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96 ~ TALIBANmovement itself and they set out to conquer the rest of the country toprove it.The initial hopes generated by the Taliban were a direct result of thedegeneration of the former Mujaheddin leadership. During the jihad, theMujaheddin leadership based in Peshawar was highly factionalized andpersonalised. The parties were held together by charismatic leaders andwarlords rather than an organisation. As the war progressed these leadersbecame more and more dependent on Western supplied funds and armsto keep their field commanders and guerrilla fighters loyal. They spentmuch of their time literally buying support inside Afghanistan, whilebickering with each other in Peshawar.Pakistan only helped fuel this process of disunity. General Zia ul Haqhad commanded Pakistani troops in Jordan in 1970 and had helped KingHussein crush the Palestinians. He had seen at first hand the threat thata united guerrilla movement posed to the state where it had been givensanctuary. By maintaining a disunited movement with no single leader,Zia was able to keep the Mujaheddin leaders obligated to Pakistan andWestern largesse. But when Islamabad desperately needed a coherentMujaheddin leadership to present a political alternative to the communistregime in Kabul in 1989 as Soviet troops withdrew, and again in 1992 asthe NajibuUah regime collapsed, the disunity amongst the Peshawar-basedMujaheddin leaders was too far gone to mend - even with significantbribes. This disunity was to have a profound effect on Afghanistan's futureinability to achieve a consensus government.The second element in the anti-Soviet resistance leadership were thefield commanders, who became increasingly frustrated by the disunity andcorruption of the Peshawar leaders and the ease with which they wereheld hostage over funds and weapons supplies. The very nature and hardshipof the war demanded that they cooperate with each other, despitethe feuding of their party chiefs in Peshawar.There was a passionate desire for greater structural unity amongst thefield commanders. Ismael Khan organized the first meeting of field commandersin Ghor province in July 1987, which was attended by some1,200 commanders from across Afghanistan. They adopted 20 resolutionsof which the most important was the demand that they, rather than thePeshawar leaders, dictate the political movement. 'The right of determiningthe future destiny of Afghanistan lies with the heirs of the martyrsand with the Muslims of the trenches, who are struggling in bloody frontsand are ready to be martyred. Nobody else is allowed to make decisionsdetermining the fate of the nation.' 1Some 300 commanders met again in Paktia province in July 1990 andin Badakhshan in October. However, ethnicity, personal rivalries and theurge to be the first into Kabul broke down their consensus as the Mujahed'THE TALIBAN'S POLITICAL AND MILITARY ORGANISATION 97din competed to seize the capital in 1992. The battle for Kabul broughtthe divisions between north and south and Pashtuns and non-Pashtunsinto the open. Ahmad Shah Masud's inability to compromise with Pashtuncommanders opposed to Hikmetyar, even as Masud seized Kabul in1992, badly dented his political reputation. He was never to regain thetrust of Pashtuns, until after the Taliban had conquered the north in1998.A third level of leadership within the resistance were the scholars,intellectuals, businessmen and technocrats who had escaped from Kabulto Peshawar. Many remained independent advocating unity amongst allthe resistance forces. But this group of educated Afghans was never givena serious political role by the Peshawar parties nor by Pakistan. As aconsequence many left Peshawar for foreign countries, adding to the diasporaof Afghan professionals. They became marginal in influencing politicalevents at home and when they were needed after 1992 to help rebuildthe country, they were not available- 2 The Pashtun ulema and mairassateachers were scattered throughout the resistance movement, some asparty leaders in Peshawar, others as field commanders, but they formed nounited, powerful presence within the resistance and even their individualinfluence had waned considerably by 1992. The ulema were ripe to betaken over by a Taliban style movement.When the Taliban emerged in 1994 only the old, bickering resistanceleadership was left and President Burhanuddin Rabbani had failed to unitethem. In the Pashtun areas there was a total vacuum of leadership aswarlordism gripped the south. The Taliban rightly considered the formerMujaheddin leaders as redundant and corrupt. Although the Talibanrevered some leaders from the ukma who were their earlier mentors, theygave them no political role in their movement. Nor did the Taliban haveany liking for the independent-minded field commanders, whom theyblamed for the debacle of the Pashtuns after 1992. Important field commanderswho surrendered to the Taliban were never elevated within theTaliban military structure. The Taliban also completely rejected Afghanintellectuals and technocrats, as they considered them the spawn of aWestern or Soviet-style educational system which they detested.The Taliban's emergence thus coincided with a fortunate historicaljuxtaposition, where the disintegration of the communist power structurewas complete, the Mujaheddin leaders were discredited and the traditionaltribal leadership had been eliminated. It was relatively easy for theTaliban to sweep away what little of the old Pashtun leadership was left.Thereafter, from within the Pashtuns, the Taliban faced no possible politicalchallenges to their rule. They now had the opportunity to build atribal-democratic, grass-roots organisation. Imbued with the legitim-