Digging in for a long fight
Taliban leave Kabul for the mountains, while young fighters stream over the borders to aid them and tensions grow among those left behind
BY TIM McGIRK
time.com
After several days of U.S. air attacks, the Taliban fighters in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, swiftly learned to tell the difference between incoming bombs and cruise missiles. "The bombs make a sound, then you see a green light falling through the sky. The missiles have flashing yellow lights," a Taleban commander explained to one of his retired fighters, Hamad Alokzai, on Thursday night as they sat blanketed in a pick-up truck, a safe distance in the hills outside of Kandahar.
That evening, there were plenty of green and yellow lights. "It was like Kandahar was covered in a floating, green dust," recalls Alokzai, a gaunt Afghan in his early thirties with a beard like matted wool and fingers adorned with gaudy silver rings. He also counted 30 cruise missiles striking various targets around the city, mainly at the airport and at the Qitch-la Jadid ammunition dump on the Kabul road. Surprised by the lack of any anti-aircraft fire, Alokzai was told "Our commanders told us to save our bullets for the American soldiers, Their planes are too high to hit." After five years of fighting in mjaor battles, Alokzai left the Taliban because, he says, "I was tired of the way they pushed people around." But he returned to Kandahar from Quetta, Pakistan, after the U.S. bombings to check on his old comrades.
Not many were left. At the Halqa Cherif mosque in the center of Kandahar, where 10,000 Taliban once gathered to pray every day, Alokzai counted less than a hundred kneeling on the cool marble courtyard of the mosque. The others, including the Supreme Leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had fled Kandahar. "Mullah Omar gave orders to leave the cities and move to the mountains. From there we'll start a jihad against the Americans -- even if it takes 20 years," Alokzai was told by a Taliban friend.
Even though his sympathies lie with his former fighters, Alokzai describes a city consumed by panic and anger -- directed as much at the Taliban masters as at the American bomber pilots. Shopkeepers were openly criticising the Taliban for harboring suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, the source of their current misfortune. "A few more days and they'll stand up to us," one Taliban remarked, nodding worriedly towards a crowd in the bazaar. Suspicion is also running high; since Monday, over 80 men were arrested for allegedly backing exiled King Zaher Shah. "It was mainly because their beards were too short," Alokzai laughs.
*** I laughed out real loud when i read this...Glad I don't have a beard.
Although the U.S. weapons struck with laser-guided accuracy -- they destroyed the airport, an ammunitions dump, and the houses of Omar and suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden -- the Taliban had already scattered from Kandahar like wasps from a bashed-in hive. Hundreds died, mostly in the mud hut settlements around the ammo dump, and Kandahar's two hospitals are filled with civilian casualties, but with few Taliban fighters. "The only Taliban killed were boys --left behind at the airport as night watchmen," says Alokzai. Hospital sources confirm this.
With bin Laden long gone, the Kandaharis' anger is turning on the remaining Arabs. Most Arab fighters daubed their off-road vehicles with mud as camouflage and escaped into the desert west of Kandahar. But at least three Arabs fell prey to thieves in the city. Without their Taliban protectors around, the Arabs were murdered for their wristwatches and motorcycles. In one affulent Arab neighborhood, looters also used grenades to burst into the abandoned homes and grab valuables.
One Taleban commander confirmed that Omar's house had taken a direct missile hit the first night of the U.S. attack. Omar escaped -- when is not exactly known -- but he left behind several of his sons, his uncle and his brother-in-law, who were all killed in the blast.
*** OMG ! Wounded tiger.......now this i find pretty sad...and scary.
Omar, who still manages to stay in contact with several of his most trusted commanders by radio, is reportedly thought to be hiding in the Terai Dera Wad mountains in central Afghanistan. Several Taleban commanders doubted that Omar and bin Laden were holed up together. Most likely, they said, bin Laden had retreated to mountains near the eastern town of Khost which are riddled with caves and tunnels left over from the Afghans' 13-year war against the Soviets.
Days after the New York and Washington suicide attacks, the Taliban were already making preparations for a long mountain campaign. Over 45 trucks filled with arms and ammunition left Kandahar in a single day, according to the Taliban.
Meanwhile, there's frantic, two-way traffic on the border road. Families are fleeing Kandahar, while Pakistani youths from as far away as Karachi are flocking to join the Taliban's fight against America. Most are teenagers. "Why do you want to enter this Hell?" warned a Taliban soldier at a roadblock. Taxis are hard to find in either direction because the drivers are scared the Taliban will drag them into military service. Says driver Mamnoon Khan, 45, "If this happens, then you are dead. The Taliban cannot win this war, and you would die fighting for them." Those who remain in Kandahar are even more worried. Says bazaar shopkeeper Mohammed Noorzai, "I'm afraid that if I sleep tonight, I'll wake up to find an American soldier standing in every doorway." Afghans and Americans are hoping that it doesn't come to that.
With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Spin Boldak, Afghanistan |
