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1KANDAHAR 1994:THE ORIGINSOF THE TALIBANThe Taliban Governor of Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed HassanRehmani, has a disconcerting habit of pushing the table in frontof him with his one good leg. By the time any conversation withhim is over, the wooden table has been pushed round and round his chaira dozen times. Hassan's nervous twitch is perhaps a psychological need tofeel that he still has a leg or perhaps he is just exercizing, keeping his onegood leg on the move at all times.Hassan's second limb is a wooden peg-leg, in the style of Long JohnSilver, the pirate in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It's an oldwooden stump. The varnish rubbed off long ago, scratches cover its lengthand bits of wood have been gouged out - no doubt by the difficulties ofnegotiating the rocky terrain outside his office. Hassan, one of the oldestTaliban leaders at over 40 and one of the few who actually fought Soviettroops, was a founder member of the Taliban and is considered to benumber two in the movement to his old friend Mullah Omar.Hassan lost his leg in 1989 on the Kandahar front, just before Soviettroops began their withdrawal from Afghanistan. Despite theavailability of new artificial limbs now being fitted to the country's millionsof amputees by international aid agencies, Hassan says he prefers hispeg-leg. He also lost a finger tip, the result of another wound caused byshrapnel. The Taliban leadership can boast to be the most disabled in theworld today and visitors do not know how to react, whether to laugh orto cry. Mullah Omar lost his right eye in 1989 when a rocket explodedclose by. The Justice Minister Nuruddin Turabi and the former ForeignMinister Mohammed Ghaus are also one-eyed. The Mayor of Kabul,
18 ~ ISLAM OIL AND THE <strong>NEW</strong> GREAT GAME IN CENTRAL ASIAAbdul Majid, has one leg and two fingers missing.. Other leaders, evemilitary commanders, have similar disabilities.The Taliban's wounds are a constant reminder of 20 years of war, which|has killed over 1.5 million people and devastated the country. The SovieUnion poured some US$5 billion a year into Afghanistan to subdue theMujaheddin or a total of US$45 billion - and they lost. The US commit-jted some four to five billion dollars between 1980 and 1992 in aid to theMujaheddin. US funds were matched by Saudi Arabia and together witsupport from other European and Islamic countries, the Mujaheddin]received a total of over US$10 billion. 1 Most of this aid was in the foof lethal modern weaponry given to a simple agricultural people who Iit with devastating results.The war wounds of the Taliban leaders also reflect the bloodybrutal style of war that took place in and around Kandahar in the 198The Durrani Pashtuns who inhabit the south and Kandahar receivedless aid through the CIA and Western aid pipeline which armed, firand provided logistics such as medical facilities to the Mujaheddin,compared to the Ghilzai Pashtuns in the east of the country and arouKabul. The aid was distributed by Pakistan's Interservices Intelligen(ISI), who tended to treat Kandahar as a backwater and the Durranis witsuspicion. As a consequence the nearest medical facilities for a woundeKandahari Mujaheddin was a bone-shaking two-day camel ride to Quetacross the border in Pakistan. Even today first-aid amongst the Taliban israre, doctors are all too few and surgeons on the front line non-existentVirtually the only medical practitioners in the country are the hospitof the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).By chance I was in Kandahar in December 1979 and watched the :Soviet tanks roll in. Teenage Soviet soldiers had driven for two days fronthe Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan in Central Asia to Herat and theon to Kandahar along a metalled highway that the Soviets had themselvejbuilt in the 1960s. Many of the soldiers were of Central Asian origitThey got out of their tanks, dusted off their uniforms and ambled acrto the nearest stall for a cup of sugarless green tea - a staple part of idiet in both Afghanistan and Central Asia. The Afghans in thejust stood and stared. On 27 December Soviet Spetsnatz or Special Forcehad stormed the palace of President Hafizullah Amin in Kabul, killehim, occupied Kabul and appointed Babrak Karmal as President.When the resistance began around Kandahar it was based on the tribal'network of the Durranis. In Kandahar the struggle against the Soviets waa tribal jihad led by clan chiefs and ulema (senior religious scholars) ratthan an ideological jihad led by Islamicists. In Peshawar there were sevMujaheddin parties which were recognised by Pakistan and receivedshare of aid from the CIA pipeline. Significantly none of the seven partiesKANDAHAR 1994: THE ORIGINS OF THE TALIBAN ~ 19were led by Durrani Pashtuns. In Kandahar all seven parties had a following,but the most popular parties in the south were those based on tribalties such as the Harakat-e-Inquilab Islami (Movement of the IslamicRevolution) led by Maulvi Mohammed Nabi Mohammedi and anotherHizb-e-Islami (Party of Islam) led by Maulvi Younis Khalis. Before thewar both leaders were well known in the Pashtun belt and ran their ownmadrassas or religious schools.For commanders in the south party loyalty depended on which Peshawarleader would provide money and arms. Mullah Omar joined Khalis'sHizb-e-Islami while Mullah Hassan joined Harakat. 'I knew Omarextremely well but we were fighting on different fronts and in differentgroups but sometimes we fought together,' said Hassan. 2 Also popular wasthe National Islamic Front led by Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, who advocatedthe return of the Durrani ex-King Zahir Shah to lead the Afghanresistance - a move that was strongly opposed by Pakistan and the USA.The ex-King was living in Rome and continued to be a popular figureamongst the Kandaharis, who hoped that his return would reassert theleadership role of the Durrani tribes.The contradictions within the Pashtun Mujaheddin leadership were toweaken the Pashtuns as the war progressed. The ulema valued the historicalideals of early Islamic history and rarely challenged traditional Afghantribal structures like the Jirga. They were also much more accommodatingtowards the ethnic minorities. The Islamicists denigrated the tribal structureand pursued a radical political ideology in order to bring about anIslamic revolution in Afghanistan. They were exclusivists which madethe minorities suspicious of them.Thus Harakat had no coherent party structure and was just a loosealliance between commanders and tribal chiefs, many of whom had justa rudimentary madrassa education. On the other hand Gulbuddin Hikmetyar'sHizb-e-Islami built a secretive, highly centralized, political organizationwhose cadres were drawn from educated urban Pashtuns. Prior to thewar the Islamicists barely had a base in Afghan society, but with moneyand arms from the CIA pipeline and support from Pakistan, they builtone and wielded tremendous clout. The traditionalists and the Islamicistsfought each other mercilessly so that by 1994, the traditional leadershipin Kandahar had virtually been eliminated, leaving the field free for thenew wave of even more extreme Islamicists - the Taliban.The battle for Kandahar was also determined by its own particular history.Kandahar is Afghanistan's second largest city with a 1979 pre-warPopulation of about 250,000 and twice that today. The old city has beeninhabited since 500 BC, but just 35 miles away lies Mundigak, a Bronze-Age village settled around 3,000 BC, which was once part of the IndusValley civilization. Kandaharis have always been great traders as the city
Page 1 and 2: YALE NOTA BENE"The broader storyher
Page 3 and 4: TalibanMilitant Islam,Oil and Funda
Page 5 and 6: Vi ~ CONTENTSChapter 8A Vanished Ge
Page 7 and 8: AFGHANISTAN•^ UZBEKISTAN J TAJIKI
Page 9 and 10: 2 ~ TALIBANaccounts for some 40 per
Page 11 and 12: "6 ~ TALIBANgas riches of landlocke
Page 13 and 14: 10 ~ TALIBANgious mix that was to m
Page 15: Part 1History of theTaliban Movemen
Page 19 and 20: 22 ~ ISLAM OIL AND THE NEW GREAT GA
Page 25 and 26: 34 TALIBANKabul- Hikmetyar had alli
Page 27 and 28: 38 ~ TALIBANrHERAT 1995: GOD'S INVI
Page 29 and 30: 42 ~ TALIBANdo manage to take Kabul
Page 31 and 32: J46 ~ TALIBANgreater weight to UN e
Page 33 and 34: 50 ~ TALIBANas they hung from steel
Page 35 and 36: 54 ~ TALIBANthey would help rearm t
Page 37 and 38: 58 TALIBANGul Mohammed Pahlawan, Gh
Page 39 and 40: 62 TALIBAN2,500 Taliban, who had re
Page 41 and 42: 66 TALIBANshould throw all aid agen
Page 43 and 44: 70 ~ TALIBANyears of battle and hel
Page 45 and 46: 74 ~ TALIBANThousands of Hazaras we
Page 47 and 48: 78 TALIBANhas become a plague,' sai
Page 49 and 50: NEW STYLE FUNDAMENTALISM OF THE TAL
Page 51 and 52: 86 TALIBANsity students - Hikmetyar
Page 53 and 54: 90 TALIBANSharia was heavily influe
Page 55 and 56: 94 TALIBANinflamed the debate in th
Page 57 and 58: 98 TALIBANizing factor of Islam, it
Page 59 and 60: 102 TALIBANadministrations made the
Page 61 and 62: 106 ~ TAUBANfrom working, but it no
Page 63 and 64: TALIBANUniversity, she held down a
Page 65 and 66: 114 TALIBAN A VANISHED GENDER 115Ta
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118 TALIBANUS$1,300 - a small fortu
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122 TALIBANper cent of the total Pa
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126 TALIBANequipment, no electricit
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130 ~ TALIBANfight with the Mujahed
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134TALIBANAugust 1996 noted that Bi
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138 ~ TALIBANwho were using the Kho
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11DICTATORS AND OILBARONS: THE TALI
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146 TALIBAN DICTATORS AND OIL BARON
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150 — TALIBANgrowth of beards and
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154TALIBAN1998 when international o
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158 ~ TALIBANaround Afghanistan? Af
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162 TALIBAN ROMANCING THE TALIBAN 1
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166 TALIBAN ROMANCING THE TALIBAN 1
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ROMANCING THE TALIBAN 2: 1997-99 17
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174 — TALIBANnon-Russian pipeline
Page 97 and 98:
178 — TALIBANROMANCING THE TALIBA
Page 99 and 100:
182 ~ TALIBANApril 1999. 'The US ha
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186 ~ TALIBANters or the transport
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190 ~ TALIBANThis Wild West of free
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194 ~ TALIBANgovernance. Pakistani
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198 TALIBAN SHIA VERSUS SUNNI: IRAN
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202 TALIBAN SHIA VERSUS SUNNI: IRAN
Page 111 and 112:
206 — TALIBANin Afghanistan - to
Page 113 and 114:
210 — TALIBANand antagonism. The
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214 ~ TALIBANdrawn since 1996 - a P
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218 ~ TALIBANated and severely puni
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Origins of Members of the Taliban M
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APPENDIX 3 ~ 227Appendix 3A CHRONOL
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230 ~ TALIBANgraves near Shebarghan
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234 ~ TALIBAN8 June. US FBI places
Page 127 and 128:
238 ~ TALIBAN1995 January16 MarchAp
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242 ~ TALIBANJune21 August10 Septem
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246 ~ TALIBANDupree, Nancy Hatch, A
Page 133 and 134:
250 ~ NOTESChapter 31 Interview wit
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254 ~ NOTESmuddin, Religious Police
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258 NOTES13. The Japanese company M
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262 ~ NOTES28. Waxman, Sharon, 'A c
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Abbas, Mulla Mohammed 22,61,100Abda
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INDEX - 270Hazaras (continued)burea
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INDEX ~ 274nF»r\/FaliViar» milita
Page 147:
INDEX ~ 278Talibans (continued)Sunn
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