Page 2 of 3 Taliban line up the heavy
artillery By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Mullah Omar, took refuge in its mountains. Local lore has it that the Taliban
leader escaped to the region on a 50cc motorbike. (This correspondent can vouch
for the fact that traveling on such a vehicle would be a challenge, given the
precipitous passes and rough tracks.)
The Taliban have systematically been killing Kabul-backed administrators in
Baghran. After a fourth high-profile
assassination, NATO sent in extra troops to the area backed by air strikes.
After heavy fighting, there has been relative calm for six months.
The Taliban claimed to have killed hundreds of British troops in this
engagement, while sustaining minimal casualties themselves. However, NATO's
Laity dismissed this as "ridiculous", saying that the International Security
Assistance Force acknowledged all deaths. "I think you can readily see that if
such an incident did happen, then it could not possibly be hidden in the UK and
would have massive political repercussions," he told Asia Times Online.
During the 10-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan starting in 1979,
Soviet troops withdrew from Baghran in the early days and never regained a
foothold there, and it became the headquarters of the mujahideen. Its isolated
and inhospitable terrain makes it a perfect base, and it has many escape routes
through the mountain passes.
Deep in the valley
"Are you mad going to Baghran, the center of the Taliban who behave like
morons?" That was the candid cry of the hotel owner when he heard of my
intentions. His hotel was hardly half an hour from Baghran. The next few days
in Baghran would confirm how correct the hotelier was.
In the last week of October, the Taliban appointed young Matiullah Agha as
district olaswal (administrator) to run affairs in conjunction with the shura
(council) of tribal elders and former mujahideen commanders who had fought
against the Soviets.
We were guests of a respected elder of Baghran, Khuda-i-Rahim, who lost both
arms and a leg fighting the Soviets. He is also known by the respectful name of
Haji Lala. Lala is a rich man, owning huge tracts of land where the only cash
crop, as all over Helmand, is poppy. Lala spent time in the United States in
the 1980s and remembers how his host, a State Department official, taught him a
few words of English.
Other respected former commanders live in this small Taliban "fiefdom", but
they have hardly any say now that the Taliban have taken power. This is one of
the major problems with the Taliban movement - it does not readily embrace the
old guard of the resistance, despite all their cooperation, and instead prefers
to stick with young lads no matter how incompetent they might be.
One such is Agha, who has never been a commander and is only in his early 20s.
Two years ago, on his way from Peshawar, Pakistan, to southwestern Afghanistan,
he was arrested in Kandahar. After just two and a half hours of interrogation
he revealed the details of a Taliban hideout. The Afghan National Army
conducted successful raids and arrested dozens of Taliban.
Despite this, on the strength of his madrassa (seminary) education, the
youth was given the job of administrator of a Taliban-controlled district.
The tribal structure of the district allows it to be self-sufficient through
community contributions. Donated money is used primarily to maintain water
canals, while the Taliban burned down the school and there is no hospital in
the area. Policing and courts are run under the Taliban's brand of Islam, with
salaries paid from octroi (toll) collections imposed on travelers and
transport vehicles.
This grassroots Taliban control is spreading. "Previously, the Americans used
to attack us from Ghor province, but now that we have successfully
re-established pockets in Ghor, we do not have any threat of attack by land,
though the possibility of aerial attacks is still there," said Moulvi
Hamidullah, a member of the Taliban shura and a military commander.
How the little kingdom of heaven works
We were scheduled to meet members of the shura and the olaswal,
Agha. As we passed through a small village in a valley, we noticed a few dozen
men positioned on the rooftops with mortars, machine-guns,
rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and rifles. We soon realized it was our
reception party. The men were Hamidullah's, and they were posing for
photographs.
After a briefing about Taliban rule in Baghran, Hamidullah called Agha on his
satellite phone and I overheard him say, "A guest is waiting and he speaks
English." The only English I had used was while taking some shots of the shura
when I had used an English description.
A few hours passed and we did not hear from Agha. Hamidullah called again and
then gathered all his men to one side and began discussing something in
earnest. (We later learned that when Hamidullah proudly said that his guest
spoke English, Agha had wrongly interpreted it and thought that an attack was
imminent - the Taliban speak in code on their satellite phones.)
Late in the afternoon, a band of armed Taliban police arrived in a van. Our
host immediately spoke to them, and after half an hour they approached us. They
were apologizing repeatedly to Hamidullah, as they had come to arrest us on the
instructions of Agha. Hamidullah had clarified that we were guests who wanted
to interview Agha.
We were then driven to the district headquarters of Baghran to meet with Agha,
who was now prepared to meet us after Hamidullah's clarification, but he needed
to do some face-saving.
He was short with a small frame, not physically imposing, yet he was in charge
of battle-hardened war veterans. Agha hails from
