KABUL, May 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to hold his first direct talks with members of the ousted Taliban government, the Qatari satellite channel Al-Jazaara said on Sunday, May 4.

“A delegation of Taliban, led by former Health Minister Mullah Abbas, secretly arrived in the Afghan capital for the expected talks, the first since the Taliban regime crumbled one year and a half ago,” the Qatar-based channel’s correspondent told his channel.

“The step is meant to improve relations between the two sides and as part of the Afghan government’s efforts to woo some Taliban members,” he said.

The Afghan leader hailed some Taliban members in a meeting with Afghan scholars, saying the movement did a great service to the war-torn country and that it has some “good” elements.

The talks also came against several attacks against U.S. forces here, believed to be carried out by Taliban members.

It is not clear whether the Karzai government was given the green light from the U.S. to take such an action.

But the talks are widely expected to be okayed by Washington which had earlier failed to approach members of Taliban.

Since deposing the Taliban regime in November 2001, a U.S.-dominated military coalition of some 10,000 troops is still in Afghanistan allegedly to hunt Taliban and al-Qaeda members.

This week suspected Taliban seized control of part of a district in southern Zabul province before hundreds of Afghan troops were sent to the area to back local forces. Last Friday, two U.S. servicemen were killed in a fire fight near the Pakistani border.

Over the past month, a surge of attacks on foreign and government targets triggered fears the ousted Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies were regrouping for a spring offensive.

Meanwhile, the recent ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and last year's defeat of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan were touted by U.S. officials as significant advances.

U.S. President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared on Thursday, May 1, the fighting all but over in both countries but stopped short of claiming final victory.

"The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide," Bush said aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the southern California coast.

Rumsfeld, on a flying visit to Afghanistan, said the majority of the country was secure but acknowledged there were "still pockets of resistance."

Karzai’s government has attempted to disarm some 100,000 militiamen and reintegrate them into the nascent national army but warlords and local militias retain control of much of the country.

Fighting between rival militias left 38 civilians dead, including women and children, in northern Badghis province at the end of March. Another 26 people were found executed with their hands tied.