The Taliban Could Be Different This Time, Britain's Army Chief Says

The leaders of the Taliban will show themselves to the world, an official of the Islamist movement said on Wednesday, unlike during the last 20 years, when its leaders have lived largely in secret.

The world should give the Taliban the space to form a new government in Afghanistan and may discover that the insurgents cast as terrorists by the West for decades have become more reasonable, the head of the British army said on Wednesday. The leaders of the Taliban will show themselves to the world, an official of the Islamist movement said on Wednesday, unlike during the last 20 years, when its leaders have lived largely in secret. Nick Carter, Britain's chief of the defence staff, said he was in contact with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai who Carter said would meet the Taliban on Wednesday. "We have to be patient, we have to hold our nerve and we have to give them the space to form a government and we have to give them the space to show their credentials," Carter told the BBC. "It may be that this Taliban is a different Taliban to the one that people remember from the 1990s."