atimes.com:
The face of Afghanistan's resistance
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
CHAMAN/SPIN BOLDAK, Pakistan-Afghanistan border - The significant increase in the number and nature of attacks on US targets, as well as on the Afghan administration, provides indisputable evidence that the Taliban are back with a vengeance, especially in the south of the country. It is now as clear as broad daylight that neither an indigenous force nor a foreign force (not even one with massive bombers ruling the skies) can control the resistance movement.
On the face of it, the Taliban are the most isolated guerrilla fighters in the world, with no moral or material help from outside the country. However, there is an intriguing world within Afghanistan and Pakistan that supports and facilitates the struggle against foreign troops.
Across a broad swath of Afghanistan in the south and southeast Taliban-led guerrilla operations are the order of the day. Their attacks initially targeted US bases and convoys, but now the Afghan administration is in the firing line. The reason for this is to frighten as many local Afghans as possible into laying down their weapons, thereby leaving the battlefield clear for Taliban militia to take on US-led forces in the rugged mountainous terrain of the region.
This target has already very much been achieved in the southern Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan, including Zabul and Hilmand, beside Urugzan, which is nearing the point where the US-backed Afghan administration will be forced to flee.
Whether it is the house of the brother of interim leader Hamid Karzai or well-guarded ceremonies for independence day, nothing now appears beyond the range of the Taliban, and they are making life particularly difficult for the Afghan administration in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold in the south.
Nevertheless, the Afghan government still presents a defiant face.
Speaking to Asia Times Online, Khalid Khan, a deputy secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaking in a telephone interview, said that some of the claims being made by the Taliban (such as the attack on the house of Karzai's brother) were simply "propaganda stunts".
"We have not heard of any bomb blasts for a long time. These are false stories that the house of Ahmed Karzai was attacked in Kandahar. I assure you, that except for ordinary incidents, the Taliban cannot dare to continue their operations. They are finished.
"Similarly, I have never heard of Mr Hikmatyar's [former Afghan prime minister Gulbbudin Hikmatyar] Hizb-e-Islami being in Kandahar for a long time. I think that most of his close confidants are still in Iran," says Khan, referring to the country in which Hikmatyar, a renowned warlord and focal point of the present resistance movement, lived in exile for some years.
However, despite the official viewpoint, different sources witness daily clashes between the Afghan militia and Taliban fighters. These sources include officials and workers of international aid agencies, local Pakistani welfare organizations and traders based in the Pakistani Chaman area who move daily between Kandahar and Chaman,
"I visit Kandahar three to four times in a month. The Afghan authorities are really worried about the increasing guerrilla activities of renegade forces and they blame the Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami for the attacks," said an aid worker associated with the Edhi Welfare Trust, Chaman office. Edhi is one of Pakistan's largest non-government organizations.
To appreciate this, it is necessary to understand the geographical dynamics of the area.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the Chaman area is very complicated. It lies in Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital. Chaman city, which is less than 100 kilometers from Kandahar across the border, comprises mostly shops and markets (it is perhaps the largest market of smuggled and stolen goods in the region, with merchandise flowing from Karachi port in Pakistan, Port Abbas in Iran and even from Europe via Russia). The bulk of the population lives in surrounding villages, which are densely populated.
And because of local disrespect for the "artificial" border separating Pashtun areas, many of the villages are located both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. One house even has its courtyard in Afghanistan, and its rooms in Pakistan.
Even electricity flows into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and the local people generally refer to themselves as "Afghans" regardless of their official Pakistani or Afghan origins. Ethnically, they come from the same Pashtun stock, split into two major tribes, the Noor Zai and the Achakzai.
Two examples of people from the area illustrate the meaningless of the border. Hafiz Hamdullah is a provincial minister in the Balochistan government, but he hails from the Afghan part of the divide. He received a religious education in Pakistan and became a member of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam Fazalur Rahman group, which is how he came to be a minister. Mullah Abdul Razzak, meanwhile, lives in the Pakistani part of the divide, but he took part in the early years of the Taliban movement, rising to minister defense in the Taliban regime.
These geographical realities play into the hands of the Taliban because neither the Afghan government nor the Pakistani government can stop the flow of people (let alone smuggled goods and electricity) from criss-crossing the border. This is why when the two governments a few months ago attempted to restrict movement by imposing visas, the ban became a laughing stock on the both sides of the border.
As mentioned, the Taliban receives scant outside support, which raises some pertinent questions in light of the escalation of resistance:
Thousands of Taliban were said to have been killed during the US invasion of late 2001 and onwards, thousands others were arrested. How, then, has the Taliban managed to regroup?
How can people from such a poverty-stricken nation continue to fight for such a long time?
From where do the guerrillas attack, and where do they take sanctuary?
In an effort to answer these questions, Asia Times Online tried to track down Mullah Razzak, who now lives in Kili Jalaluddin, on the Pakistani side of the border near Chaman, and who is often seen in the area.
However, on this occasion he could not be traced. But another Taliban did come forward when he heard that a journalist had come from Karachi to get first-hand information on the Taliban.
Azmatullah is tall, slim, down-to-earth and soft-spoken, in his mid-twenties, and at first glance he does not look anything like a guerrilla fighter. He is a first cousin of Mullah Razzak's, and his lieutenant in the resistance movement. Our meeting point was the Chaman Press Club, where the two of us sat in a corner and chatted for about one hour.
ATol: The Taliban's army was destroyed during the US invasion. It is a matter of record that thousands were killed and thousands were arrested. How has the Taliban managed to regroup? I spoke to local officials of the Pashtun Nationalist Party (Paktoonkha Awami Party) and also Afghan officials, who say that news concerning the reemergence of the Taliban is fiction, fabricated by Pakistani intelligence agencies. What do you have to say?
Azmatullah: The Taliban are very much alive and everywhere. I tell you a fact, that even in the provinces of Zabul, Hilmand and Urugzan, the old machinery is very much working that was in operation during the Taliban period. In our land, everybody is Taliban, and from them new teams can be drawn.
ATol: OK! If I accept your argument, then what is the point of the Taliban attacking these provinces and districts?
Azmatullah: (He unfolds a piece of a paper) This is a pamphlet we have distributed all over Afghanistan, asking officials not to cooperate with US-backed Afghan officials. It does work. You saw that we captured Zabul and several place in Hilmand, and the officials and soldiers just left their places without a fight. There were skirmishes only when reinforcements were sent from Kandahar and US planes bombed the areas.
ATol: This is what you say. Here in Chaman I have met several Kandaharis who say that they have not seen the Taliban for a long time.
Azamtullah: You please go to Kandahar and visit the minister for television and radio who was very recently admitted to a local hospital. His name is Saadat. You know why he was beaten up? The local TV station televised an English-language movie. As a reaction, a commander of the Afghan militia, Mohammed Naeem, entered his office and beat him like a dog until he apologized and said that he would never televise an English movie again. Now tell me, who are these people among them [the militia], Taliban or non-Taliban?
Similarly, who attacked Hamid Karzai when he was in Kandahar? Was it their own militia or not? My friend, Afghans cannot tolerate foreign occupation. It is not just a compulsion that we bear, it as a matter of strategy, we have retained our presence among them [Afghan militia].
ATol: But how can a poverty-stricken nation fight? I think even if the Taliban are fighting, it is a temporary phenomena and with the passage of time the struggle will die down.
Azmatullah: (With a smile) Who says we are poor? You should go to the kilis [villages]. Everybody has refrigerators, wagons, cars and trucks.
ATol: What is the source of the Taliban's financing? Where do you get your money to fight?
Azamtullah: (Again with a deep smile) From US dollars from the US authorities!
ATol: How?
Azmatullah: You know that they distribute dollars to the tribal chiefs, local administrators and other concerned people for welfare projects. What is your opinion of where it goes? Not every penny, but most goes into Taliban pockets to refuel their struggle.
ATol: I wonder, after you attack, you melt away, where do you go? Because I have visited the border areas, and the district headquarters of Zabul and Hilmand are very far away from the border.
Azmatullah: I tell you, we belong to our people. We do not come from the skies. We belong to this land. It is simple that we go out of our homes to attack them, and when we are chased we simply go back to our homes and our people simply say that "we don't know any Talib". This is the area where we have not seen any strangers. Thus we are protected.
ATol: Who are the main commanders in the southern region?
Azmatullah: Mullah Akhtar Usmani, Mullah Ubaidullah and Mullah Abdul Rauf.
ATol: How many fighters does each one have?
Azmatullah: This is not the way we do it, that everybody has separate fighters. Here in the southern region, including Urugzan, Kandahar, Hilmand and Zabul, we have declared Hilmand as the center of resistance. We have about 2,000 fighters. When a commander decides to attack any place, he contacts these fighters scattered in different places and attacks. After the attack, everybody disperses to different positions.
ATol: Are there Arab fighters still among you?
Azmatullah: Very few. Most of them were killed when the Taliban retreated. The only ones left are those who have been living in Afghanistan for 20 years or so. They know Afghanistan and Pashtu. So after the Taliban retreated, the newcomers were accosted by the Afghan militia, and if they failed to speak Pashtu, and spoke Arabic, they were killed. Those who know Pashtu survived by showing that they were local Afghans. Now most of them are with us. But they are few in number.
ATol: Where is Osama bin Laden? Does he speak Pashtu?
Azmatullah: Bin Laden can understand Pashtu, but cannot speak it well. Even our senior leaders do not know where he is.
ATol: I think he is dead.
Azmatullah: No! He is alive because through his representative his letters are delivered, which shows that he is healthy, but we do not know where he is and how he is surviving.
ATol: Why have the Taliban failed to kill many US soldiers in Afghanistan?
Azmatullah: They hide the facts. Every day, there are US casualties in Afghanistan.
ATol: How come? You attack with your AK-47 guns or rocket launchers. These are not effective weapons these days. You cannot use heavy weapons in guerrilla warfare.
Azmatullah: (Azmatullah mentions the name of a weapon in Pashtu which is not immediately identifiable, but the way he describes it makes it sound like a missile with a range of about 50 kilometers, fired by a one-barreled gun.) We operate it with an ordinary battery as used in cars. In a group of, for example 10 people, two carry guns, two persons carry a battery and the rest carry two missiles each. An attack takes 10 to 15 minutes, and we take position a few kilometer from a target in the mountains. After the attack, we take our missile pad and run away.
ATol: What is the role of Gulbbudin Hikmatyar and his Hizb-e-Islami in the resistance?
Azmatullah: After a meeting with Taliban officials, Engineer Saheb [as Gulbbudin is popularly known) agreed for a full coordinated movement to kick out the occupation forces from Afghanistan. Engineer Saheb is a professor [meaning he has a Western-style education] and his commanders are also professors, so they have better tactics to use against the US, and thus the resistance movement has been going on very successfully since they joined us.
ATol: Why you are fighting for the Taliban and how much you are paid?
Azmatullah: My friend, except of this cloth I am wearing, I receive nothing in return for fighting for the Taliban. I fight because of Allah, the Almightily, and all of us Taliban are inspired by the same theme. On both sides of the divide [Afghanistan-Pakistan border], people are with the Taliban. So when the Afghan militia chases me, I come to this side of the divide. Here people keep me at their homes, feed me and take care of me. |
