Eyewitness account
Bravado–and blood–in Taliban territory
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN–"Have you ever heard of anthrax?" asks the diminutive Filipino standing at the reception desk in one of this shattered city's crummy hotels. "That is the kind of thing I'm pretty good at making."
An idle boast? Maybe, except for the letter the man hands the desk clerk. It appears to bear the signature of Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The letter grants the bearer free lodging. It is written on stationery emblazoned with the green Arabic letterhead of al Qaeda.
Clad in a white skullcap and clean gown, a pistol at his waist, the man claims membership in Abu Sayyaf, the militant Filipino group linked to bin Laden. He explains, a bit nervously, that he is a biochemistry graduate with "extensive experience in microbiology" and is working on viruses and germs to use against U.S. troops fighting the Taliban.
There is no way to know for sure whether the man is a biowarfare expert. But U.S. officials have been worried that al Qaeda and the Taliban might try to use chemical or biological weapons against American forces.
Of course, the Taliban is also relying on more conventional defenses. Caves, for instance. A strategic base in an old copper mine south of Kabul has been battered by U.S. bombs. But Arab fighters there are still using the caverns. Outside, fighters have formed a kind of Mad Max brigade with 25 motorcycles. "These motorcycles have been brought from Kabul to attack the American helicopters in case they try landing," says a turbaned mechanic. "I've seen the riders training in the mornings with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and heavy machine guns. . . . They seem pretty good at what they do."
Near the entrance to one cave, some 50 Arabs, most Yemenis, take a tea break. They wear pocketed vests containing what villagers say is dynamite. "They tell us they are walking antitank bombs," says the mechanic. One of the Arabs nods his head in the direction of the conversation, adding: "We are ready to be martyrs."
Nursing wounds. At the front lines in the north, there is less bluster. But there is more blood. In the village of Hussein Khil, three ambulances are crowded with patients moaning for help. Puddles of blood spread across the dirt as male nurses, who have used their turbans as tourniquets, splash the faces of their charges with water.
Heavy B-52 raids have turned bunkers into craters. Mullah Abdul Hadi, a 23-year-old Taliban soldier, scanned the front line as another salvo rained 25 bombs onto a nearby bunker. "If this heavy bombing and this weather keeps up, it's bound to be a horrible winter," he bitterly tells a senior commander. Nearby hospitals are so jammed that female nurses have been allowed to treat men. That's a first for the Taliban. "We were prepared for 100 injuries a day," says Nasa Rullah Stankizai, a doctor in Kabul's largest hospital. "But we are flooded with 180."
The only boost for the Taliban was the arrival last week of a few thousand veteran Pakistani fighters. They are being deployed as a second line of defense around Kabul. The militants arrived in trucks, with a loudspeaker blaring Taliban fight chants (without music, per Taliban law). One verse goes: "Oh, backers of Bush, come down and fight; why are you flying around like butterflies and not landing?"
This article was reported by a former Kabul Times reporter whose name is being withheld for his safety. It was written by Philip Smucker
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