30 Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, confirmed he had asked Saudi King 'Abdullah to help broker peace talks with Pashtun tribal leaders and a moderate faction of the Taliban. He told a news conference his envoys had travelled to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to try to kick-start negotiations,

In New York for the annual UN General Assembly meetings, Karzai on Sept. 23 met with President George W. Bush and President Zardari. The three agreed in principle on a joint force of US, Afghan and Pakistani troops fighting Taliban, Qaeda and Hekmatyar extremists in Waziristan on the Pakistani side of the border. Karzai also agreed to meet with Zardari and Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara, although no date has been set. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta on Sept. 25 said: "President Karzai received an invitation from Ankara for the second trilateral meeting between himself, Turkish President...Gul and President Zardari".

The Ankara meeting would follow up on talks hosted by Turkey a year and a half ago between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Spanta said: "This trilateral institution is a possibility to continue discussions between the two countries". (Spanta made the announcement as tensions between the PAF and US/NATO forces continued. On Sept. 25, the PAF fired on NATO-led helicopters operating in eastern Afghanistan, saying they had breached Pakistani air-space, an allegation denied by the International Security Assistance Force - ISAF. Tensions had been ratcheted up earlier by a series of US missile strikes on Qaeda-linked militants). Spanta was part of a big Afghan delegation which held talks with senior US officials in Washington on the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership, launched in 2005 by Presidents Bush and Karzai.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was attending the UN General Assembly in New York, on Sept. 26 met with her counterparts from Pakistan, Afghanistan, European, Asian and GCC states. She also met with Zardari. The main topic of the Sept. 26 meetings was Pakistan and its Pashtun tribal areas.

An un-named US official on Sept. 26 was quoted as saying the meetings dealt with proposed "common strategies" to fight the Neo-Salafi insurgents, joint efforts to "understand Pakistani plans and commitments - what they're going to do in areas like education, the economy, stability and security and look at how our assistance programmes can support those efforts". The official said the US first discussed the idea with countries like Britain and the UAE. He added: "We see this group as a bit more of a long-term effort, not just a donors conference, but a strategy group to make sure their efforts and our efforts complement each other". The US State Department said Washington was also studying Kabul's proposal for a joint force of Afghan, Pakistani and US/NATO troops to operate against the insurgents along the border.

However, the PAF on Sept. 28 destroyed a key Taliban strong-hold in Bajaur consisting mainly of under-ground bunkers and a major cache of weapons and explosives. At a press briefing on Sept. 29, senior Pakistani security officials said: The latest success would mean a 65-70% reduction in the hundreds of militants who had crossed the border into Afghanistan. But US and NATO officials later said that, though the destruction of the Bajaur strong-hold was significant, it was too early to judge if that was true. One Western official said: "The Pak-Afghan border is very porous. It is impossible to see what exact impact this single victory would eventually have". Yet other Western officials say the Bajaur operation dealt a major blow to the militants and showed that the PAF, with US/NATO logistical help, can hit at the heart of the militant structure.

Rawalpindi, Pakistan's military capital and base, now seems more intent on battling the militants since Gen Kiyani, in a rare public statement earlier in September, reiterated Islamabad's right to take action against all insurgents on the country's soil. Rtd Brig Shaukat Qadir, a commentator on military and security affairs, says: "Pakistanis are increasingly seeing this war as their own rather than an American war. Gen Kiyani's statement has been an important catalyst to articulate the view that Pakistan must itself solve this problem".

The PAF/US offensives in Bajaur and Waziristan in general have come at a major cost to civilians. The UN refugee agency UNHCR on Sept. 29 said some 20,000 people from Bajaur had fled to Afghanistan in recent months due to the intense fighting between the PAF and militants. The UNHCR said more than 3,900 families had fled into Afghanistan's Kunar province with 600 of those families fleeing in the previous two weeks alone.

The Bush administration is revamping its strategy towards Afghanistan, taking greater account of Neo-Salafi extremists launching attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistan. At the same time and in response to the Taliban's creeping militancy, President Zardari is talking with US and NATO leaders about a joint force to hunt down the extremists. The US is to help increase the Afghan National Army (ANA) from about 62,000 and a goal of 85,000 to 162,000 within a few years, with the Afghan National Police (ANP) to be boosted to 62,000.

The FT on Oct. 1 quoted a "senior diplomat" as saying: The Taliban are desperate to take part in a Saudi-mediated peace process, adding: "They have had seven years of suffering severe loses on the battlefield and they know that it is not sustainable. The problem is the extent to which the Afghan people are willing to allow this process to go ahead". The UK has been pushing for the negotiations, with the US just watching for the moment.