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28 ~ ISLAM OIL AND THE NEW GREAT GAME IN CENTRAL ASIAfor Afghans on Pakistani territory. At the dump the Taliban seized some18,000 kalashnikovs, dozens of artillery pieces, large quantities of ammunitionand many vehicles. 12The capture of Spin Baldak worried the Kandahar warlords and theydenounced Pakistan for backing the Taliban, but they continuedbickering amongst themselves rather than uniting to meet the new threat.Babar was now getting impatient and he ordered a 30 truck test-convoyto travel to Ashkhabad with a load of medicines. 'I told Babar we shouldwait two months because we had no agreements with the Kandahar commanders,but Babar insisted on pushing the convoy through. The commanderssuspected that the convoy was carrying arms for a future Pakistaniforce,' a Pakistani official based in Kandahar later told me. 13On 29 October 1994, the convoy drawn from the army's NationalLogistics Cell (NLC), which had been set up in the 1980s by the ISI tofunnel US arms to the Mujaheddin, left Quetta with 80 Pakistani ex-armyjdrivers. Colonel Imam, the ISI's most prominent field officer operating inthe south and Pakistan's Consul General in Herat, was also on board.Along with him were two young Taliban commanders, Mullahs Borjanand Turabi. (Both were later to lead the Taliban's first assault on Kabulwhere Mullah Borjan was to meet his death.) Twelve miles outside Kandahar,at Takht-e-Pul near the perimeter of Kandahar airport, the convoywas held up by a group of commanders, Amir Lalai, Mansur Achakzai, \who controlled the airport, and Ustad Halim. The convoy was ordered topark in a nearby village at the foot of low-lying mountains. When Iwalked the area a few months later the remains of camp fires and discardedrations were still evident.The commanders demanded money, a share of the goods and that Pakistanstop supporting the Taliban. As the commanders negotiated withColonel Imam, Islamabad imposed a news blackout for three days on theconvoy hijack. 'We were worried that Mansur would put arms aboard theconvoy and then blame Pakistan. So we considered all the military;options to rescue the convoy, such as a raid by the Special Services Group(Pakistan army commandos) or a parachute drop. These options wereconsidered too dangerous so we then asked the Taliban to free theconvoy,' said a Pakistani official. On 3 November 1994, the Talibanmoved in to attack those holding the convoy. The commanders, thinkiithis was a raid by the Pakistani army, fled. Mansur was chased into thedesert by the Taliban, captured and shot dead with ten of his bodyguards.His body was hung from a tank barrel for all to see.That same evening, the Taliban moved on Kandahar where, afterdays of sporadic fighting they routed the commanders' forces. MulNaquib, the most prominent commander inside the city who command2,500 men, did not resist. Some of his aides later claimed that NaqiKANDAHAR 1994: THE ORIGINS OF THE TALIBAN ~ 29had taken a substantial bribe from the ISI to surrender, with the promisethat he would retain his command. The Taliban enlisted his men andretired the Mullah to his village outside Kandahar. The Taliban captureddozens of tanks, armoured cars, military vehicles, weapons and most significantlyat the airport six Mig-21 fighters and six transport helicopters -left-overs from the Soviet occupation.In just a couple of weeks this unknown force had captured the secondlargest city in Afghanistan with the loss of just a dozen men. In Islamabadno foreign diplomat or analyst doubted that they had received considerablesupport from Pakistan. The fall of Kandahar was celebrated by thePakistan government and the JUI. Babar took credit for the Taliban'ssuccess, telling journalists privately that the Taliban were 'our boys'. Yetthe Taliban demonstrated their independence from Pakistan, indicatingthat they were nobody's puppet. On 16 November 1994 Mullah Ghaussaid that Pakistan should not bypass the Taliban in sending convoys inthe future and should not cut deals with individual warlords. He also saidthe Taliban would not allow goods bound for Afghanistan to be carriedby Pakistani trucks - a key demand of the transport mafia. 14The Taliban cleared the chains from the roads, set up a one-toll systemfor trucks entering Afghanistan at Spin Baldak and patrolled the highwayfrom Pakistan. The transport mafia was ecstatic and in December the firstPakistani convoy of 50 trucks carrying raw cotton from Turkmenistanarrived in Quetta, after paying the Taliban 200,000 rupees (US$5,000)in tolls. Meanwhile thousands of young Afghan Pashtuns studying in Baluchistanand the NWFP rushed to Kandahar to join the Taliban. Theywere soon followed by Pakistani volunteers from JUI madrassas, who wereinspired by the new Islamic movement in Afghanistan. By December1994, some 12,000 Afghan and Pakistani students had joined the Talibanin Kandahar.As international and domestic pressure mounted on Pakistan to explainits position, Bhutto made the first formal denial of any Pakistani backingof the Taliban in February 1995. 'We have no favourites in Afghanistanand we do not interfere in Afghanistan,' she said while visiting Manila. 15Later she said Pakistan could not stop new recruits from crossing theborder to join the Taliban. 'I cannot fight Mr [President Burhanuddin]Rabbani's war for him. If Afghans want to cross the border, I do not stopthem. I can stop them from re-entering but most of them have familieshere,' she said. 16The Taliban immediately implemented the strictest interpretation ofSharia law ever seen in the Muslim world. They closed down girls' schoolsand banned women from working outside the home, smashed TV sets,forbade a whole array of sports and recreational activities and ordered allmales to grow long beards. In the next three months the Taliban were to