Interesting info on the Taliban's new structure EFL
As the fiery chief justice of the Taliban's Supreme Court, Abdul Salam shook the world once, proclaiming the right to execute foreign aid workers accused of converting Afghans to Christianity. Today, not only is Justice Salam back, talking to a foreign reporter for the first time since the Taliban fell a year and a half ago, but he says the Taliban are back as well. Regrouped, rearmed, and well-funded, they are ready to carry on guerrilla war as long as it takes to expel US forces from Afghanistan.
It seems like they've been 'regrouping' for a while now, but obviously an upsurge in violence has been going on; it should be taken seriously despite the pathetic level of resistance put up so far.
The reorganized Taliban are mounting increasingly brazen attacks on Afghan soil. In Zabul Province last month, for instance, Taliban forces took control of two remote districts near the Pakistani border for nearly a week. Afghan military forces, backed up by US Special Forces and helicopter gunships, eventually dislodged the Taliban fighters.
Didn't hear much about that..
Taliban sources in Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources say that the Taliban now has a recognizable hierarchy of leaders — some operating from Afghanistan and some from the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan's volatile Northwest Frontier Province.
| More from the latter than from the former... |
At the top of the military command structure is Mullah Beradar, who hails from Deh Rawood in Urozgan, the home village of former supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Underneath Mullah Beradar are a number of Taliban commanders and religious leaders assigned to different territories. The most active region - from Nimroz Province to Helmand, on up to Kandahar, Zabul, and north to Urozgan - is under the joint control of Beradar's top three deputies. Akhtar Usmani was the Taliban corps commander in Kandahar. Mullah Abdur Razzaq was the Taliban Interior Minister. And Mullah Dadullah was the military chief in the northern city of Kunduz, on the front lines against the Northern Alliance when the Taliban lines crumbled.
| In true Islamic fashion, surrender is a temporary thing... |
According to eyewitnesses, the men who captured an Ecuadorian Red Cross aid worker, Ricardo Munguia, in Urozgan Province last month, called up Mullah Dadullah on their satellite phone and under Dadullah's orders, shot Munguia dead.
| Because he was an infidel, of course... |
The Taliban has commanders all across the country. In Paktia, Paktika, Khost, and Ghazni provinces, Mullah Saifur Rehman is in charge. He was the commander of Taliban forces during the US coalition's indecisive battle, Operation Anaconda, in the Shah-e Kot mountains. In Nangrahar, Laghman, and Konar provinces, the Taliban's former deputy prime minister, Mullah Kabir, is supreme commander, working along with activists of the Hezb e-Islami. According to Taliban watchers in Pakistan, Mullah Kabir is thought to have close ties with Pakistan's intelligence agencies, including the secretive Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
| No surprise there. The question is whether those are official ties or unofficial. My guess is that they're official... |
In Pakistan, Taliban commanders are reportedly working in alliance with like-minded leaders of religious parties who now control two provinces along the Afghan-Pakistan border. In the tribal areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, Qari Akhtar is the chief operations commander; in the Tor Ghar mountains near the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, Mullah Mohammad Ibrahim is the Taliban's top leader.
| I'd expect to see some really close ties with Fazlur Rehman and the JUI-F on the Pak end, and also with Qazi and JI, who're probably handling the money... |
Shahzada Zulfikar, a Quetta-based political analyst, says that Taliban commanders continue to receive support from Pakistan's powerful and secretive intelligence agencies, as they did more openly during the Taliban government. "The Taliban were and are still friends of Pakistan," says Mr. Zulfikar. "Pakistan ditched the Taliban due to American pressure, for a while, but now there are fears that their relationship might be restored due to the increasing presence of Indians in Afghanistan." Taliban activists in Pakistan and Afghanistan say they are receiving direct support from Pakistan's powerful religious parties, including Jamaat-i Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i Islam, which control the government of two key border provinces. "We are at home as we were before (President) Musharraf hatched a conspiracy against us at the behest of the Americans," says Mir Jan, a Taliban fighter in Quetta. "But our brothers [the mullahs] are in power, so it means we are in power."
| Two sides of the same coin. The only difference is the writing on the passport, and that's probably forged... |
In Kabul, former Taliban Supreme Court Justice Salam says that the Taliban's chief support now comes from Afghanistan's powerful neighbors — Russia, Iran, and Pakistan — who are suspicious of America's continued presence in the region more than 18 months after the collapse of the Taliban. Proving any covert support for the Taliban is, of course, monumentally difficult. No nation admits to supporting Al Qaeda or its allies, including Pakistan. And the Bush administration has praised Pakistan for its cooperation in rounding up some 400 suspected Al Qaeda members. But even during the decade-long Afghan jihad against the Soviets, the Pakistani government never admitted to funding the mujahideen.
Only diplomatic and moral support
Professor Rubin casts doubt on the supposed support of Russia and Iran, in part because these two countries were bitter enemies of the Taliban in the past. "In the case of Russia, it would be very strange because they believe the Taliban were helping the rebels in Chechnya and the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan," Rubin says. "In the case of Iran, they practically went to war with the Taliban, but given the way Iran conducts its foreign policy, that doesn't mean they wouldn't support them for one reason or the other."
| It also doesn't mean that one end of the government would play a few hands at the Great Game in the name of Islamic solidarity without telling the other... |
But, Rubin adds, Pakistan's hand is much harder to watch, because state governments elected last October have placed openly pro-Taliban leaders in power. "Pakistan may be allowing its provincial governments to conduct their own foreign security policy," he says, "to support the Taliban rather than hand them over, which is convenient for the federal government."
| But ISI isn't a provincial-level organization. And the government should be aware of where its money and resources go. It's not something that could be kept real secret for real long... |
Engineer Hamidullah, the Taliban's former deputy chief of finance, says that today's Taliban are at least as well funded as they were when they were in government. Much of the funding came through a black-market banking system called hawala, which is common throughout the Middle East and South Asia. But Mr. Hamidullah says that Pakistan generally sent its money by hand, using ISI officers. "During Taliban times, Pakistani colonels would bring money to support Taliban soldiers," he says. Today's Taliban continues to receive funding, he adds, some of it from rich Arab donors. "There are some countries that are against the polices of the US and the United Nations, and they support the guerrillas. The most important role belongs to Russia, Iran, and Pakistan."
The FSB, VEVAK and the ISI. I wouldn't put a thing past anything, but I find Russian involvement unlikely, and the Iranians probably send most of their support to Ismail Khan and the Shi'ite Hazaras. The only question I have about Pakistan's involvement is just how far up the chain the orders come from. |