Last spring, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's spiritual leader, issued a series of stunning directives to his fighters. One decree banned the burning of schools and the indiscriminate killing of Afghan soldiers. Young girls, said another, should be allowed to attend mosque.
The new code of conduct was meant to bolster Afghan support for the insurgency by projecting a slightly less brutal version of the Taliban's interpretation of Islam.
However, Mr. Omar's orders – contained in a booklet of 13 chapters and 67 articles – never reached his local commanders in Kandahar, or so they claim. Interviewed by a Globe and Mail researcher, one commander after another said he had never seen it.
Intentional or not, that disconnect between the Taliban's leaders and their subordinate commanders and fighters in the field highlights just one of the numerous challenges facing any effort to make peace in Afghanistan through political negotiations.
In theory, the West and the insurgency are seeking the same end to the eight-year war – the withdrawal of more than 100,000 foreign troops from Afghanistan.
However, the road between the simmering conflict in the south and a vague political solution in Kabul is fraught with obstacles. As world leaders mull a proposal to reach out to the Taliban's senior command, the most obvious one is that Mr. Omar refuses to talk.
“Mullah Omar will not speak,” maintains Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, who remains deeply loyal to Mr. Omar and is in constant contact with him.
A recent meeting in Dubai between Kai Eide, the outgoing UN special representative for Afghanistan, and a delegation of Taliban commanders was meant to test the waters. However, the conversation was apparently cut short because there was no common ground, said a source in Kabul familiar with the talks.
The meeting echoed other failed efforts at dialogue, such as those brokered by Saudi Arabia in 2008. Then as now, it was unclear who from the Taliban was negotiating, and whether they had the blessing of Mr. Omar.
The basic stumbling blocks remain unchanged.
“The Americans are sending more troops. The Taliban are preparing to resist. There will be no peace, no negotiations,” said Mr. Zaeef during an interview with The Globe in his well-guarded compound on the western edge of Kabul.
The Taliban have never been a unified movement. Rather, they are a disparate group of fighters motivated by different reasons united against the common enemy of foreign troops, Mr. Zaeef said.
Even if Mr. Omar did agree to sit down at the table – in Riyadh, Islamabad, Dubai, or at the tribal assembly proposed by Mr. Karzai – it is not clear that a decision by the Taliban high command to support the government would erode the insurgency in the restive south.
In Kandahar and Helmand, there are signs that the battle is increasingly being fought by pockets of breakaway fighters who would rather renounce their allegiance to Mr. Omar than lay down their weapons.
“If he changes his position we will not be obedient to him,” said a 35-year-old commander from Kandahar province who goes by the name of Abdul Ahmad.
Said Abdul Raziq, another commander from a different district of Kandahar: “Yes, Mullah Omar is our leader and if his orders are according to Allah, we will accept them. If his orders are against Allah's we will reject him strongly.”
The prospect of insurgents striking off on their own raises the possibility that political negotiations with Mr. Omar will be meaningless.
Meanwhile, military commanders in Kandahar are loath to use the phrase “reconciliation,” underscoring a lack of faith in the idea that political talks can fundamentally reshape the battle in the region.
