F***ing savages. Don't these people ever give up?
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."
Actually, it is their Defense Minister who organized the meeting to set up a security alliance "to stop the U.S."
They are the ones who have refused to cooperate with the war on terror.
They have sold oil to Saddam, calling Iraq "a strategic partner."
BTW, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which was formed in support of Fascism. The RSS, which has engaged in many acts of violence to enforce a total Hindu domination of the politics, society, and culture, is the parent organization of the BJP.
In March 2000, Prime Minister Vajpayee told an audience in New York, "I will always be a Swayamsewak." Indian cabinet members have been quoted as saying that Pakistan should be absorbed into India and that everyone who lives in India must either be a Hindu or be subservient to Hindus. This is the same kind fo religious tyranny that we overthrew in Afghanistan and arguably in Iraq.
That is why there are 17 freedom movements within India's borders.
And according to the Washington Times of January 2, 2002, India is sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Sindh.
Yes, this is less recent history. The CIA worked with the Pakis to make this a reality
Some background on the CIA and the ISI:
9/12/2001 -- Ottawa Centre for Research on Globalisation: Who is Bin Laden?"
More recent info on the ISI:
9/2/2003 -- Probe Musharraf for Taliban Ties, says Opp
4/2002 -- Jihad Unspun: The ISI
Yes, and we know about General Kirpal Randhawa, who advised Saddam, at least in the past. But America was advising Saddam then, too. And we know that the Indian lower house passed a resolution against the war. But then again, a large number of American Democrats were against it, too.
They are the ones who have refused to cooperate with the war on terror.
India, I believe, sees a hedge falling as American interests are rekindled in the region. I think this is a resurgence of an old and outdated sentiment toward Anglo interference in their lands. Good diplomacy and shared success will give us a renewed chance to cooperate. It may be that India sees America as being uncooperative, since the State department insists that India accept hundreds of casualties per year to Islamic extremist violence, some of it imported from outside -- and do nothing "while America looks after its interests and India's as well."
the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which was formed in support of Fascism.
This disturbs me, and should disturb any American patriot, as well as Indians who are students of the European Enlightenment. Hinduism needs a reformation, not a resurgence of religious nationalism. So yes, your concerns are quite valid. Yet I'm sure that Gandhi wouldn't have known what to do with 21st century Islamic religious nationalism, either. We Americans have so little to base any fears on Hinduism, while Islamic terrorism haunts us daily here via reports of attacks on Israel, and our own personal recollections of the Khobar towers, the WTC, and the Marine barracks bombing in October of 1983.
And according to the Washington Times of January 2, 2002, India is sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Sindh.
Yes, and some of your strongest criticisms are also found in NewsMax: Terrorism and the Indian Govt. and InfoTimes: BUSH MUST DECLARE INDIA A MAFIA STATE. It's interesting to note that Burton has received donations from Council of Khalistan. He has also been rumored to have sought campaign funds from Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s. And let's not forget that the Sikh separatist movement is what brought down Canadian Air flight 182 in 1985. It's a tricky region, isn't it?
This is the same kind fo religious tyranny that we overthrew in Afghanistan and arguably in Iraq.
You have no argument from me there. But there's a big difference: the Hindu nationalists are not comandeering Boeing airliners to ram through my Pentagon, my WTC, and into the cold hard ground in Pennsylvania. I stand against the Caste system, and I have no appreciation of Hinduism other than through basic history. Also, I refuse to ignore the Marxist and fascist tendencies afoot within India's borders. These forces are a different type of threat than the madrasses in Pakistan, churning out hateful youth turned against America and Israel. Until now, they have had one thing in common: a deep resentment of the idea that all things western are superior to south asian culture. But while Indians try to figure out that they belong with England and America in the trend toward a modern, democratic and capitalist globalism, Pakistan is close to rejecting it permanently in favor of a uniqely Islamic future.
The west is willing to share the east with other religions. Perhaps Hindus are willing to share with the west. But what about Islam? In Pakistan, the answer is increasingly "no." Can we afford to pretend any longer that the trend is in our favor with the Islamic bomb waiting to be unleashed on Israel or Los Angeles? I can at least ask that my government take steps.
In the book series I am writing, the Dragon's Fury Series, the worst of all scenarios develop.
India and China mend their fences to the point of joining a mutual economic alliance, working together in outsourcing to the United States and working with Russia to unilaterally supply the manpower to exploit Siberia in full.
China, behind it all, works with radical Islamic factions to foster and support the rise of a very popular and powerful Islamic leader in Iran, who is recognized by both Sunni and Sh'ia clerics as the Mahdi and begins uniting Islam.
The Chinese, using pilfered American technology and using advances of their own, develops surprising military technology suitable to employ against the US, and particularly against the US 7th fleet.
In the end, the result is China and India joined in an unholly alliance, with Islam opening the first major front against us. When the west is fully extended there, the N. Koreans attack the South and when we attempt to respond, the Chinese, while appearing to try and mediate, ambush our large naval task force that is going to the relief of S. Korea...and they employ assymetrical warfare to the max in also attacking the US mainland at the same time. The result is World War.
Is is fictional...but (if you consider the Nazi-Soviet alliance of the early WW II years), stranger things have happened.
I've spent considerable time in India, I will admit thatit is unlikely, but (as risk described) there are forces within India that would move towards economic alliances of the sort I describe if they materialized and were to their advantage. Economic alliances have a way of turning into military alliances under the right conditions. The novels describe a fictional occurance of just that.
As to Iran being liberated...I hope and pray that that is what occurs in reality. It needs to occur. But, the Islamic people are looking for a Mahdi to unite them...even many of those wanting to throw off the current corrupt mullahs. If the right person came along...there'd be hell to pay.
As it is...and as I have already stated on this thread...I hope that while we are in the neighborhood, that the Iranian people do rise up and seek our help...and that we give it.
Fregards.
Amen to that. We could start be treating Pakistan for what they are insted of driving the Indians the other way their...and for encouraging continuing reform within India to the left overs of the caste system...it's still there, I saw it everyday working with companies for quite some time.
I hope we will do those things and make of India a true ally, instead of ignoring them or leaving them uncertain and thus opening the door others to take advantage.
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