Q+A-Talking to Afghanistan's Taliban?

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he would guarantee security for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if he ever wanted to negotiate and said Western allies should remove him or leave if they disagreed with that.

With the Taliban insurgency spreading seven years after the hardline Islamists were forced from power, the possibility of talks with more moderate Taliban leaders is increasingly being considered, both in Afghanistan and among its allies.

WHY ARE THERE TALKS ABOUT TALKS WITH THE TALIBAN?

- Foreign troops levels in Afghanistan are at their highest since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 -- as are their casualty rates -- but the insurgency is spreading. The prospect of a bloody, drawn-out stalemate has focussed attention on the possibility of talks to end the conflict. Talks with insurgents in Iraq are seen as having contributed to an improvement in security there.

TO WHOM MIGHT THE GOVERNMENT TALK?

- The government says it is willing to talk to anyone who recognises the constitution. The Taliban have never been a homogeneous group, but an alliance of like-minded factions. Even during their rule, for example, there were some Taliban officials who were opposed to a close alliance with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The government is hoping to draw moderate Taliban, or perhaps opportunistic commanders or ethnic Pashtun tribal leaders who support the Taliban, into talks to isolate the hardliners.

DOES EVERYONE AGREE TALKS ARE A GOOD IDEA?

- The U.S. military is bound to be wary of any talks that it thinks merely give the Taliban time to regroup. The United States has been critical of pacts the Pakistani government has struck with militants in that country.

- However, U.S. General David Petraeus, credited with helping save Iraq from all-out civil war, has made reconciliation and regional involvement major themes of a review of U.S. military policy in Afghanistan that he is overseeing as the new head of U.S. Central Command.