Posted on 09/06/2003 5:57:12 PM PDT by blam
Almost two years after they were defeated, thousands join the Taliban's new jihad
(Filed: 07/09/2003)
Massoud Ansari travels with militia fighters around the Kandahar region of Afghanistan
They are known as the Sarbaz - those who care nothing for their own lives - and they represent one of the greatest threats to the government of Mohammed Karzai and the international forces seeking to bring stability to the shattered country of Afghanistan.
The Taliban, supposedly vanquished in December 2001 when American and Northern Alliance forces drove them from power, are reviving and fighting back across southern Afghanistan.
Siddiqullah is one of many hundreds - possibly thousands - of young men who have been recruited to the Taliban to join their guerrilla war against government and allied forces. At 24 and recently engaged, he has put his life on hold to wage a holy war on "infidel" forces occupying his country.
"My parents insisted that I wait for a while and get married, but I told them that my first and last commitment is jihad and I don't want to make any other commitment at this stage," he said.
Siddiqullah is involved in the increasing number of hit-and-run attacks against government and American troops, moving from village to village through the bleak mountains of this rugged region, sometimes spending days travelling on foot through the desert.
"Jihad is now ordained for all of us," said Siddiqullah, and it seems that many young men agree with him. Students from religious seminaries across the border in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan have joined the war within Afghanistan, and are ready to take part in suicide missions.
Members of the Taliban say that their renewed campaign follows a reorganisation carried out by three regional commanders earlier this year, on the orders of the movement's one-eyed spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar - who, along with Osama bin Laden, remains at large.
Responding to the call, Mullah Dadullah Kakar, a one-legged veteran of the war against the Russians, and Maulvi Sadiq Hameed travelled to the Madrassas, or religious schools, in Baluchistan, to recruit students.
The third Taliban commander, Hafiz Majeed, garnered support from the tribal chieftains and elders in southern Afghanistan.
Dadullah has fought the allies ever since the Taliban regime was driven from Kabul, Kandahar and Afghanistan's other main cities. As one of Mullah Omar's most trusted lieutenants, he escaped to Pakistan, where he was sheltered by Kakar tribesmen in Baluchistan.
"The tribesman not only gave him shelter but also bought him a Land Cruiser and gave him huge amounts of money," said a Taliban fighter. Later, when they realised that he might be arrested in Baluchistan, the tribesmen moved Dadullah to a house in part of Karachi - Pakistan's biggest city - which is dominated by affluent Pathan businessmen.
Subsequently Dadullah, accompanied by religious scholars from Afghanistan, visited dozens of religious schools in Pakistan's tribal areas to lecture students and deliver instructions on jihad from Mullah Omar.
While hundreds have already joined the fight, Taliban leaders claim that many more religious students from Pakistan are ready to go.
In the past 15 days alone, about 150 people - including Afghan troops, policemen and civilians - have been killed in southern Afghanistan. The most significant attack came when 400 Taliban militia reportedly captured one of the districts of Zabul province for a few hours, killing 29 government soldiers and even hoisting a Taliban flag. They used the loudspeakers of mosques to warn residents not to co-operate with United States forces or the government.
The Taliban are drawing on support from Pathans, who complain that they are under-represented in the government compared with the ethnic Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks who have taken many of the senior jobs in the police force, army and administration.
Meanwhile, many traders, already compelled to pay extortion money to Northern Alliance warlords, subsequently lost their businesses to the looters who roam Afghanistan's highways. Those who resisted were killed.
The scarcity of reconstruction work in Afghanistan's southern regions, where people lack healthcare, education or even wells for drinking water, has boosted the Taliban's recruitment drive. Mohammed Hasan, a villager in a remote valley near the Pakistan border, said: "We supported the coalition because we thought that they would change our life, but so far nothing has changed."
Many areas of the south still look as they did under Taliban rule: men wear black turbans, women cover themselves from head to toe, and there are no cinemas or television sets. With only 15,000 American troops in the whole of Afghanistan, it is impossible for them to keep an eye on every single movement.
Mohammed Amin, a 30-year-old leading a group of Taliban in the Pashmol district of Kandahar province, said hundreds of tribesmen were acting as the eyes and ears for the movement, supplying information on the movement of government forces. Some of the volunteers children were as young as 12.
Meanwhile, he boasted, Taliban fighters had managed to join the Afghan government army, where they acted as spies and saboteurs. "They either confide to us information about the plans movement of Afghan US troops, or they attack these troops and kill them."
Taliban fighters go to great lengths to avoid detection, moving in small groups of 20 or fewer, emerging from hideouts after dark to lie in wait for government patrols, or to launch ambushes on army outposts while troops sleep.
Most of the communication is through hand-written notes, although local commanders also use satellite telephones and radios.
Amin showed me a handwritten letter bearing the signature of Mullah Omar, urging his men to fight and free the people from the "slavery of the infidel US".
However, the Taliban fighters say they do not intend trying to regain control of the whole of Afghanistan in the near future. "We've the strength, guts and force to take even Kabul any time, but we know our limitations and we wouldn't be able to sustain that control," said 28-year-old Habibullah, a recent recruit to the militia from the refugee camps in Pakistan.
"We don't have the technology to withstand B-52 air strikes. What we are trying to do is inflict maximum damage to the US troops and their allies so that they get fed up and leave our country.
"We know that won't be soon but we also know that they will get fed up eventually. Look at what our long resistance did to the Russians."
As they have denounced their humanity then they should be given no quarter.
They were not defeated.
Their government was chased from power, and their fighters were dispersed.
Defeated means that they are broken and are amenable to our will.
That is not true in Afgahnistan, and it is not true in Iraq.
That would be a MOAB moment.
The 2003 Darwin Award Contender from Afganistan!
Not many people know that.
The Saudi's passed the money through the BCCI bank which also gave money to Jimmy Carter ($13m), Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young.
The Saudi's also have Chinese ballistic missiles deployed now for decades.
I don't give a flip for their lives, either.
In fact, when Pakistan started doing this, India moved troops to the Kashmir border. Their plan worked. They forced Pakistan to divert troops to the border and away from the search for Al Qaeda, then they complained that Pakistan wasn't helping.
Hindustan has had a long history of anti-Americnism.
India votes against us at the UN more often than any country except Cuba. (That's right -- more than Red China!) It voted with the world's tyrannies to throw the United States off the Human Rights Commission.
Last year, India entered into a large oil deal with Iraq. They referred to Iraq as a "strategic partner." They have sold heavy water to Iran.
India was a longtime ally of the Soviet Union, with which it had a 100-year friendship treaty, and supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, yet opposed our actions there.
In 1999, according to The Indian Express, the Indian Defense Minister organized and led a meeting with the Ambassadors from Cuba, Red China, Iraq, Russia, Libya, and Serbia aimed at setting up a security alliance "to stop the U.S." He described America as "vulgarly arrogant."
India is not a country to be trusted.
IMHO, Dean is full of BS.
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