Page 1 of 2 Deep in the land of the Taliban
By Anand Gopal
(This piece is a joint project of TomDispatch.com and the
Nation Magazine, where a shorter version appears in print.)
If there is an exact location marking the West's failures in Afghanistan, it is
the modest police checkpoint that sits on the main highway 20 minutes south of
Kabul. The post signals the edge of the capital, a city of spectacular tension,
blast walls, and standstill traffic. Beyond this point, Kabul's gritty,
low-slung buildings and narrow streets give way to a vast plain of serene
farmland hemmed in by sandy mountains. In this valley in Logar province, the
American-backed government of Afghanistan no longer exists.
Instead of government officials, men in muddied black turbans
with assault rifles slung over their shoulders patrol the highway, checking for
thieves and "spies". The charred carcass of a tanker, meant to deliver fuel to
international forces further south, sits belly up on the roadside.
The police say they don't dare enter these districts, especially at night when
the guerrillas rule the roads. In some parts of the country's south and east,
these insurgents have even set up their own government, which they call the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the name of the former Taliban government).
They mete out justice in makeshift sharia courts. They settle land disputes
between villagers. They dictate the curricula in schools.
Just three years ago, the central government still controlled the provinces
near Kabul. But years of mismanagement, rampant criminality, and mounting
civilian casualties have led to a spectacular resurgence of the Taliban and
other related groups. Today, the Islamic Emirate enjoys de facto control in
large parts of the country's south and east. According to ACBAR, an umbrella
organization representing more than 100 aid agencies, insurgent attacks have
increased by 50% over the past year. Foreign soldiers are now dying at a higher
rate here than in Iraq.
The burgeoning disaster is prompting the Afghan government of President Hamid
Karzai and international players to speak openly of negotiations with sections
of the insurgency.
The new nationalist Taliban
Who exactly are the Afghan insurgents? Every suicide attack and kidnapping is
usually attributed to "the Taliban". In reality, however, the insurgency is far
from monolithic. There are the shadowy, kohl-eyed mullahs and head-bobbing
religious students, of course, but there are also erudite university students,
poor, illiterate farmers, and veteran anti-Soviet commanders. The movement is a
melange of nationalists, Islamists, and bandits that fall uneasily into three
or four main factions. The factions themselves are made up of competing
commanders with differing ideologies and strategies, who nonetheless agree on
one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners.
It wasn't always this way. When US-led forces toppled the Taliban government in
November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited
regime. "We felt like dancing in the streets," one Kabuli told me. As US-backed
forces marched into Kabul, the Afghan capital, remnants of the old Taliban
regime split into three groups. The first, including many Kabul-based
bureaucrats and functionaries, simply surrendered to the Americans; some even
joined the Karzai government. The second, comprised of the movement's senior
leadership, including its leader Mullah Omar, fled across the border into
Pakistan, where they remain to this day. The third and largest group - foot
soldiers, local commanders, and provincial officials - quietly melted into the
landscape, returning to their farms and villages to wait and see which way the
wind blew.
Meanwhile, the country was being carved up by warlords and criminals. On the
brand-new highway connecting Kabul to Kandahar and Herat, built with millions
of Washington's dollars, well-organized groups of bandits would regularly
terrorize travelers. "[Once], 30, maybe 50 criminals, some in police uniforms,
stopped our bus and shot [out] our windows," Muhammadullah, the owner of a bus
company that regularly uses the route, told me. "They searched our vehicle and
stole everything from everyone." Criminal syndicates, often with government
connections, organized kidnapping sprees in urban centers like the former
Taliban stronghold of Kandahar city. Often, those few who were caught would
simply be released after the right palms were greased.
Onto this landscape of violence and criminality rode the Taliban again,
promising law and order. The exiled leadership, based in Quetta, Pakistan,
began reactivating its networks of fighters who had blended into the country's
villages. They resurrected relationships with Pashtun tribes. (The insurgents,
historically a predominantly Pashtun movement, still have very little influence
among other Afghan minority ethnic groups like the Tajiks and Hezaras.) With
funds from wealthy Arab donors and training from the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani intelligence apparatus, they were able to
bring weapons and expertise into Pashtun villages.
In one village after another, they drove out the remaining minority of
government sympathizers through intimidation and assassination. Then they won
over the majority with promises of security and efficiency. The guerrillas
implemented a harsh version of sharia law, cutting off the hands of thieves and
shooting adulterers. They were brutal, but they were also incorruptible.
Justice no longer went to the highest bidder. "There's no crime any more,
unlike before," said Abdul Halim, who lives in a district under Taliban
control.
The insurgents conscripted fighters from the villages they operated in, often
paying them US$200 a month - more than double the typical police salary. They
adjudicated disputes between tribes and between landowners. They protected
poppy fields from the eradication attempts of the central government and
foreign armies - a move that won them the support of poor farmers whose only
stable income came from poppy cultivation. Areas under insurgent control were
consigned to having neither reconstruction nor social services, but for rural
villagers who had seen much foreign intervention and little economic progress
under the Karzai government, this was hardly new.
At the same time, the Taliban's ideology began to undergo a transformation. "We
are fighting to free our country from foreign domination," Taliban spokesman
Qari Yousef Ahmadi told me over the phone. "The Indians fought for their
independence against the British. Even the Americans once waged an insurgency
to free their own country." This emerging nationalistic streak appealed to
Pashtun villagers growing weary of the American and North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) presence.
The insurgents are also fighting to install a version of sharia law in the
country. Nonetheless, the famously puritanical guerrillas have moderated some
of their most extreme doctrines, at least in principle. Last year, for
instance, Mullah Omar issued an edict declaring music and parties - banned in
the Taliban's previous incarnation - permissible. Some Taliban commanders have
even started accepting the idea of girls' education. Certain hard-line leaders
like the one-legged Mullah Daddullah, a man of legendary brutality (whose
beheading binges at times reportedly proved too much even for Mullah Omar) were
killed by international forces.
Meanwhile, a more pragmatic leadership started taking the reins. US
intelligence officers believe that day-to-day leadership of the movement is now
actually in the hands of the politically savvy Mullah Brehadar, while Mullah
Omar retains a largely figurehead position. Brehadar may be behind the push to
moderate the movement's message in order to win greater support.
Even at the local level, some provincial Taliban officials are tempering
older-style Taliban policies in order to win local hearts and minds. Three
months ago in a district in Ghazni province, for instance, the insurgents
ordered all schools closed. When tribal elders appealed to the Taliban's ruling
religious council in the area, the religious judges reversed the decision and
reopened the schools.
However, not all field commanders follow the injunctions against banning music
and parties. In many Taliban-controlled districts such amusements are still
outlawed, which points to the movement's decentralized nature. Local commanders
often set their own policies and initiate attacks without direct orders from
the Taliban leadership.
The result is a slippery movement that morphs from district to district. In
some Taliban-controlled districts of Ghazni province, an Afghan caught working
for a non-governmental organization (NGO) would meet certain death. In parts of
neighboring Wardak province, however, where the insurgents are said to be more
educated and understand the need for development, local NGOs can function with
the guerrillas' permission.
The 'other Taliban
Never short of guns and guerrillas, Afghanistan has proven fertile ground for a
whole host of insurgent groups in addition to the Taliban.
Naqibullah, a university student with a sparse beard who spoke in soft,
measured tones, was not quite 30 when we met. We were in the back seat of a
parked dusty Corolla on a pockmarked road near Kabul University, where he
studied medicine. Naqibullah (his nom de guerre) and his friends at the
university are members of Hizb-i-Islami, an insurgent group led by warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allied to the Taliban. His circle of friends meet
regularly in the university's dorm rooms, discussing politics and watching DVD
videos of recent attacks.
Over the past year, his circle has shrunk: Sadiq was arrested while attempting
a suicide bombing. Wasim was killed when he tried to assemble a bomb at home.
Fouad killed himself in a successful suicide attack on a US base. "The
Americans have their B-52s," Naqibullah explained. "Suicide attacks are our
versions of B-52s." Like his friends, Naqibullah, too, had considered the
possibility of becoming a "B-52". "But it would kill too many civilians," he
told me. Besides, he had plans to use his education. He said, "I want to teach
the uneducated Taliban."
For years, Hizb-i-Islami fighters have had a reputation for being more educated
and worldly than their Taliban counterparts, who are often illiterate farmers.
Their leader, Hekmatyar, studied engineering at Kabul University in the 1970s,
where he made a name of a sort for himself by hurling acid in the faces of
unveiled women.
He established Hizb-i-Islami to counter growing Soviet influence in the country
and, in the 1980s, his organization became one of the most extreme
fundamentalist parties as well as the leading group fighting the Soviet
occupation. Ruthless, powerful, and anti-communist, Hekmatyar proved a capable
ally for Washington, which funneled millions of dollars and tons of weapons
through the Pakistani ISI to his forces.
After the Soviet withdrawal, Hekmatyar and the other mujahideen commanders
turned their guns on each other, unleashing a devastating civil war from which
Kabul, in particular, has yet to
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