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Viii ~ PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSdisintegration- A year later I was sipping tea in Kandahar's bazaar whenthe first Soviet tanks rolled in. As I covered the Soviet Union's war withthe Mujaheddin my family urged me to write a book, as so many journalistswere doing at the time. I abstained. I had too much to say and didnot know where to start.I was determined to write a book after spending several months inGeneva covering the excruciating UN sponsored negotiations in 1988,which ended with the Geneva Accords and the withdrawal of Soviet troopsfrom Afghanistan. Packed in with 200 journalists I was fortunate enough tobe privy to many of the internal stand-offs between diplomats from the UN,the USA, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. That booknever got written as my first love, the Afghans, drove straight from Genevainto a bloody, senseless civil war that still continues today.Instead I went to Central Asia to see the ancestors of the Afghans andbecame a witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which I wrotebook about from the perspective of the newly independent Central Asistates. But Afghanistan always drew me back.I should have written another book in 1992 when I spent a momdodging bullets in Kabul as the regime of President Najibullah collapsedand the city fell to the Mujaheddin. By then the Afghan saga had takenme to Moscow, Washington, Rome, Jeddah, Paris, London, Ashkhabad,Tashkent and Dushanbe. Ultimately it was the unique nature of the Talibanand the lack of literature about their meteoric rise, which convinced*me I had to tell their story as a continuation of the last 21 yearsAfghanistan's history and my history.For years I was the only Pakistani journalist covering Afghanistan seriously,even though the war was next door and Afghanistan sustainedPakistan's foreign policy and kept the military regime of General Zia ulHaq in power. If there was another abiding interest, it was my convictionas early as 1982 that Islamabad's Afghan policy would play a critical rolein Pakistan's future national security, domestic politics and createIslamic fundamentalist backlash at home. Today, as Pakistan teetersthe edge of a political, economic and social abyss while a culture of drugs,weapons, corruption and violence permeates the country, what happensin Afghanistan has become even more important to Pakistan.Pakistan's policy-makers did not always agree with what I wrote. Itnot easy to disagree with Zia. In 1985 I was interrogated for several hoiby Zia's intelligence agencies and warned not to write for six monthsbecause of my criticism. I continued to write under pseudonyms. Myphones were constantly tapped, my movements monitored.Afghanistan, like the Afghans themselves, is a country of contradiC'tions that are constantly played out for any reporter. Gulbuddin Hikme'tyar, the extremist Mujaheddin leader sentenced me to death for being aPREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ~ ixcommunist sympathiser - along with George Arney of the BBC - and fora year published my name in his party newspaper, like a wanted ad. Later,in Kabul, a crowd chased and tried to kill me when I arrived momentsafter a rocket fired by Hikmetyar had killed two small boys in the Microyanhousing complex. The Afghans thought I was a Hikmetyar agentchecking out the damage.In 1981 when Najibullah was head of the notorious KHAD, the Afghancommunist secret service modelled on the KGB, he personally interrogatedme after KHAD officers arrested me for reading a banned copy ofTime magazine at Kabul's Post Office. After he became president and Ihad interviewed him several times, he thought I could carry a conciliatorymessage from him to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. I told him she wouldnot listen to me, and she did not.And many times I have been caught in the contradiction of crossfires,between Afghan communist troops and the Mujaheddin, between rivalMujaheddin warlords and between the Taliban and Ahmad Shah Masud'stank-gunners. I have never been the warrior type and mostly ducked.My interest in Afghanistan could not have been sustained without thehelp of many people, above all the Afghans. To the Taliban mullahs, theanti-Taliban commanders, the warlords who went before them, the warriorson the battlefield and the taxi-drivers, intellectuals, aid-workers andfarmers - too many to mention and mostly too sensitive to mention - mymany thanks.Apart from the Afghans I have received the greatest help from Pakistaniministers, diplomats, generals, bureaucrats and intelligence officers,who either wanted to take me on or were sincerely sympathetic to myviews. Many of them have become firm friends.Over the years the UN agencies and the non-governmental aid organizationshave provided a home for me all over Afghanistan and have givenme ideas, information and support. At the UN Office for Co-ordinationof Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan I owe many thanks to itssuccessive chiefs, Martin Barber, Alfredo Witschi-Cestari and Erick deMul and to Brigette Neubacher, who has been in the Afghan businessalmost as long as I have. At the UN High Commission for Refugees Ithank Robert Van Leeuwen, Shamsul Bari, Sri Wijaratne, JacquesMuchet, Rupert Colville and Monique Malha. At the World Food Programmethe indefatigable Adan Adar understood the Taliban better thanany other UN officer.At the UN Special Mission for Afghanistan many thanks are due toFrancis Okelo, James Ngobi, Hiroshi Takahashi, Arnold Schifferdeckerand Andrew Tesoriere and at the UN in New York, Benon Sevan andAndrew Gilmour. At the International Committee of the Red Cross,Thomas Gurtner and Oliver Durr, at Acted aid agency Frederick Rousseau
AFGHANISTAN•^ UZBEKISTAN J TAJIKISTANI0 SO 100 190 200 250KilometresPul-I-KhumriSalang ,„#
Page 1 and 2: YALE NOTA BENE"The broader storyher
Page 3 and 4: TalibanMilitant Islam,Oil and Funda
Page 5: Vi ~ CONTENTSChapter 8A Vanished Ge
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 and 16: Part 1History of theTaliban Movemen
Page 17 and 18: 18 ~ 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
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98 TALIBANizing factor of Islam, it
Page 59 and 60:
102 TALIBANadministrations made the
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106 ~ TAUBANfrom working, but it no
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TALIBANUniversity, she held down a
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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
Page 83 and 84:
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
Page 93 and 94:
ROMANCING THE TALIBAN 2: 1997-99 17
Page 95 and 96:
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
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238 ~ TALIBAN1995 January16 MarchAp
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242 ~ TALIBANJune21 August10 Septem
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246 ~ TALIBANDupree, Nancy Hatch, A
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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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