Excerpts from a much longer article...
A revitalized Taliban army is drawing recruits from militant groups in Pakistan, including Al Qaeda loyalists, as it fights an escalating guerrilla war against U.S. forces and their allies across the border in Afghanistan.
| We never doubted that a bit... |
These fighters are answering the call from Muslim clerics to wage jihad, or holy war, against U.S.-led forces, according to Taliban members and supporters as well as Pakistani militants interviewed on both sides of the border. The Taliban is also exploiting the alienation felt by ethnic Pushtuns in Afghanistan because of continued insecurity, a scarcity of development projects and ongoing U.S. military operations.
| "Cause? Effect? They're related? When did that start?" |
But even as fighting increases, a relatively moderate element of the Taliban is said to be interested in participating in national elections next June, and discussing a replacement for Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's fugitive leader.
| Trade him in on a dog and shoot the dog... |
Afghan authorities have blamed the Taliban for a string of attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan that have killed more than 60 Afghan civilians, pro-government Muslim clerics, police and soldiers since mid-July. U.S. and Afghan forces say they have killed at least several dozen suspected Taliban fighters in the same period. Despite the presence of thousands of U.S. and other international troops, the Taliban fighters and their allies hope to eventually retake the southern city of Kandahar, once Omar's seat of power, said a local Pakistani commander of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, a longtime ally of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
| They're not doing really well with gripping reality... |
The commander runs a madrasa, or Koranic school, and says he has crossed into Afghanistan seven times since late 2001, to aid the Taliban's war against U.S.-led forces. In one case, he said with a sly smile, Pakistani soldiers guarding the border saw him and did nothing. In any case, he said, borders are irrelevant for him and like-minded Muslims. "We don't believe in any boundaries or separate countries for Muslims — there is only one Islam," he said. "These people are going [to Afghanistan] because there is a fatwa from religious scholars that says there is a jihad against Americans there. The fact is that now the situation in the Pushtun belt is very critical compared with other parts of Afghanistan. Now all Pushtuns are reuniting against the Americans."
| "All of them we can round up, at least..." |
Local residents say other Pakistan-based militant groups crossing into Afghanistan include the Al Badr militia and Hizbul Moujahedeen. The latter is an old ally of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Harkat, Hizbul Moujahedeen and Al Badr are among the main militant groups fighting in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. But under U.S. pressure Pakistan has curbed those infiltrations, leaving militants ripe for recruitment to the pro-Taliban jihad in Afghanistan. Harkat was one of the founders of Osama bin Laden's "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," announced at a news conference near the Afghan frontier town of Khost in 1998.
| Yes, they did declare war on us, didn't they? |
Taliban member Nadir Khan recently sat in the back seat of a reporter's car not far from a U.S. base and described how he and other Taliban members move back and forth across the Pakistani border, about an hour's drive away. They carry out attacks and return to their bases in Pakistan, he said. He said he attended a meeting of Taliban commanders in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan's largest city, on July 12. "It was like a Cabinet meeting," he said. "The people I met in Peshawar even had guns with them," Khan said. "Pakistan is not stopping all these meetings because Pakistan does not like the government in Afghanistan. And they will work hard to destroy the government here."
| Since they regard Afghanistan as their western provinces... |
The Afghan government has provided Pakistani and U.S. authorities with a list of Taliban officials and where they live in Pakistan. Kabul's list of Taliban leaders said to be in Pakistan includes Abdul Kabir, the former Taliban deputy prime minister of Afghanistan who is No. 3 in the Taliban hierarchy. Afghan authorities say Kabir lives in Kohat, a Peshawar suburb that also is home to a Pakistani army base. A resident said Kabir was a regular visitor to Peshawar's busy Khyber Bazaar and was seen there as recently as mid-August. But Kabir is careful not to give out a phone number or address, the resident said. A source in Quetta said the Taliban's high-profile former consul general in Peshawar, Maulvi Najibullah, is now raising funds in Quetta for the guerrilla war. Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, an aide to Musharraf, denied that the Taliban was operating from Pakistan, and said his government has asked Kabul and the U.S.-led coalition for any information that has led them to conclude otherwise.
| "Nope. Nope. Can't find 'em without an address and phone number..." |
Qureshi also said it would be impossible for provincial governments in Pakistan's border areas to defy the federal government and aid the Afghan insurgency.
| That's what we think, too... |
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