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| Afghanistan |
| Taliban destabilisation continues |
| 2003-09-04 |
| EFL It would be tempting to say the Taliban is back, were the evidence not all too clear that it never went very far away. While the world’s attention has been fixed on Iraq, the other war has sparked back into life. Having nursed themselves back to health in Pakistan, Taliban forces are re-energized and determined to avenge their defeat. The Taliban’s old structures may still be largely intact; a Kabul-based security official says the "neo-Taliban" is guided by many of the same men who ran Afghanistan’s theocracy from 1996 through 2001, when it provided protection for Osama bin Laden and the terrorist camps of al-Qaeda. General Garni, military commander of Zabul, speculated last week that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s one-eyed Commander of the Faithful, might be hiding in the province’s mountains with 800 men. The Taliban has deepened its alliance with warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his fundamentalist, anti-Western Hizb-i-Islami Party, which remains potent in eastern Afghanistan. Hekmatyar used to have close ties to Iran, and Pakistani sympathizers of the Taliban say Tehran may be secretly bankrolling the rebels to tie down U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Afghanistan would not be such a worry if Taliban fighters were not able to find a haven in Pakistan among fellow ethnic Pashtuns. With their beards trimmed and often without their trademark black turbans, they blend in easily. In the Pakistani town of Quetta, as in the border village of Chaman, pro-Taliban graffiti are common and copies of recordings made by Mullah Omar are available in the marketplace. In Afghanistan the blame for the Taliban’s revival is laid firmly at Islamabad’s door. Pakistani authorities have arrested roughly 500 suspected al-Qaeda members, but Karzai has charged that Pakistan shows little inclination to apprehend top-level Talibs. "If we had sincere and honest cooperation from Pakistan," declares a security official in Kabul, "there’d be no Taliban threat in Afghanistan." Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, insists that "our focus is equally on al-Qaeda and on the Taliban." But despite public pronouncements of gratitude to Pakistan, the U.S.’s ally in the global war on terrorism, some U.S. officials are growing increasingly frustrated at Islamabad’s performance. Says a State Department official: "Even the Saudis are doing better than Pakistan in countering al-Qaeda. The only thing Pakistan does is skim 10% off the top of the al-Qaeda presence when we complain." The margin decreases when it comes to the Taliban. A Pakistani intelligence operative stationed near Chaman says his orders are "not to harass or appease" the Taliban but to let them be. Pakistan’s border provinces are controlled by Jamiat e-Ulema Islam, an extremist Islamic party, and Afghan intelligence officials claim that provincial ministers in Baluchistan help the Talibs find safe houses. "We feel much safer now," a commander told TIME in Peshawar. In Quetta, a local cleric says Taliban commanders meet openly and regularly to plan raids into their former domain. No suprise there, and the MMA ruled provinces wouldn’t have the guts to support the Talibs unless the military looks the other way. Mullah Omar is believed to have spent the summer moving throughout southwestern Afghanistan. According to Taliban spokesman Mohammed Mukhtar Mujahid, Omar has formed a 10-man leadership council and assigned each lieutenant a region to destabilize. This guerrilla war cabinet includes Mullah Dadullah Akhund, a one-legged intelligence chief who in March ordered the execution of a Salvadorean Red Cross worker in Uruzgan province, and several top leaders. A Taliban field commander tells TIME that Taliban cells have been established and charged with specific responsibilities, such as bombings, preventing children from going to school or burning schools down, attacking government troops, assassinating progovernment mullahs, targeting foreigners and propaganda. Funding is believed to come from Pakistan, some Arab countries and al-Qaeda. Mullah Nek Mohammed, a Taliban commander captured in Spin Boldak, told his interrogators in June that he would have received $850 for detonating a bomb, double that if it killed a civilian, and $2,600 for taking a soldier’s life. Killing civilians is all in a good days work |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #7 In a country under Sharia Law you can also grow, process and distribute heroine, as long as you: 1. Only sell to the infidel 2. Only buy weapons with the proceeds 3. Don't charge any interest to the guy who launders the money. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-4 8:09:21 PM |
| #6 The most interesting thing here is that instead of killing for Allah and dying for the 72 virgins, they are doing it for money (actually the promise of money, who knows if they would actually get it). That's right - they're basically guns-for-hire otherwise known as mercenaries. I suspect they get paid on time - the alternative is desertion or worse, defection to US forces, who also pay rewards for information. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-9-4 5:11:28 PM |
| #5 -- one-legged intelligence chief-- goes with the one-eyed supreme commander; equal opportunity destroyers. |
| Posted by: john 2003-9-4 10:52:32 AM |
| #4 -- one-legged intelligence chief-- I have nothing against your right leg, but then again, neither do you. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-9-4 10:04:43 AM |
| #3 The most interesting thing here is that instead of killing for Allah and dying for the 72 virgins, they are doing it for money (actually the promise of money, who knows if they would actually get it). |
| Posted by: mhw 2003-9-4 7:58:33 AM |
| #2 They probably get most of the money from the sale of Afghan heroin, routed through the ISI which controls a large part of the trade |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-9-4 7:37:08 AM |
| #1 ... and where are they getting this money? Fuck the Saudis. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-9-4 7:03:28 AM |