After no communication with his field commanders since 9/11, Taliban chief Mullah Omar has emerged from the shadows this year and inspired his troops to plan a major offensive against US-led forces in Afghanistan, reports weekly magazine Newsweek. According to the report, written by Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau, Taliban field commander Ghul Agha Akhund has received two communications from Omar this year, the first since 9/11. One message congratulates Taliban fighters for “getting even with the infidel invaders” last year and urges them to launch “a more intensive jihad” this year. “This message from our leader is like tonic medicine,” Akhund says. “It makes us stronger.”Earlier in January, Akhund received an audiocassette of Mullah Omar praising the virtue of self-sacrifice. “Carry out your Islamic responsibilities as I carry out mine,” he quotes the tape as saying. “Don’t look for promotions or benefits. Just serve the jihad.”
The message electrified Ghul Agha. “For the last few years, we heard only rumours about Mullah Omar,” he says. “Now we hear from him directly!” The commander and his men are energetically preparing to launch an offensive as soon as the snow melts; he hopes this year they will cut off the provincial capital.
The Newsweek correspondents viewed a new recruiting video in which Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah Akhund addresses an audience of some 400 men who are described as trained suicide bombers. “Our suicide bombers are countless,” he says in a videotaped response to questions from Newsweek. “Hundreds have already registered their names, and hundreds more are on the waiting list.”
Dadullah claimed last week to have more than 6,000 armed guerrillas in underground hideouts, awaiting the moment to strike. “The attack is imminent,” he told Al Jazeera.
Western forces are bracing for one. Thousands of reinforcements have deployed to Afghanistan, bringing the coalition’s total armed strength to nearly 50,000. The Newsweek report says an estimated 3,000 Taliban fighters died in last year’s engagements alone. “But replacing those losses has been easy - thanks largely to the 47-year-old Mullah Omar.” It notes that the group’s recruiters “owe much of their continued success to his saintly reputation. To his followers, Omar stands in bold contrast to the corrupt thugs who have returned to control many parts of Afghanistan and to the foreign-influenced Kabul government.”
The report says Omar “effectively vanished” after the Taliban’s fall, but “he gradually emerged from hiding and in 2004 began travelling from camp to camp in remote Taliban-held areas, riding on the back of a motorbike to rally his old troops and recruit new ones”. Only a few trusted assistants know where the fugitive leader is now, but “wherever he’s hidden, Omar is closer than ever to many of his followers,” says Newsweek. While previously it could take six weeks for senior Taliban officials to send a message to Omar and get a reply, “Now, thanks to the Taliban’s military gains and growing network of messengers and mobile phones, the Shura can send Omar a question and get his answer within 24 hours.”
