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."
(sarcasm) I wonder how many of these new members of the Taliban are part of anti-american, pro-socialist media that is inside the U.S.
I think you must have misunderstood my point, because I'm arguing just that. I want to know that we are doing everything we can to fight this war, and my sense is that to some extent, Bush Junior is reacting in a Clintonian fashion. I was prepared to defend his descision to attack Iraq first (and not Pakistan) because I felt we should eliminate the weaker force first, the one closest to Israel. But then we stopped at Syria and Iran. Northwestern Pakistan is offlimits, we've appeared to pressure India not to escalate tensions over the Kashmir, and we sit idly by while Iran hurtles toward nuclear strategic power. We've pushed the roadmap to hell in Israel all during this time. And finally, our firm treatment of North Korea must also be in question until inspectors have been allowed back in, and disarmament has been certified.
I realize that cooler heads are in charge, but the roadmap is clear evidence that our current administration has some serious misconceptions about using strength to obtain peace. The near daily complaints from our state department about Israel's attacks on Hamas should be an affront to all who have vowed to fight the scourge of Islamic terror. I'm through being astounded, and I'm ready to call a spade a spade. If we don't disarm Pakistan, destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program, and stop coddling North Korea, the current sense of insecurity we have at the hands of the Axis of Evil will seem like the silly bad dreams of children.
It's time for America to take the kid gloves off.
But who knows if they actually work. For the Saudi princelings, procuring functioning high-tech military equipment, or seeing to proper maintenance and training, cuts into and conflicts with the main purpose of the procurements, which is of course the kickbacks.
Yes, it's a grave error of the left, the center, and the elites in our society to believe that America (and by extension the democracies of the world) are safe because they are powerful.
In any case, India and we have a common enemy in Pakistan. India and America have had some differences, but maybe helping each other there instead of pointing fingers will be the common experience we need to build stronger trust between our two democracies.
The "War on Terror" is unwinnable as long as the Saudis remain inviolable sources of money and activists for Jihad
And we have Indian and Chinese nationals working in practically every IT dept in the US, having access to US trade secrets, medical info, and credit info.
Sounds rational to me
Pakistan has been our ally, bothin the Cold War and in our efforts to track down terrorists. India has given us nothing but lip service and, as I showed previously, it has helped our enemies, including Iran and Iraq, and engaged in many other anti-American activities. India's record of anti-Americanism is longstanding and current.
Who is our ally and who is our enemy? I think you have it backwards.
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