AFP - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ruled out talking to the "really bad guys" in Afghanistan, promising that a new drive to woo moderate Taliban would not set back women's rights.

Clinton doubted that Afghan leaders or the international community would reach out to hardliners like Mullah Omar, who headed the Taliban regime which imposed an austere brand of Islam from 1996 to 2001.

"We're not going to talk to the really bad guys because the really bad guys are not ever going to renounce Al-Qaeda and renounce violence and agree to re-enter society," Clinton said in an interview with National Public Radio broadcast on Friday.

"That is not going to happen with people like Mullah Omar and the like."

Clinton was speaking from London, where a global conference threw its backing behind a multimillion-dollar fund to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan to integrate militants who lay down their arms.

The chief US diplomat, a longtime advocate of women's rights, acknowledged that some Afghan women were concerned about dealing with the Taliban -- whose regime forbade women from going to school, working or traveling on their own.

However, she added: "I don't think there is cause for alarm that the current government or any foreseeable government would turn the clock back like that."

She said it was crucial for women's rights that "there is enough power in the state and through the new Afghan security forces to make sure that there's never a resurgence of the Taliban that would come close to taking over large parts of the country.

"That's what we're preventing," said Clinton.