Posted on 10/24/2010 9:13:32 AM PDT by Cardhu
It is an open secret that thousands of Taliban insurgents travel to Pakistan when they need a break from the fighting in Afghanistan. The reason is simple: The Pakistani soldiers are friendly and the border is hardly controlled at all. SPIEGEL ONLINE joins one fighter as he returns to the front.
In Afghanistan cars are cheaper. Rafiullah knows this all too well. He grew up in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, a place where you can pick up almost any new model cheaply. The cars are stolen from around the world and then smuggled into the country. Rafiullah needs a car, here in Kohistan, in northern Pakistan where he has been living for a few months.
Rafiullah, 25, is an insurgent, or as he puts it, a "holy warrior." Hundreds, probably thousands of them have retreated to the mountainous regions of northern Pakistan to recover from their battles against NATO troops. Pakistan remains relatively safe, NATO soldiers are far away and the insurgents' only adversary here is the Pakistani army -- and "sometimes they are quite nice," says Rafiullah. He considers Kohistan particularly safe "because here, in contrast to regions directly on the Afghan border, there are no US drones."
Every couple of weeks he travels to Afghanistan to visit friends and relatives and meet up with fellow fighters, Rafiullah says. The border has long been the site of regular crossings. "Now many people are travelling to Afghanistan because they hope that the Western troops will soon pull out of our country and a new future will start." He will also return permanently to Afghanistan "when I get called," he said. "Now I need to go there to pick up a car." For the time being he prefers to live in Pakistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
Insurgents like Rafiullah are currently much in demand. The Afghan government wants to reintegrate them into society and the West wants to talk to them. It is a strange situation, though. On the one hand, the fighting continues. On the other, Pakistan's government and military regularly deny that the region where Rafiullah lives is a safe haven for jihadists from Afghanistan."
Sounds like the American/Mexico border.
They come over to the states, deal some drugs, commit a few crimes and just hoof it back to Mexico for a margarita.
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