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20 ISLAM OIL AND THE NEW GREAT GAME IN CENTRAL ASIAwas located at the intersection of ancient trade routes - eastwards acrossjthe Bolan Pass to Sind, the Arabian Sea and India and westwardsHerat and Iran. The city was the main crossing point for trade, artscrafts between Iran and India and the city's numerous bazaars have Ifamous for centuries.The new city has changed little from that laid out in grand proportionin 1761 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, the founder of the Durrani dynasty^The fact that the Durranis from Kandahar were to create the Afghan statand rule it for 300 years gave the Kandaharis a special status amongst iPashtuns. As a concession to their home base, Kabul's kings absolvethe Kandaharis from providing manpower for the army. Ahmad Shah'smausoleum dominates the central bazaar and thousands of Afghans stcome here to pray and pay their respects to the founder of the nation.Next to his tomb is the shrine of the Cloak of the PropheMohammed - one of the holiest places of worship in Afghanistan.Cloak has been shown only on rare occasions such as when King Amanul|lah tried to rally the tribes in 1929 and when a cholera epidemic hitcity in 1935. 3 But in 1996 in order to legitimise his role as leader and onordained by God to lead the Afghan people, Mullah Omar took outcloak and showed it to a large crowd of Taliban who then namedAmir-ul Momineen or Leader of the Faithful.However, Kandahar's fame across the region rests on its fruit orchaKandahar is an oasis town set in the desert and the summer heat is devtating, but around the city are lush, green fields and shady orchards producing grapes, melons, mulberries, figs, peaches and pomegranates whiiwere famous throughout India and Iran. Kandahar's pomegranates deated Persian manuscripts written one thousand years ago and were serveat the table of the British Governor General of India in Delhi during Ilast century. The city's truck transporters, who were to give major finan-jcial support to the Taliban in their drive to conquer the country, begtheir trade in the last century when they carried Kandahar's fruit as fDelhi and Calcutta.The orchards were watered by a complex and well-maintained irriga-Jtion system until the war, when both the Soviets and the Mujaheddin sclheavily mined the fields that the rural population fled to Pakistan and theorchards were abandoned. Kandahar remains one of the most heavilfmined cities in the world. In an otherwise flat landscape, the orcharand water channels provided cover for the Mujaheddin who quickly toolcontrol of the countryside, isolating the Soviet garrison in the city.Soviets retaliated by cutting down thousands of trees and smashingirrigation system. When the refugees were to return to their devastatedorchards after 1990, they were to grow opium poppies for a livelihood^creating a major source of income for the Taliban.KANDAHAR 1994: THE ORIGINS OF THE TALIBAN ~ 21With the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 there followed a long struggleagainst the regime of President Najibullah until he was overthrown in1992 and the Mujaheddin captured Kabul. Much of Afghanistan's subsequentcivil war was to be determined by the fact that Kabul fell, not tothe well-armed and bickering Pashtun parties based in Peshawar, but tothe better organized and more united Tajik forces of Burhanuddin Rabbaniand his military commander Ahmad Shah Masud and to the Uzbekforces from the north under General Rashid Dostum. It was a devastatingpsychological blow because for the first time in 300 years the Pashtunshad lost control of the capital. An internal civil war began almost immediatelyas Hikmetyar attempted to rally the Pashtuns and laid siege toKabul, shelling it mercilessly.Afghanistan was in a state of virtual disintegration just before the Talibanemerged at the end of 1994. The country was divided into warlordfiefdoms and all the warlords had fought, switched sides and fought againin a bewildering array of alliances, betrayals and bloodshed. The predominantlyTajik government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani controlledKabul, its environs and the north-east of the country, while three provincesin the west centring on Herat were controlled by Ismael Khan. Inthe east on the Pakistan border three Pashtun provinces were under theindependent control of a council or Shura (Council) of Mujaheddin commandersbased in Jalalabad. A small region to the south and east of Kabulwas controlled by Gulbuddin Hikmetyar.In the north the Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum held sway oversix provinces and in January 1994 he had abandoned his alliance withthe Rabbani government and joined with Hikmetyar to attack Kabul.In central Afghanistan the Hazaras controlled the province of Bamiyan.Southern Afghanistan and Kandahar were divided up amongst dozens ofpetty ex-Mujaheddin warlords and bandits who plundered the populationat will. With the tribal structure and the economy in tatters, no consensuson a Pashtun leadership and Pakistan's unwillingness to provide militaryaid to the Durranis as they did to Hikmetyar, the Pashtuns in the southwere at war with each other.International aid agencies were fearful of even working in Kandahar asthe city itself was divided by warring groups. Their leaders sold off everythingto Pakistani traders to make money, stripping down telephone wiresand poles, cutting trees, selling off factories, machinery and even roadrollers to scrap merchants. The warlords seized homes and farms, threwout their occupants and handed them over to their supporters. The commandersabused the population at will, kidnapping young girls and boysfor their sexual pleasure, robbing merchants in the bazaars and fightingand brawling in the streets. Instead of refugees returning from Pakistan, afresh wave of refugees began to leave Kandahar for Quetta.