Islamist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Predominantly Pashtun Islamist associations operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban movement, which emerged in 1994, was in power in Afghanistan from 1996-2001, and after its overthrow in 2001, it began to wage a guerrilla war with government troops and NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The movement does not have official terrorist organization status in the United States, but is recognized as such by Russia and the CSTO.
The Taliban movement emerged in the summer of 1994 in Kandahar at the height of the Afghan civil war. At first, the Taliban included veterans of the war with Soviet troops in Afghanistan, as well as Pashtun refugees who received religious education in Pakistani madrassas and were supported by Pakistani intelligence services. The Taliban ideology combined Islamic fundamentalism with local Pashtun customs; The goal proclaimed by the Taliban at that moment was to restore Islamic norms, as well as to return peace to Afghanistan. The movement was led by a veteran of the war with the USSR, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Within a short period of time, the Taliban occupied large parts of Afghanistan, defeating the country's largest warlords. In April 1996, a gathering of Muslim theologians in Kandahar proclaimed Mullah Omar "commander of the faithful" and called for a holy war against the Kabul-based administration of President Burhanuddin Rabbani. In September of the same year, the Taliban occupied Kabul and from that time until 2001 they were in fact in power in Afghanistan.
The Taliban regime imposed significant restrictions: television, cinema and music were banned, and women were significantly disadvantaged in their rights. The Taliban brutally punished criminals: in particular, public executions were practiced in the Taliban state. The Taliban government was not recognized in the world except by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, since 1999, special UN sanctions have been in force against the Taliban.
The movement continued to receive support from Pakistan, and starting in 1996 it collaborated with Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, from whom it also received funding. After the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, organized by bin Laden, which killed about 3 thousand people, the Taliban refused to hand over the multimillionaire to the American authorities. In response to this, in October 2001, NATO troops, together with anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, launched a military operation, as a result of which the Taliban was overthrown.
After the overthrow, Taliban supporters went to the mountains and began a guerrilla war. By 2003, the Taliban had revived in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite the ongoing military operation by NATO forces with the support of the government of Hamid Karzai, in Afghanistan the Taliban have regained influence in a number of areas. As of 2007, the Taliban were represented to one degree or another in 54 percent of Afghanistan.
By 2008, the Taliban's main tactic was to make forays into Afghanistan from Pakistani territory, which involved joint actions by the Pakistani army and NATO forces on the Afghan-Pakistan border. At the same time, however, the Afghan government began to make active attempts to organize peace negotiations with the Taliban.
In Pakistan, since 2005, the Taliban have gained control over a number of areas in the northwestern part of the country and have actually created a “state within a state” there by concluding a peace agreement with the Pakistani government. However, after an attempted Islamist uprising in Islamabad in July 2007, the Pakistani Taliban began a new war with the government. It is believed that the Taliban were involved in the assassination of one of the key Pakistani politicians - the leader of the Pakistan People's Party and former Prime Minister of the country Benazir Bhutto.
In 2009, the Pakistani Taliban entered into an agreement with the country's authorities, allowing peace to be established in exchange for the official introduction of Sharia law in parts of the territories controlled by the Islamists. However, as the Taliban advanced further into the country, the peace was disrupted and fighting resumed in northwestern Pakistan.
As of April 2009, the Taliban was not included in the official list of foreign terrorist organizations compiled by the US State Department. In 2006, the movement was included in the published list of organizations recognized as terrorist in Russia, and in May 2009 - in a similar list compiled by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Recently, twenty Taliban militants were surrounded by coalition troops and soldiers from the Afghan National Army in the city of Herat in the north of the country. The Taliban, who are now being held in a mosque belonging to the Afghan National Department of Security, were introduced to journalists. That's when these photos were taken.
(Total 12 photos)
Text: wiki
1. - Islamic movement (Sunni), which originated in Afghanistan among the Pashtuns in 1994, ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. ("Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan") and the Waziristan region in northern Pakistan ("Islamic State of Waziristan") since 2004.
2. Former German Defense Minister Andreas von Bülow, in an interview with the German newspaper Tagesspiegel on January 13, 2002, attributes the creation of the Taliban movement to the CIA: “With the decisive support of the US intelligence services, at least 30 thousand Muslim militants were trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including a group of fanatics who were and are still ready to do anything. And one of them is Osama bin Laden. I wrote a few years ago: “It was from this CIA degenerate that the Taliban grew up in Afghanistan, which they prepared on the Koran. in schools financed with the help of Americans and Saudis"
3. 1995 - the Taliban captured Helmand, defeated the militants of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but were stopped near Kabul by the divisions of Ahmad Shah Massoud. They controlled a third of Afghanistan's territory in the southeast of the country.
4. In September 1996, the Taliban took Kabul without a fight and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They introduced strict Sharia law in the territory under their control. The opposition to the Taliban regime was the Northern Alliance, consisting mainly of Tajiks (led by Ahmad Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani) and Uzbeks (led by General Abdul-Rashid Dostum), which enjoyed the support of Russia. Providing shelter to the terrorist Osama bin Laden and the destruction of monuments of Buddhist architecture (Bamiyan Buddha statues) led to the formation of a negative image of the Taliban in the eyes of the world community.
5. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States launched a counter-terrorism operation against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and, with the support of the Northern Alliance, overthrew the Taliban regime. The Taliban went underground and partially retreated to neighboring Pakistan (provinces of the Waziristan region), where they united under the leadership of Haji Omar. Since the early 2000s, Waziristan has been a Taliban stronghold. The Taliban pushed aside traditional tribal leaders and seized de facto power in the region in 2004.
6. On February 14, 2006, the declaration of independence and the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan was announced in North Waziristan.
7. On December 17, 2007, the Pakistani Taliban united to form the Tehrik Taliban-i-Pakistan organization. Tehrik Taliban-i-Pakistan was headed by a commander from the Waziristan Pashtun tribe of Masudi, Beitullah Mehsud.
8. In February 2009, the Taliban captured 30 Pakistani police and military personnel in the Swat Valley. They presented demands to the Pakistani government for the official introduction of Sharia law in the Swat Valley, to which the government was forced to agree. Soon after, the Taliban took control of Buner province.
9. In August 2009, Pakistani Taliban leader Beitullah Mehsud was killed. His successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a shootout with Pakistani forces on July 5, 2010.
10. In the territories under their control, the Taliban introduces Sharia law, the implementation of which is strictly controlled. Banned are television, music and musical instruments, fine arts, alcohol, computers and the Internet, chess, white shoes (white is the color of the Taliban flag), open discussion of sex and much more. Men were required to wear a beard of a certain length. Women were not allowed to work, to be treated by male doctors, to appear in public places with their faces uncovered and without a husband or male relative; Women's access to education was significantly limited (in 2001, girls made up only 1% of those attending school). Medieval types of punishment were widely practiced: for theft one or two hands were cut off, for adultery they were stoned to death; Public corporal punishment was popular. The Taliban were characterized by extreme religious intolerance. Being adherents of the Sunni form of Islam, they persecuted Shiites, which caused their relations with neighboring Iran to deteriorate sharply.
11. On February 26, 2001, Mullah Omar issued a decree on the destruction of all non-Islamic monuments in the country. Implementing the decree, in March of the same year, the Taliban blew up two giant Buddha statues carved into the rocks of Bamiyan in the 3rd and 6th centuries, which caused condemnation from the world community. The actions of the Taliban were condemned by the world community, including a number of Muslim countries.
12. The Taliban advocate a ban on female education. Schools are often the targets of their attacks; In 2008 alone, they destroyed more than 150 schools in the northwestern region of Pakistan, Swat.
Every year there are more and more conflicts and pockets of instability in the world, and all the efforts of the international community cannot yet reverse this trend. There are also long-standing problems - areas where bloodshed continues for many years (or even decades). A typical example of such a hot spot is Afghanistan - the world left this mountainous Central Asian country more than thirty years ago, and there is still no hope for a quick resolution of this conflict. Moreover, today Afghanistan is a real time bomb that can blow up the entire region.
In 1979, the leadership of the Soviet Union decided to build socialism in Afghanistan and sent troops into its territory. Such thoughtless actions disrupted the fragile interethnic and interreligious balance on the ancient Afghan soil, which has not been restored to this day.
The Afghan war (1979-1989) became a formative era for many radical Islamist organizations, as serious funds were allocated to fight Soviet troops. Jihad was declared against the Soviet army, and tens of thousands of volunteers from various Muslim countries joined the Afghan mujahideen.
This conflict gave a powerful impetus to the development of radical Islam in the world, and Afghanistan, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, plunged into the abyss of civil conflict for many years.
In 1994, the history of one of the most unusual Islamic radical organizations began on the territory of Afghanistan, which for many years became the main enemy of the United States and other Western countries - the Taliban. This movement managed to capture a significant part of the country's territory, proclaim the creation of a new type of state, and has been in power for more than five years. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was even recognized by several states: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UAE.
Only in 2001, an international coalition led by the United States, in alliance with the local opposition, managed to remove the Taliban from power. However, the Taliban still represent a serious force in Afghanistan today, which both the current leaders of the country and their Western allies have to reckon with.
In 2003, the UN designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization. Despite the loss of power in Afghanistan, the Taliban remain a very impressive force. It is believed that today the movement numbers 50-60 thousand militants (as of 2014).
History of the movement
The Taliban is an Islamic radical movement that originated among the Pashtuns in 1994. The name of its participants (Taliban) is translated from Pashto as “students of madrassas” - Islamic religious schools.
According to the official version, the first leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar (a former mujahid who lost an eye in the war with the USSR), gathered a small group of radical madrasah students and began a struggle to spread the ideas of Islam in Afghanistan.
There is another version, according to which the Taliban first went into battle to recapture the women kidnapped from their village.
The birth of the Taliban occurred in the south of Afghanistan, in the province of Kandahar. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, a civil war raged in the country with all its might - the former Mujahideen fiercely divided power among themselves.
There are many publications that link the rapid rise of the Taliban to the activities of Pakistani intelligence services, which provided assistance to Afghan rebels during the Soviet occupation. It can be considered proven that the government of Saudi Arabia supplied the Taliban with money, and weapons and ammunition came from the territory of neighboring Pakistan.
The Taliban promoted the idea among the masses that the Mujahideen had betrayed the ideals of Islam, and such propaganda found a warm response among the common people. Initially a small movement, it rapidly gained strength and was replenished with new supporters. In 1995, Taliban militants already controlled half of the territory of Afghanistan, and the entire south of the country was under their rule. The Taliban even attempted to capture Kabul, but that time government troops managed to fight back.
During this period, the Taliban defeated the detachments of the most famous field commanders who had fought against the Soviet troops. In 1996, a meeting of Muslim clergy was held in Kandahar, where they called for a holy war against the incumbent President Burhanuddin Rabbani. In September 1996, Kabul fell and the Taliban occupied the city almost without a fight. By the end of 1996, the opposition controlled approximately 10-15% of Afghanistan.
Only the Northern Alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud (Lion of Panjshir), the legitimate president of the country Burhanuddin Rabbani and General Abdul-Rashid Dostum, remained in opposition to the new regime. The Afghan opposition units mainly consisted of Tajiks and Uzbeks, who make up a significant part of the population of Afghanistan and inhabit its northern regions.
In Taliban-controlled areas, laws based on Sharia law were introduced. Moreover, their compliance was very strictly monitored. The Taliban banned music and musical instruments, cinema and television, computers, painting, alcohol and the Internet. Afghans were not allowed to play chess or wear white shoes (the Taliban had a white flag). A strict taboo was imposed on all topics related to sex: such issues could not even be discussed openly.
Women's rights were significantly curtailed. They were not allowed to appear with their faces uncovered or unaccompanied by their husband or relatives in public places. They were also prohibited from working. The Taliban have significantly limited girls' access to education.
The Taliban did not change their attitude towards female education even after their overthrow. Members of this movement have repeatedly attacked schools that educate girls. In Pakistan, the Taliban destroyed about 150 schools.
Men were required to wear a beard, and it had to be of a certain length.
The Taliban brutally punished criminals: public executions were often practiced.
In 2000, the Taliban banned farmers from growing opium poppies, causing heroin production (Afghanistan is one of the main centers for its production) to fall to a record low. After the overthrow of the Taliban, the level of drug production very quickly returned to its previous levels.
In 1996, the Taliban provided refuge to one of the most famous Islamic terrorists at that time, Osama bin Laden. He has worked closely with the Taliban and provided support to this movement since 1996.
In early 2001, Taliban leader Mohammed Omar signed a decree on the destruction of non-Muslim cultural monuments. A few months later, the Taliban began destroying two Buddha statues located in the Bamiyan Valley. These monuments belonged to the pre-Mongol period of Afghan history; they were carved into rocks in the 6th century AD. Images of the barbaric destruction of these objects horrified the whole world and caused a wave of protests from governments and international organizations. This action further undermined the Taliban's reputation in the eyes of the international community.
The turning point in the history of the Taliban movement was September 11, 2001. The United States declared Osama bin Laden, who at that moment was on Afghan territory, to be the organizer of the terrorist attacks. The Taliban refused to hand him over. A coalition led by the Americans launched a counter-terrorism operation, the main task of which was to destroy al-Qaeda and its leader.
The Northern Alliance became an ally of the Western coalition. Two months later, the Taliban were completely defeated.
In 2001, President Rabbani, one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance, through whose authority and will this group of different ethnic and religious compositions was held together, was killed as a result of an assassination attempt. However, the Taliban regime was still overthrown. After this, the Taliban went underground and partially retreated into Pakistan, where they actually organized a new state in the tribal zone.
By 2003, the Taliban had fully recovered from the defeat and began to actively resist the forces of the international coalition and government troops. At this time, the Taliban practically controlled part of the areas in the south of the country. Militants often used the tactic of incursions from Pakistani territory. NATO forces tried to counter this by conducting joint operations with the Pakistani army.
In 2006, the Taliban announced the creation of a new independent state: the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, which was located in the tribal area of Pakistan.
This territory was previously weakly controlled by Islamabad; after its occupation by the Taliban, it became a reliable stronghold of the Taliban and a constant headache for the authorities of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2007, the Pakistani Taliban united into the Tehrik Taliban-e-Pakistan movement and tried to start an Islamic uprising in Islamabad, but it was suppressed. There are serious suspicions that it was the Taliban who were behind the successful assassination attempt on former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, one of the country's most popular politicians.
Several attempts by the Pakistani army to bring Waziristan back under its control have ended in vain. Moreover, the Taliban even managed to expand the territory under their control.
It is not surprising that no country in the world has recognized Waziristan.
The history of relations between the Taliban and the authorities of Pakistan and Afghanistan is very complex and confusing. Despite military operations and terrorist attacks, negotiations are being held with the Taliban. In 2009, the Pakistani authorities agreed to peace with the local Taliban, promising to introduce Sharia law in part of the country. True, before this the Taliban captured thirty soldiers and police officers and promised to release them only after fulfilling their demands.
What's next?
In 2011, the gradual withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan began. In 2013, Afghan security forces began to ensure security in the country, and Western military personnel merely performed auxiliary functions. The Americans failed to defeat the Taliban or bring peace and democracy to the soil of Afghanistan.
Today, like ten years ago, fierce battles are flaring up in one or another part of the country between government troops and Taliban troops. Moreover, they are going with varying degrees of success. Explosions continue to erupt in Afghan cities, the victims of which are most often civilians. The Taliban have announced a real hunt for officials of the ruling regime and security forces. The Afghan army and police are unable to cope with the Taliban. Moreover, according to experts, recently there has been a resurgence of the Taliban.
In recent years, another force has begun to emerge in Afghanistan that is causing experts more concern than the Taliban. This is ISIS.
The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun movement; its leaders have never set themselves serious expansionist goals. ISIS is a completely different matter. The Islamic State seeks to create a global caliphate or, at least, to spread its influence throughout the Islamic world.
In this regard, Afghanistan is of particular value to IS - it is a very convenient springboard for an attack on the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. ISIS views Pakistan, Afghanistan, parts of Central Asia and eastern Iran as its “Khorasan province.”
Currently, IS forces in Afghanistan are small, only a few thousand strong, but the ideology of the Islamic State has proven attractive to Afghan youth.
The appearance of ISIS in Afghanistan cannot but alarm neighboring states and countries that are members of the international coalition.
The Taliban are at enmity with the Islamic State; the first clashes between these groups, which were particularly fierce, have already been recorded. Faced with the threat of IS infiltration, interested parties are trying to negotiate with the Taliban. At the end of 2019, the Russian representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said that the interests of the Taliban coincide with Russian ones. In the same interview, the official emphasized that Moscow stands for a political settlement of the Afghan crisis.
Such an interest is understandable: Central Asia is the “underbelly” of Russia, the appearance of the Islamic State in this region would be a real disaster for our country. And the Taliban, in comparison with the absolutely frozen militants of the Islamic State, seem just a little radical patriots, who, moreover, have never voiced plans to create caliphates “from sea to sea.”
Although, there is another expert opinion. It lies in the fact that the Taliban are unlikely to be a reliable ally of any Western country (including Russia) in the fight against the Islamic State.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below the article. We or our visitors will be happy to answer them
REFERENCE: The Taliban movement (from Arabic "Taliban" - "student") arose in October 1994, when a group of fanatical theological students numbering no more than 400 people. crossed the Pakistani-Afghan border. The overwhelming majority were children of Afghan refugees, Pashtuns by nationality. The Taliban were trained and armed by the Pakistani intelligence service IAS, which hoped to use them to pacify the country by force and thus make it possible to lay pipelines through it and use its natural resources. Tired of the civil war, the local population supported the Taliban, and in 1996 they took Kabul.
YES, unfortunately, the front of the civil war in Afghanistan has come close to the borders of the Central Asian states. Russian politicians and military officials sounded the alarm. The most pessimistic of them consider two options for possible developments.
1. The Taliban break through the border, and the war moves into Central Asia, where there are forces on whose support they can rely. What happens next is a domino effect. Masses of refugees are crossing the unprotected border with Russia, while at the same time Islamic movements are intensifying in the republics of the Volga region and the North Caucasus. The religious war covers the territory of the former USSR.
2. The Taliban are not trying to break through the borders, but there is a gradual “Afghanization” of the Central Asian states. Their Taliban appear there, waging war according to the Afghan scenario. Then everything happens in accordance with the first scenario.
The front of the civil war in Afghanistan has come close to the borders of the Central Asian states. Russian politicians and military officials sounded the alarm. similar development of events, AiF correspondent Dmitry MAKAROV talks with Doctor of Historical Sciences Viktor KORGUN.
Viktor Grigorievich, how great are the fears regarding the “Talibanization” of the countries of Central Asia?
Let's look at these concerns in relation to each of them.
Let's start with Tajikistan. The entire situation there is under strict control by Russian troops, government agencies, and, importantly, the Islamic opposition, which controls the religious situation in the country and does not allow it to go beyond the bounds of reason. It should also be remembered that in Afghanistan the Tajiks living in the north of this country, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, are now fighting the Taliban. For Afghan Tajiks, the Taliban, most of whom belong to the Pashtun ethnic group, are, one might say, a historical rival.
In Turkmenistan, even tighter control has been established over the political and religious situation. And although President Niyazov promotes the freedom of Islam, in reality his Islam is tame. There is no opposition at all in Turkmenistan, not even underground.
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are in approximately equal positions. Like all former nomads, the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs are not very religious, so any extremism on this basis is practically excluded there.
The situation is much more complicated in Uzbekistan, as well as in those areas of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan where ethnic Uzbeks live. These are areas of the cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad, where caravans with drugs and weapons most often break through.
In Uzbekistan itself, President Islam Karimov harshly suppresses any religious extremism. But the situation there is still more difficult. In some areas, for example in Fergana, this is expressed in a low standard of living, overcrowding of the population, and mass unemployment. All this is fertile ground for religious extremism. But the government is taking serious steps to improve the situation in the social sphere. In addition, Uzbekistan is a state with a strong centralized government, which is capable of blocking any attempts of religious extremists.
How close is Moscow’s position to the policies of the Central Asian states?
In theory, the threat posed by the Taliban brings us together. However, in practice, the leaders of the countries of the region take different positions on the Afghan issue. Ashgabat consistently adheres to neutrality, maintaining ties with both warring parties in Afghanistan. Dushanbe, being under the Russian military umbrella, fully supports Moscow's policies; Tashkent strives to play a more independent role in the region, which does not always meet Russian interests. Without stopping military-political cooperation with Moscow, Uzbekistan withdrew from the CIS Collective Security Treaty and made an unexpected turn in its Afghan policy, entering into unilateral contacts with the Taliban, apparently without coordinating this step with the Kremlin.
"Afghan" in Chechnya
From time to time, the Russian government speaks of links between the Taliban and Chechen militants and has even threatened to bomb bases in Afghanistan where terrorists are being trained for Chechnya.
There are certainly some connections between the Taliban and Chechnya. Morally and politically they support Maskhadov and Basayev. But I think this support should not be exaggerated. When speaking about the possibility of striking bases where fighters are being trained for Chechnya, the Russian leadership was clearly bluffing. I am sure that our military does not have maps of these bases. They cannot exist, if only because bases specializing in training Chechen militants simply do not exist. Another thing is that Arabs from different countries are trained in these camps, some of whom are then sent to Chechnya. They form the backbone of the Wahhabi formations of Khattab, Emir Omar and others.
But the Chechens themselves, except for those who have stained themselves by participating in kidnappings, explosions and other terrorist attacks, have not supported the Wahhabis for a long time. By nature, Chechens are conservative and profess a completely different Islam than the one that is imposed on them from the outside.
Politics of Russia
Who do you think modern Russia is for the Taliban: friend or enemy?
Certainly an enemy. Judge for yourself. Two weeks after the Taliban captured Kabul in October 1996, on Russia’s initiative and with its participation, a meeting of the heads of Central Asian states was convened in Almaty, where a decision was made not to recognize the Taliban’s power in Afghanistan. Now Russia not only adheres to this, in my opinion, short-sighted decision, but is even increasing its efforts to isolate the Taliban government on an international scale. In May this year President Putin signed a decree imposing political and economic sanctions against the Taliban, and in August Russia participated in a meeting of the 6+2 group (Central Asian states plus the United States and Russia) that called for stronger sanctions against the Taliban.
Do you think this is a mistake?
I find this position inflexible. Efforts to achieve peace in the region must extend to the Taliban.
How do you assess the visit of Presidential Aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky to Pakistan in this regard?
This visit is confirmation that there has been a turn in Russian politicians' understanding of Afghan realities. There was frank bargaining going on in Islamabad. The Pakistanis spoke on behalf of the Taliban. Yastrzhembsky suggested through them that the Taliban should not get involved in the affairs of Central Asia, and Russia, for its part, would promise to stop supporting Ahmad Shah Massoud.
But this was not enough for the Taliban: in addition, they demanded that Russia officially recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (this is now the name of the territories controlled by the Taliban), promote their official recognition by the world community and undertake an obligation not to participate in the future peace process in Afghanistan as a peacekeeper. a country that has compromised itself through aggression. These demands are not only absolutely prohibitive, from the point of view of Afghanistan’s interests, they are also erroneous. Russia cannot be excluded from the peace process because it has strong influence in Central Asia.
Is it really necessary to pay such close attention to Afghanistan if the Taliban do not pose a direct threat to Russia? Let them stew in their own juice.
This is impossible, if only because Afghanistan is located too close to the Russian borders, to the zone of our state interests in Central Asia.
Taliban. Islam, oil and the new Great Game in Central Asia. Rashid Ahmed
Chapter 1. Kandahar, 1994 Origin of the Taliban
Chapter 1. Kandahar, 1994
Origins of the Taliban
Mullah Mohammad Hassan Rahmani, governor of Kandahar under the Taliban, has the strange habit of moving the table in front of him with his only good leg. By the end of any conversation, the wooden table has time to make a dozen circles around his chair. Hassan's habit may be driven by a psychological need to constantly feel like he still has a leg, or he may simply be exercising by constantly moving his only good leg.
Hassan's second limb is wooden, in the style of one-eyed John Silver, the pirate from Stevenson's Treasure Island. This is an old tree stump. The varnish that previously covered it had long since worn off, scratches appeared in many places and pieces of wood broke off - undoubtedly from frequent walking on the rocky ground near the provincial government. Hassan, one of the oldest Taliban leaders and one of the few who still fought against Soviet forces, is among the founders of the Taliban and is considered the second in command of the movement after his old friend, Mullah Omar.
Hassan lost his leg in 1989 near Kandahar, just before the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Despite the widespread availability of new prosthetics, supplied in abundance by charities for millions of Afghan cripples, Hasan says he prefers his wooden leg. In addition to his leg, he lost the tip of his finger, torn off by shrapnel. The Taliban leadership can rightfully be considered to have the largest number of disabled people in its ranks, and its guests do not know whether to laugh or cry. Mullah Omar lost an eye in 1989 from a nearby rocket explosion. Justice Minister Nuruddin Torabi and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Ghaus are also one-eyed. Kabul Mayor Abdul Majid lost a leg and two fingers. Other leaders, even army commanders, have similar disabilities.
The Taliban's wounds are a constant reminder of twenty years of war that cost the country one and a half million lives and devastated it. The Soviet Union spent $5 billion a year to subdue the Mujahideen, or about $45 billion over all the years, and lost. The US invested $4–5 billion in aid to the mujahideen during 1980–1992. Saudi Arabia spent the same amount, and together with the help of other European and Islamic countries, the Mujahideen received more than 10 billion dollars. Much of this aid was in the form of modern, lethal weapons given to ordinary peasants, who used them to great effect.
The battle wounds of Taliban leaders also reflect the brutality of fighting in the Kandahar region in the 1980s. Unlike the Ghilzais in the east and around Kabul, the Durrani Pashtuns of the south and Kandahar received much less help from the CIA and the West, which supplied the mujahideen with weapons, ammunition, money and organized logistics and medical support. The Pakistani intelligence service was in charge of distributing aid. ISI, which considered Kandahar a less important theater of operations and was suspicious of the Durranis. As a result, the closest place where wounded Kandahar mujahideen could receive medical care was the Pakistani city of Quetta, two days' journey by camel bone shaker. Even now, first aid is rare among the Taliban, there are too few doctors, and there is no field surgery. The only practicing doctors in the country are in the hospitals of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
I happened to be in Kandahar in December 1979 and saw how the first Soviet tanks entered it. The young Soviet soldiers traveled for two days from Soviet Turkmenistan to Herat and from there to Kandahar along a metal-paved highway built by the Soviets in the 1960s. Many soldiers were from Central Asia. They climbed out of their tanks, took off their overalls and went to a nearby shop to drink green tea - a staple drink in both Afghanistan and Central Asia. The Afghans at the bazaar stood and watched, dumbfounded. On December 27, Soviet special forces stormed the palace of President Hafizullah Amin in Kabul, killed him and installed Babrak Karmal as president.
The resistance that began near Kandahar relied on the Durrani tribal structure. In Kandahar, the fight against the Soviets was a tribal jihad led by chiefs and ulema(high clergy), and not ideological jihad led by Islamists. There were seven Mujahideen parties in Peshawar that were recognized by Pakistan and received a share of the aid coming from the CIA. It is significant that none of these parties was led by Durrani Pashtuns. There were supporters of each of the seven parties in Kandahar, but the most popular were those based on tribal relations, namely Harkat-e-Inqilab Islami(Islamic Revolution Movement), led by Maulavi Mohammad Nabi Mohammad and, and another, Hizb-i-Islami(Party of Islam), led by Maulavi Yunus Khales. Before the war, both leaders were well known in the tribal zone and led their madrasah, or religious schools.
For the southern warlords, party affiliation was determined by which of the Peshawar leaders provided money and weapons. Mullah Omar joined Hizb-i-Islami Khalesa, and Mullah Hasan entered into Harakat.“I knew Omar very well, but we fought in different units and on different fronts, although sometimes we fought together,” Hasai said. The National Islamic Front was also popular (Mahaz-i-Milli) led by Pir Saeed Ahmad Ghelani, who stood for the return of former king Zaher Shah and for the king to lead the Afghan resistance - something Pakistan and the CIA strongly opposed. The former king lived in Rome and remained popular among the Kandaharis, who hoped that his return would establish Durrani leadership.
The contradictions between the Pashtun leadership of the Mujahideen led to a weakening of the position of the Pashtuns in the further course of the war. Ulema valued early Islamic ideals and rarely challenged traditional Afghan institutions such as the Loya Jirga. They were much more friendly towards national minorities. Islamists condemned tribalism and followed a radical political doctrine that preached Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. Their policy of excluding all dissenters aroused suspicion among minorities.
Harakat did not have a stable party structure and was rather a fragile alliance of field commanders and tribal leaders, many of whom received only the rudiments of education in madrasah. On the contrary, Golbuddin Hekmatyar turned Hizb-i-Islami into a secret, strictly centralized political organization, whose cadres were recruited among the educated urban Pashtuns. Before the war, the Islamists had almost no public support in Afghanistan, but, receiving money and weapons from the CIA and Pakistan, they quickly acquired it and enjoyed enormous influence in the country. Traditionalists and Islamists fought each other so mercilessly that by 1994 the traditional elite in Kandahar was completely destroyed, thus making way for even more radical Islamists - the Taliban.
The Battle of Kandahar was also determined by the history of this city. Kandahar is Afghanistan's second largest city, with a population of approximately 250,000 before the war and twice that number now. The old city has existed since 500 BC. BC, but just 35 miles away is Mundigak, a Bronze Age settlement dating back to 3000 BC. e. and belonged to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. The Kandaharis have always been outstanding traders, as their city lies at the crossroads of ancient trade routes - east through the Bolan Pass into Sindh, to the Arabian Sea and India, and west to Herat and Iran. The city has been a traditional meeting place for the arts and crafts of India and Iran, and the city's many bazaars have been famous for centuries.
The new city has changed little since it was founded on a grand scale in 1761 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani dynasty. The fact that the Kandahar Durranis created the Afghan state and ruled it for 300 years gave the Kandaharis a special position among the Pashtuns. As a sign of respect for their hometown, the Kabul kings exempted Kandaharis from compulsory military service. Ahmad Shah's mausoleum overlooks the central bazaar, and thousands of Afghans still come here to pray and pay tribute to the father of the nation.
Next to his tomb stands the Shrine of the Prophet Muhammad's Cloak, one of the most sacred places in Afghanistan. The cloak is taken out of the temple on very rare occasions, for example, it was taken out in 1929, when King Amanullah tried to unite the tribes around him, or in 1935, at the height of the cholera epidemic. But in 1996, to establish himself as the God-given leader of the Afghan people, Mullah Omar took out the Cloak and showed it to a large crowd of Taliban, who gave him the title Amir-ul-Muminiin, or Leader of the Faithful.
But the main thing that Kandahar is famous for among other cities is its orchards. Kandahar lies in an oasis located in the middle of the desert, where it is incredibly hot in summer, but around the city there are green fields and shady gardens where grapes, melons, mulberries, figs, peaches and pomegranates grow, famous throughout India and throughout Iran. Kandahar pomegranates were depicted in Persian manuscripts written a thousand years ago, and were served at dinner to the viceroys of British India in the nineteenth century. Kandahar truck drivers, who provided crucial financial support to the Taliban in their fight to conquer the country, began their activity in the last century, transporting Kandahar fruit to Delhi and Kolkata.
The gardens had a complex irrigation system that was well maintained until the Soviets and Mujahideen mined the fields, at which point the villagers fled to Pakistan and the gardens were abandoned. Kandahar remains one of the most heavily mined cities in the world. Among the flat terrain, orchards and irrigation canals provided cover for the Mujahideen, who quickly captured the rural area and isolated the Soviet garrison in the city. The Soviets responded by cutting down thousands of trees and destroying the irrigation system. When refugees returned to their devastated gardens after 1990, they were forced to grow opium poppies to earn a living. This is how one of the main sources of income for the Taliban arose.
The departure of the Soviets in 1989 was followed by a long struggle with the regime of President Najibullah, which lasted until his overthrow in 1992 and the occupation of Kabul by the Mujahideen. One of the main reasons for the ensuing civil war was that Kabul fell not into the hands of the well-armed and quarreling Pashtun parties from Peshawar, but under the control of the better organized and unified Tajiks of Burhanuddin Rabbani and his commander-in-chief, Ahmad Shah Massoud, and the Uzbeks north, led by General Rashid Dostom. For the Pashtuns, this was a terrible psychological trauma, since for the first time in 300 years they lost control of the capital. Civil war began almost immediately when Hekmatyar attempted to unite the Pashtuns and laid siege to Kabul, mercilessly bombarding it.
Afghanistan was in the process of almost completely disintegrating when the Taliban emerged in 1994. The country was divided into fiefdoms of warlords who fought, fled from one side to the other and fought again in an endless series of alliances, betrayals and bloodshed. The predominantly Tajik government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani controlled Kabul, its environs and the northeast of the country, while the three western provinces, centered on Herat, were subordinate to Ismail Khan. In the east, the three Pashtun provinces bordering Pakistan were governed by an independent mujahideen council (Shura) based in Jalalabad. A small area south and east of Kabul was controlled by Golbuddin Hekmatyar.
In the north, the Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostom ruled six provinces, and in January 1994 he betrayed the Rabbani government and allied with Hekmatyar to attack Kabul. In central Afghanistan, the Hazaras controlled the Bamiyan province. Southern Afghanistan and Kandahar were divided among many small field commanders from former mujahideen and gang leaders who robbed and ruined the people at their own discretion. Since the tribal structure and economy had been destroyed, there was no harmony among the Pashtun leaders, and Pakistan was unwilling to give the Durranis the same assistance that it had given to Hekmatyar, the southern Pashtuns were in a state of war of all against all.
Even international aid organizations were afraid to work in Kandahar because the city itself was divided between warring factions. Their leaders sold everything they could to Pakistani traders, removed telephone wires and poles, cut down trees, sold entire factories with their equipment and even asphalt rollers for scrap metal. Bandits seized houses and land, threw out their owners and distributed them to their supporters. The commanders committed arbitrariness, kidnapped young girls and boys to satisfy their lust, robbed merchants in the bazaar and carried out massacres in the streets. Refugees not only did not return from Pakistan, on the contrary, new streams of them rushed from Kandahar to Quetta.
For the powerful trucking mafia based in Quetta and Kandahar, this situation was intolerable. In 1993, I was driving from Quetta to Kandahar and over 130 miles we were stopped by more than 20 different gangs who strung chains across the road and demanded payment for free passage. The transport mafia, which tried to open trade routes between Quetta, Iran and newly independent Turkmenistan, found itself unable to do business.
For those Mujahideen who fought against the Najibullah regime and then returned home or continued to study in madrasah Quetta or Kandahar, the situation was particularly annoying. “We all knew each other - Mullah Omar, Ghaus, Mohammad Rabbani (not a relative of President Rabbani) and I - since we all came from the province of Uruzgan and fought together,” said Mullah Hasan. - I went to Quetta and back, studied there in different madrasah, but when we got together, we always discussed the terrible life of our people under the control of these bandits. We shared the same beliefs and got along well with each other, so we quickly came to the decision that we had to do something.”
Mullah Mohammad Ghaus, the one-eyed Taliban foreign minister, said much the same thing: “We sat for a long time and discussed how to change this terrible situation. Before we started, we only had a very general idea of what needed to be done, and we thought that nothing would work out for us, but we worked for the sake of Allah, we were his disciples. We have achieved so much because Allah helped us,” said Gaus.
Other mujahideen groups in the south discussed the same problems. “Many people were looking for a solution. I came from Kalat in the province of Zabul (85 miles north of Kandahar) and entered madrasah,“But things were so bad that we abandoned our studies and, together with our friends, spent all our time talking about what needed to be done,” said Mullah Mohammad Abbas, who later became the minister of health in Kabul. - The previous leadership of the Mujahideen failed to establish peace. Then I and a group of friends went to Herat to the Shura, which was convened by Ismail Khan, but it did not come to any decision, and things went worse and worse. Then we came to Kandahar, talked to Mullah Omar and joined him.”
After much discussion, these diverse but deeply concerned people came up with an agenda that remains the Taliban's agenda: restore peace, disarm the population, establish Sharia law, and ensure the unity and Islamic character of Afghanistan. Since most of them studied at madrasah, the name they chose was quite natural. Talib - this is a student, a student, one who seeks knowledge, as opposed to a mullah who gives knowledge. By choosing this name, the Taliban (plural of Taliban) separated himself from the politicking of the Mujahideen and made it clear that they were a movement for the purification of society, and not a party to seize power.
All those who gathered around Mullah Omar were children of jihad, deeply disillusioned by the factional struggle and banditry to which the Mujahideen leaders they had revered in the past had indulged in. They saw themselves as those who must save and cleanse society from the filth of partisanship and corruption, corrupt social structures, and return it to the path of true Islam. Many of them were born in refugee camps in Pakistan, studied in Pakistani madrasah and learned the craft of war from the Mujahideen parties based in Pakistan. Therefore, the young Taliban had little knowledge of their own country, its history, but madrasah they heard about the ideal Islamic society created by the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago - and that is what they wanted to build.
According to some Taliban, Omar was chosen as leader not for his political or military abilities, but because of his piety and steadfast adherence to Islam. “We have chosen Mullah Omar to lead this movement. He was first among equals, and we gave him the power to lead us, and he gave us the power and authority to solve the problems of the people,” Mullah Hassan said. Mullah Omar himself explained to Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusafzai: “We took up arms to achieve the goals of the Afghan jihad, to save our people from further suffering at the hands of the so-called mujahideen. We deeply believe in Almighty God. We always remember this. He can bless us with victory or throw us into the abyss of defeat,” Omar said.
No head of state is surrounded today by such a veil of secrecy as Mullah Mohammad Omar. Having reached the age of 39, he had never been photographed or met with Western diplomats or journalists. His first meeting with a UN official took place in 1998, when he spoke with UN Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi to prevent a military attack from Iran that was threatening the Taliban. Omar lives in Kandahar and has only visited the capital twice and only briefly. Simply gathering facts about his life has become a full-time activity for many Afghans and Western diplomats.
Omar was born around 1959 in the village of Nodeh near Kandahar: into a family of poor, landless peasants from the Hotaki tribe of the Ghilzai branch of Pashtuns. The Hotaki chief, Mir Wais, captured Isfahan in Iran in 1721 and created the first Afghan Ghilzai Empire in Iran, but was soon replaced by Ahmad Shah Durrani. Omar did not hold a high position in the tribe or in society, and the noble Kandaharians said that they had never heard of his family. During the jihad of the 1980s, his family moved to the city of Tarinkot in Uruzgan province - one of the most backward and inaccessible places in the country, where Soviet troops rarely penetrated. His father died when he was still a young man, leaving him as the sole protector of his mother and the entire family.
In search of work, he moved to the village of Singezar in Maiwand district, Kandahar province, became the village mullah and opened a small madrasah. His own studies in Kandahar madrasah interrupted twice, first by the Soviet invasion and then by the creation of the Taliban. Omar joined the party Hizb-i-Islami Khales and fought under the command of Mohammad Nek against the Najibullah regime from 1989 to 1992. He received four wounds, one of them in the eye, which he then lost sight of.
Despite the Taliban's successes, Singezar is like any other Pashtun village. The houses are made of raw bricks and stand behind high fences - a traditional Pashtun defensive structure. Narrow, dusty alleys, filled with liquid mud when it rains, connect the houses with each other. Madrasah Omara is still in operation - it is a mud hut, where mattresses lie on the dirt floor on which the students sleep. Omar has three wives, they still live in the village and are completely hidden under the covers. His first and third wives are from Uruzgan, but his second teenage wife, Guljana, whom he took in 1995, is from Singezar. He has five children and they all study at his madrasah.
A tall, well-built man with a long black beard and black turban, Omar has a sarcastic wit and subtle humor. He is very shy with strangers and especially foreigners, but is accessible to the Taliban. When the movement began, he delivered the Friday sermon in the main mosque of Kandahar and met with the people, but then he became a recluse and almost never left the administration building in Kandahar, where he lived. On rare visits to his native village, he is accompanied by dozens of bodyguards in expensive Japanese jeeps with tinted windows.
At Shura meetings, Omar speaks little and listens more to what others say. Due to his shyness, he is a poor speaker and, despite the legends surrounding him, does not have much charisma. He spends his day doing business in a small office in the administration building. At first he sat on the floor with the visitors, but now he sits on the bed, and the others on the floor - this emphasizes his status. He has several secretaries who record his conversations with commanders, ordinary soldiers, clergy and petitioners, and the room is filled with the crackle of radio stations through which he communicates with military commanders throughout the country.
Things are conducted like this: after lengthy discussions, a “chit” is composed - a piece of paper on which is written either an order to go on an attack, or an instruction to the Taliban governor to help the petitioner, or a letter to the UN mediator. Official letters to foreign embassies in Islamabad are often dictated by Pakistani advisers.
At the beginning of the movement, I collected a large collection of “cheats” written on cigarette packs and wrapping paper, which allowed me to travel from city to city. Now documents are written on more decent paper. Next to Omar stands a zinc box, from which he takes out piles of Afghani banknotes and distributes them to commanders and petitioners. IN days success, another zinc box appears - with dollars. These two boxes contain the Taliban treasury.
At important meetings, his confidant and official representative, Mullah Wakil Ahmad, sits next to Omar. Vakil, originally from the Kakar tribe, was a student madrasah and studied with Omar, then became his adjutant, driver, translator, stenographer and food taster in case of poisoning. He quickly advanced in his career, began talking with visiting foreign diplomats, traveling around the country, meeting with Taliban commanders and Pakistani representatives. As Omar's spokesman, he is in charge of the Taliban's communications with foreign journalists and punishes them if he thinks they criticize the Taliban too harshly. Vakil is Omar's eyes and ears and his gatekeeper. No Afghan, no matter what position he occupies, can get to Omar without going through Wakil.
Now there is a whole series of myths and stories about how Omar gathered a small group of Taliban to fight the violent warlords. The most reliable story, repeated by many, is this: in the spring of 1994, neighbors from Singezar told him that a warlord had kidnapped two girls, taken them to a camp, shaved their heads and given them to soldiers for fun. Omar raised 30 students armed with 16 rifles and attacked the camp, freeing the girls and hanging the leader from the barrel of a tank gun. They captured a lot of weapons and equipment. “We fought against Muslims who fell into error. How could we remain calm when we see the violence committed against women and the poor?” - Omar said later.
A few months later, two warlords came to blows on the streets of Kandahar over a boy they each wanted to molest. Several civilians were killed in the battle. Omar's group freed the boy, and people began calling the Taliban for help in other similar cases. Omar became a hero like Robin Hood, protecting poor people from rapists. His credibility grew as he did not demand payment from those he helped, but asked them to join him and build a just Islamic society.
At the same time, Omar's envoys probed the mood of other field commanders. His colleagues visited Herat and met with Ismail Khan, and in September Mohammad Rabbani, one of the founders of the movement, visited Kabul and spoke with President Rabbani. The isolated Kabul government was ready to help any Pashtuns who might oppose Hekmatyar, who continued to shell Kabul, and promised to help the Taliban with money if they turned their weapons on Hekmatyar.
But basically the Taliban was associated with Pakistan, where many of its representatives grew up, studied in madrasah, led by quicksilver Maulana Fazlur Rahman and his fundamentalist party Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI)), which enjoyed great support among the Pashtuns of Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). In addition, Maulana Rahman was a political ally of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and had access to the government, army and intelligence, to which he described the emerging saving power.
Pakistan's Afghan policy was in a quandary. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, successive Pakistani governments have attempted to open a land route to the Central Asian republics. The main obstacle was the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan, through which all roads passed. Pakistani politicians were faced with a strategic choice. Either Pakistan continues to support Hekmatyar to bring a friendly Pashtun government to power in Kabul, or he changes course and demands a compromise between all Afghan parties, no matter what the price the Pashtuns have to pay for it. Such a stable government will open roads to Central Asia.
The Pakistani military believed that other nations would not complete the task and continued to support Hekmatyar. About 20 percent of the Pakistani army consists of Pakistani Pashtuns, and the Pashtun and Islamic lobbies in the army and intelligence were determined to ensure a Pashtun victory in Afghanistan. However, by 1994, it became clear that Hekmatyar had failed and was defeated on the battlefield, and the majority of Pashtuns, divided by his extremism, did not approve of him. Pakistan was tired of supporting a loser and began to look among the Pashtuns for a force capable of representing Pakistani interests.
When Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister in 1993, she was all for opening the route to Central Asia. The shortest road led from Peshawar to Kabul, through the Hindu Kush ridge to Mazar-i-Sharif, then to Termez and Tashkent, but this road was closed due to the fighting around Kabul. And now a new alternative has emerged, supported by the desperate mafia of transporters and smugglers, Pakistani intelligence, DUI, Pashtun military and politicians. Instead of the northern route, you can clear the road from Quetta to Kandahar, Herat and further to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. There are no fights in the south, just dozens of small gangs that can be bribed to remove their chains.
In September 1994, Pakistani observers and intelligence officers drove quietly along the road from Chaman on the Pakistan border to Herat. Interior Minister Nazirullah Babar, a Pashtun by birth, also visited Chaman that month. Kandahar warlords viewed the plan with distrust. They suspected that Pakistan was preparing an intervention to crush them. One of them, Amir Lalai, warned Babar in no uncertain terms. “Pakistan is offering to fix our roads, but I don’t think there will be peace immediately after fixing the roads. As long as neighboring countries continue to interfere in our internal affairs, there will be no peace,” Lalai said.
Despite this, Pakistan began negotiations with the Kandahar warlords and with Ismail Khan in Herat to open traffic to Turkmenistan. On October 20, 1994, Babar took a group of six Western ambassadors to Kandahar and Herat without even informing the government in Kabul. The delegation included senior officials from the departments of railways, highways, postal, telegraph and telephone communications and energy. Babar said he wants $300 million in international aid to rebuild the road from Quetta to Herat. On October 28, Bhutto met with Ismail Khan and General Rashid Dostom in Ashgabat and encouraged them to agree to open the southern road, where trucks would pay only one or two tolls and safety would be guaranteed.
But before this meeting, an event occurred that shocked the Kandahar field commanders. October 12, 1994 200 Taliban from Kandahar and Pakistani madrasah appeared at the Afghan border checkpoint Spinbuldak opposite Chaman. This dirty desert stop was a strategic staging point for the shipping mafia, who fueled and repaired their trucks here. Here the goods were transferred from Pakistani vehicles, which were not allowed to enter further into Afghanistan, onto Afghan trucks. Hekmatyar's people ruled here. Fuel was brought here to supply the armies of field commanders. The smugglers have already paid several hundred thousand Pakistani rupees to Mullah Omar and promised the Taliban a monthly stipend if he manages to clear the road and ensure safe passage along it.
The Taliban split into three groups and attacked Hekmatyar's garrison. After a short, fierce battle, the garrison fled, leaving behind several dead and wounded. The Taliban lost only one person.
Pakistan then helped the Taliban by allowing them to seize a large weapons depot near Spinbuldak, which was guarded by Hekmatyar's men. The stockpile was moved across the border from Pakistan in 1990 when the Geneva Accords prohibited Pakistan from keeping weapons on its soil for Afghans. At the warehouse, the Taliban received 18,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, dozens of artillery pieces, a large amount of ammunition and many vehicles.
The capture of Spinbuldak alarmed the Kandahar leaders, who condemned Pakistan for supporting the Taliban, but continued to quarrel among themselves. By that time, Babar had already lost patience and ordered a test convoy of 30 trucks loaded with medicines to be sent to Ashgabat. “I told Babar that we needed to wait two months because we did not have an agreement with the Kandahar warlords, but Babar insisted on sending a convoy. The Kandaharis thought the convoy was carrying weapons for the Pakistani invasion forces,” one Pakistani official in Kandahar later told me.
On October 29, 1994, a convoy taken from the Pakistan Army's National Logistics Service, which was created by the ISI in the 1980s to smuggle American weapons to the mujahideen, left Quetta. With him were 80 retired army drivers and Colonel Imam, one of the most respected Pakistani intelligence officers in southern Afghanistan and also the consul general in Herat. The convoy was accompanied by two young Taliban commanders, Mullah Borjan and Torabi. (Both would later take part in the assault on Kabul, where Mullah Borjan would die.) 12 miles from Kandahar, in the village of Takhtapul near the Kandahar airport, the convoy was detained by a group of field commanders. These were Amir Lalai, Mansur Achakzai, who controlled the airport, and Ustad Halim. They ordered the convoy to stop at the nearest village, at the foot of the low mountains. When I visited the area a few months later, fire marks and discarded rations were still visible.
The warlords demanded money, a share of goods, and an end to support for the Taliban. While they were negotiating with Colonel Imam, Islamabad was looking for ways to solve the problem. “We were afraid that Mansour would plant weapons in the convoy and then blame Pakistan. Therefore, we considered options for releasing the convoy by force, for example, a raid Special Service Group[Pakistan Army Special Forces] or airborne assault. But this seemed too dangerous to us, and we asked the Taliban to release the convoy,” said the Pakistani official. On November 3, 1994, the Taliban attacked those holding the convoy. The leaders, thinking it was a raid by the Pakistani army, fled. Mansour was driven into the desert by the Taliban and killed along with ten of his bodyguards. His body was strung up on top of a tank gun for everyone to see.
That same evening, the Taliban entered Kandahar and, after two days of minor skirmishes, put the warlords to flight. Mullah Naqib, the most respected warlord in the city, did not resist. Some of his aides alleged that Naqib received a large bribe from Pakistani intelligence for his surrender, with the promise of keeping his position. The Taliban accepted his people, and Naqib himself was sent to his home village near Kandahar. The Taliban received dozens of tanks, armored personnel carriers, other military equipment, weapons, but most importantly - six MiG-21 fighters and six transport helicopters - remnants of the Soviet occupation.
In just two weeks, an unknown force had captured Afghanistan's second-largest city with only a dozen casualties. In Islamabad, none of the foreign diplomats and journalists doubted that they had received significant support from Pakistan. Government and DUI celebrated the fall of Kandahar. Babar attributed the Taliban's success to himself, telling journalists informally that the Taliban were "our guys." But the Taliban have shown that they are not subordinate to Pakistan and will not be anyone’s puppets. On November 16, 1994, Mullah Ghaus said that Pakistan should not send convoys other than the Taliban in the future and should not enter into agreements with individual warlords. He also said that the Taliban would not allow goods destined for Afghanistan to be transported on Pakistani trucks - this was the main demand of the transport mafia.
The Taliban removed all the chains, imposed a single tax on trucks entering through Spinbuldak, and organized patrols of the road. The transport mafia was delighted - in December, the first Pakistani convoy of 50 trucks carrying Turkmen cotton arrived in Quetta, paying the Taliban 200,000 rupees ($5,000) in duties. Meanwhile, thousands of young Afghan Pashtuns who had studied in Balochistan and the NWFP flocked to Kandahar to join the Taliban. They were soon followed by volunteers from DUI madrasah inspired by the new Islamic movement in Afghanistan. By December 1994, more than 12 thousand Afghan and Pakistani students had joined the Taliban in Kandahar.
Pakistan was under increasing pressure from both inside and outside to clarify its position; Bhutto first denied Pakistani support for the Taliban in February 1995. “We do not play favorites in Afghanistan and we do not interfere in Afghan affairs,” she said during a visit to Manila. She later said Pakistan could not stop volunteers from crossing the border and joining the Taliban. “I cannot fight in place of Mr. [President Burhanuddin] Rabbani. If Afghans want to cross the border, I don't stop them. I may not let them back, but many have families here,” she said.
The Taliban immediately implemented the harshest interpretation of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world. They closed girls' schools and banned women from working outside the home, destroyed televisions, banned sports and entertainment, and ordered men to grow long beards. In another three months, the Taliban would take control of twelve of the thirty-one provinces, opening up road traffic and disarming the population. As the Taliban moved north towards Kabul, local warlords either fled or surrendered. Mullah Omar and his student army marched across Afghanistan.
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