Taliban defectors 'are rejoining insurgency'

Almost a quarter of the low-ranking Taliban commanders lured out of the insurgency in southern Afghanistan have rejoined the fight because of broken government promises and paltry rewards, a scathing report on reintegration claims. NATO plans to spend more than $1 billion over the next five years tempting Taliban foot soldiers to lay down their arms. But research by a Kabul-based think tank warns that those efforts could make matters worse by swelling the ranks of the insurgency, exacerbating village level feuds and fueling government corruption. The report, titled Golden Surrender, by the independent Afghanistan Analysts Network, is highly critical of the British-backed Peace and Reconciliation Scheme, established in 2005, which it says has been left to flounder under bad leadership with neither the political nor the financial capital it required.