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Our Warlord Allies - Hammers Slammers
EFL -Newsday AP storyA Soviet bullet entered his skull behind the left ear and exited via the nearest eye socket, leaving nothing but lid. Two decades later, a permanently winking Maj. Mulla Naimatullah beams with pride when his commanding general tells this story. Then there is Col. Talib Hayatallah, who literally ate a Taliban slug. It crashed into his mouth and pulverized every tooth on the left side of his face before bursting out his cheekbone. He, too, smiles in satisfaction about the flesh-and-bone medal of valor. A pair of Associated Press reporters went along for the first two days of the patrolâs hashish-scented ride through "ground zero" of the southern-based Taliban operations, which have spread inland from the border regions during the past six weeks to an area devoid of any international presence. The idea of disarming career guerrillas seemed as alien as southeast Afghanistanâs shades-of-beige landscape, with jagged mountain ridges that loom like hallucinatory skyscrapers, roads cut into maze-like gorges that turn a truck into a target, and treacherous stretches of rock quarry-like paths on which dust clouds often allow zero visibility. The guerrillas, shrouded in robes over their camouflage fatigues, traveled in 10 light pickup trucks and two larger trucks filled with fuel, spare tires and other supplies. They were on a loosely planned mission to fly the flag for the isolated, impressionable people of the flyspeck villages that are often hideaways for the Taliban -- a term that has been loosely used of late to include any enemy of the U.S.-backed central government. As night fell, some of the scouts noticed what seemed like the same pickup truck pass them a second time. They moved slowly into the mountains, then stopped when they saw a pair of headlights coming toward them. It was the same truck, doubling back and, seemingly, scouting their movements. Taliban spy? Two soldiers were the first to burst out of their vehicles, swinging their Kalashnikovs, and soon dozens of others were pulling a young man from the truck. Terrified, he said he was heading toward a town and had lost his way. He was asked if he knew the name of a prominent tribal leader who lives in a village near the town. "Yes, heâs my neighbor," the young man said. "And the name of the village?" the general asked. The man didnât know. They wear their wounds of allegiance with honor, yet they are rogues the Bush administration aims to disarm. Disarm? The idea seems incomprehensible even to callow young militiaman like Lala Jann, who signed on after the Taliban were toppled at the age of 19. "This unit is an efficient unit," he said of the 1818 Advanced Special Ops, many of whom smoke the dizzying hashish that is a staple of the culture, especially among secular groups like Kandaharâs Sunni Muslims. Now 21, he was born into war and plans to carry a gun even if peace finally takes hold. His future, he said, is as a soldier in south Afghanistan, though he has no scars to show for it. Not yet. I donât know that there is much benefit to disarming units like this one. They donât appear to have set up a fiefdom. Iâm not sure they have many useful skills to preform any other function in society. Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-05 |
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