In Suicides We Trust

By D. Asghar
Every time there is an insane terror attack in the heart of Pakistani cities, within hours you see the holy warriors of TTP claiming the responsibility for such “remarkable valor.” It is unclear, why the law enforcement agencies have not tackled these murderers head on.
These cowardly acts are marketed as a fitting response to the US drone strikes. Or these are GOD fearing Mujahids waging a war against the infidels, so to speak. The term “infidel” has lost its real meaning. Any and everybody can be declared an infidel at a moment’s notice by any one. After that conclusive declaration, no further justification or reasoning for any action is warranted.
The sad part is that a significant number of general population is sympathetic towards these beasts, because the Taliban use religion as a shield to cover their dastardly deeds. Let’s assume that these “oppressed and valiant Taliban” were not Muslims and these were communist rebels, resisting American invasion (so to speak), would our attitudes and sentiments still be in line with their modus operandi.
In any war the strategy seems to dominate the game. In this case, TTP or Taliban in general have brilliantly used religion to cover up their heinous and barbaric acts. There are educated people, in and outside Pakistan, who not only buy into all of this, but justify these suicide bombings as an act of struggle against “Imperial forces.” If you engage those individuals in any sane discussions, the counter argument is always American invasion and these acts being its repercussions.
Afghanistan prior to the much touted and debated American invasion, was no symbol of peace and prosperity under the direct rule of these “self righteous and pious Muslims.” The sheer brutality and lack of human values were the hallmark of these “great visionary leaders” of Muslim Ummah. Many would dismiss all of this being Western propaganda, but facts from independent and non partisan media, show volumes of incriminating evidence against these brutes.
The case in Pakistan is no different as we have hyper sensitive religious society, in action at all times. We can attract people’s attention within minutes in the name of religion, for better or for worst. The hard core religious parties always have a soft corner for these beasts as ideologically they find a common ground with the TTP’s and LJ’s and their likes.
The common theme or slogan which is raised repeatedly is, “Islam is in peril.” For 1400 years or so, Islam has withstood all tests, challenges and dangers. This is in front of all the people around the world. This fact should be the hallmark of every living and breathing Muslim’s faith. Nothing has, nor it ever will diminish the religion as it is a divine message. On the other hand, it is incumbent upon Muslims, as the torch bearers of this divine message, to demonstrate the best of their character towards their fellow human beings.
In order to combat this menace, first and foremost the distinction between terrorism and holy war has to be established. Mostly media, paper and electronic, voices its condemnation after every such incident, but it appears that all its pleas fall on deaf ears.
It is high time that all Muslim sects of Pakistan and their religious leaders, collectively form an alliance to eradicate this evil. We make tall claims about the following of Prophet PBUH in attire and argue with one another about minute details of how to perform our Salah. But do we really care about, what Prophet PBUH would have done in this situation. What would have been his reaction to all of this? If he was the Messenger of Good, then where is our Goodness and Humility? Islam is not about the length of the beard and the color of the turban, but it is how a human being submits to the will of GOD.
All the Masajids of all sects should be mandated to teach the followers the difference between the act of suicide, which is beyond evil and forbidden in the faith, and the true struggle in the path of ALMIGHTY. The schools, colleges and all learning institutions should have mandatory education about this subject, so the myths can be eliminated.
The law enforcement agencies should be held to task by the elected leaders to combat this menace effectively. The investigations should be transparent and must have targeted deadlines, so the future catastrophes can be averted. The prosecution and sentencing should be exemplary so the people can get a clear and unified message of zero tolerance.
There is this widely held belief that terrorism cannot be eliminated completely. There is some truth to this debate, however terrorism cannot be tolerated in its present form either. It is undoubtedly a hydra headed monster, yet chopping or knocking few of its head will go a long way.
Those who vehemently relate this to the American presence in the region, should be cognizant of the fact that, even if the US troops were to leave today, this menace will still loom over everyone in and outside Pakistan. Because the perpetrators will find some other issue or internal strife to exercise their illogical agenda. Lawmakers are you listening….if not please do, before the Pakistan we know is completely up in flames.

Pakistan Is Said to Pursue Foothold in Afghanistan

By JANE PERLEZ, ERIC SCHMITT and CARLOTTA GALL.

Published: June 24, 2010

This article is by Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Carlotta Gall.

Orlin Wagner/Associated Press

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani Army chief, who has offered to broker a peace deal with the Taliban leadership.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests, Pakistani and American officials said.
The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said. The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, preferred General McChrystal to his successor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom he considers more of a politician than a military strategist, said people who had spoken recently with General Kayani.
Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.
In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership.
Washington has watched with some nervousness as General Kayani and Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, shuttle between Islamabad and Kabul, telling Mr. Karzai that they agree with his assessment that the United States cannot win in Afghanistan, and that a postwar Afghanistan should incorporate the Haqqani network, a longtime Pakistani asset. In a sign of the shift in momentum, the two Pakistani officials were next scheduled to visit Kabul on Monday, according to Afghan TV.
Despite General McChrystal’s 11 visits to General Kayani in Islamabad in the past year, the Pakistanis have not been altogether forthcoming on details of the conversations in the last two months, making the Pakistani moves even more worrisome for the United States, said an American official involved in the administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan deliberations.
“They know this creates a bigger breach between us and Karzai,” the American official said.
Though encouraged by Washington, the thaw heightens the risk that the United States will find itself cut out of what amounts to a separate peace between the Afghans and Pakistanis, and one that does not necessarily guarantee Washington’s prime objective in the war: denying Al Qaeda a haven.
It also provides another indication of how Pakistan, ostensibly an American ally, has worked many opposing sides in the war to safeguard its ultimate interest in having an Afghanistan that is pliable and free of the influence of its main strategic obsession, its more powerful neighbor, India.
The Haqqani network has long been Pakistan’s crucial anti-India asset and has remained virtually untouched by Pakistani forces in their redoubt inside Pakistan, in the tribal areas on the Afghan border, even as the Americans have pressed Pakistan for an offensive against it.
General Kayani has resisted the American pleas, saying his troops are too busy fighting the Pakistani Taliban in other parts of the tribal areas.
But there have long been suspicions among Afghan, American and other Western officials that the Pakistanis were holding the Haqqanis in reserve for just such a moment, as a lever to shape the outcome of the war in its favor.
On repeated occasions, Pakistan has used the Haqqani fighters to hit Indian targets inside Afghanistan, according to American intelligence officials. The Haqqanis have also hit American ones, a possible signal from the Pakistanis to the Americans that it is in their interest, too, to embrace a deal.
General Petraeus told Congress last week that Haqqani fighters were responsible for recent major attacks in Kabul and the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, adding that he had informed General Kayani.
Some officials in the Obama administration have not ruled out incorporating the Haqqani network in an Afghan settlement, though they stress that President Obama’s policy calls for Al Qaeda to be separated from the network. American officials are skeptical that that can be accomplished.
Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said on a visit to Islamabad last weekend that it was “hard to imagine” the Haqqani network in an Afghan arrangement, but added, “Who knows?”
At a briefing this week at the headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistani analysts laid out a view of the war that dovetailed neatly with the doubts expressed by Mr. Karzai. They depicted a stark picture of an American military campaign in Afghanistan “that will not succeed.”
They said the Taliban were gaining strength. Despite the impending arrival of new American troops, they concluded the “security situation would become more dangerous,” resulting in an erosion of the American will to fight.
“That is the reason why Karzai is trying to negotiate now,” a senior analyst said.
General Pasha, the head of the intelligence agency, dashed to Kabul on the eve of Mr. Karzai’s visit to Washington in May, an American official said. Neither Mr. Karzai nor the Pakistanis mentioned to the Americans about incorporating the Haqqanis in a postwar Afghanistan, the official said.
Pakistan has already won what it sees as an important concession in Kabul, the resignations this month of the intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar. The two officials, favored by Washington, were viewed by Pakistan as major obstacles to its vision of hard-core Taliban fighters’ being part of an Afghanistan settlement, though the circumstances of their resignations did not suggest any connection to Pakistan.
Coupled with their strategic interests, the Pakistanis say they have chosen this juncture to open talks with Mr. Karzai because, even before the controversy over General McChrystal, they sensed uncertainty — “a lack of fire in the belly,” said one Pakistani — within the Obama administration over the Afghan fight.
“The American timetable for getting out makes it easier for Pakistan to play a more visible role,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the spokesman for the Pakistani Army. He was referring to the July 2011 date set by Mr. Obama for the start of the withdrawal of some American combat troops.
The offer by Pakistan to make the Haqqanis part of the solution in Afghanistan has now been adopted as basic Pakistani policy, said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of international relations at Islamabad University, and a confidant of top military generals.
“The establishment thinks that without getting Haqqani on board, efforts to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan will be doomed,” Mr. Hussain said. “Haqqani has a large fighting force, and by co-opting him into a power-sharing arrangement a lot of bloodshed can be avoided.”
The recent trips by General Kayani and General Pasha to Kabul were an “effort to make this happen,” he said.
Afghan officials said General Kayani had offered to broker a deal with the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and had sent envoys to Kabul from another insurgent leader and longtime Pakistani ally, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, with the offer of a 15-point peace plan in March.
As for the Haqqanis, whose fighters stretch across eastern Afghanistan all the way to Kabul, they are prepared to break with Al Qaeda, Pakistani intelligence and military officials said.
The Taliban, including the Haqqani group, are ready to “do a deal” over Al Qaeda, a senior Pakistani official close to the Pakistani Army said. The Haqqanis could tell Al Qaeda to move elsewhere because it had been given nine years of protection since 9/11, the official said.
But this official acknowledged that the Haqqanis and Al Qaeda were too “thick” with each other for a separation to happen. They had provided each other with fighters, money and other resources over a long period of time, he said.
Also, there appeared to be no idea where the Qaeda forces would go, and no answer to whether the Haqqanis would hand over Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, the official said.
The Haqqanis may be playing their own game with their hosts, the Pakistanis, Mr. Hussain said.
“Many believe that Haqqanis’ willingness to cut its links with Al Qaeda is a tactical move which is aimed at thwarting the impending military action by the Pakistani Army in North Waziristan,” he said.

Four million living under Taliban rule in Pakistan: Amnesty

In this file picture taken on June 10, 2010 a militant guards two criminals before their public execution in Bara, the main town in the Khyber tribal region. — AFP

National

Ex-major’s loyalties embody jihad woes

Ex-major’s loyalties embody jihad woes

ISLAMABAD: Human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday that nearly four million people are effectively living under Taliban rule in northwest Pakistan and have been abandoned by the government.

The 130-page report entitled “As if Hell Fell on Me: The Human Rights Crisis in Northwest Pakistan” is likely to ruffle Pakistani officials who believe they made great strides last year in regaining ground from the Taliban.

The London-based organisation said there were credible reports that at least 1,300 civilians were killed during fighting in the northwest in 2009.

There has been little official word on civilians hurt in anti-Taliban campaigns.

“Nearly four million people are effectively living under the Taliban in northwest Pakistan without rule of law and effectively abandoned by the Pakistani government,” said Amnesty's acting head, Claudio Cordone.

The group called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) a “human rights free zone” and said more than one million displaced people were “in desperate need of aid”.

It urged Pakistan and the Taliban to prevent loss of civilian life and allow unfettered aid workers' access to provide food, shelter and medical supplies to the injured and displaced.

“We have an historic opportunity regarding Fata right now,” Amnesty's Asia-Pacific Director Sam Zarifi told AFP.

The international community has put up donor funds and Pakistani troops are operating in an “unprecedented” six of the seven tribal agencies, he said.

“The old tribal order has been hugely disrupted by the Taliban and we have a civilian government in Pakistan that has talked about short and medium-term reform. There is an opportunity to do something about the people of Fata.”The British colonial-era law governing Fata denies residents basic rights and protections, including their rights to political representation, judicial appeal and freedom from collective punishment.

“The Pakistani government has to follow through on its promises to bring the region out of this human rights black hole and place the people of Fata under the protection of the law and constitution of Pakistan,” said Cordone.

Amnesty, which based its report on nearly 300 interviews with residents in the northwest, accused Pakistan of launching “heavy handed” operations, including “indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks”.

It said the Taliban were guilty of systematic abuses, killing those who challenge their authority and imposing their rule through torture and other ill-treatment, targeting women, teachers, aid workers and political activists.

Insurgents increased the likelihood of civilian casualties by dispersing themselves in communities and blocking roads to prevent villagers from escaping “heavy bombardment by government forces”.

But a Pakistani security official contacted by AFP challenged Amnesty to visit Swat, where commanders say a decisive battle last year returned much of the northwest valley to relative normality after a two-year uprising.

Significant territory that fell to the Taliban had been regained and urgent efforts were being made to stabilise the areas allowing the displaced to return as soon as it was safe, the official said. – AFP

Pakistan’s founding father’s vision demands repeal of Hadood ordinance

Like a beating heart that gives us life a Muslim’s religion forms a very important part of his belief system that sustains him through adversity and hardship when all hope is lost. A person not endowed with faith/hope may resort to suicide but a person’s belief empowers him to carry on and not give up. It is this belief system that makes great sportsmen and allows human beings to defeat the odds.

Submission to the will of God is the foundation of Islam and a belief that God as God of all humanity and the Universe is forgiving, merciful and beneficent. Yet when this belief becomes a tool of usurping power and is incorporated into the laws of the state to control human beings, it results in theocracies run by kings & Khomeni, military dictators, autocratic-presidents and today’s Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

This is precisely what happened to Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Pakistan. Jinnah is to Pakistan what George Washington, Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson combined are to America. Mohammad Ali Jinnah an eminent lawyer was Mahatma Gandhi’s partner and friend in the struggle to rid India of the British. Like Gandhi he was a secular man who believed in the inclusion of all citizens in any nation state.

America had driven out the British and was often used as an example to rally the protestors against the then mighty British Empire. M. A. Jinnah was an admirer of the American constitution and its principles of life liberty and pursuit of happiness. He never once used the name Islamic Republic for Pakistan as he believed in a secular state with equal rights for all. Pakistan came into being as Dominion of Pakistan.

Jinnah’s firm belief in a non-theocratic and secular Pakistan is confirmed by his speech broadcast in February 1948 to the people of the United States of America, Jinnah said:

“The constitution of Pakistan has yet to be framed by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. I do not know what the ultimate shape of this constitution is going to be, but I am sure that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principle of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life as they were 1,300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and fair play to everybody. We are the inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan. In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic State to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims –Hindus, Christians, and Parsis –but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.”

Born on December 25, 1876 Mohammad Ali Jinnah was God’s Christmas present to the Muslims of India. Pakistan’s nine-eleven happened on September 11, 1948 when Mohammad Ali Jinnah died. He was only allowed a very limited amount of time from the birth of Pakistan on midnight August 14 1947 to his death on September 11, 1948. He did not have enough time to draft a constitution and nurture its development that would have established a secular and modern Pakistani state.

Military dictatorships and journeymen assisted by Islamic parties who could never win at the polls without election rigging, intentionally ignored Jinnah’s dream of a secular and progressive Pakistan. Successive military rulers tried to hide behind the veil of religion by asking self-serving questions about the ideology behind the creation of Pakistan. Ideology of a Secular Pakistani state was transformed to support the establishment of a theocratic state. After the introduction of the Hadood ordinance the whole concept of democracy that confers rights of life liberty and pursuit of happiness to all citizens was lost.

Hadood ordinance is the rallying cry for extremists. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are supporters of the Hadood ordinance and consider it fundamental to their brand of theocratic Islam. Their argument is that the government of the day is not enforcing these laws in the true spirit of Islam.

In their state there is no role for women who make up at least 50% of the population of Pakistan. To lay their claims to Mecca they have even fashioned their flags using the flag of Saudi Arabia. Taliban were educated in Pakistan’s Madrassas and share their ideology with Pakistan’s religious parties. We have witnessed what they did to the people of Swat.

We have lived as Muslims in the Indian sub-continent for over a thousand years with our own culture and understanding of Islam. We do not need to be re-educated by Inquisition-brand Mullahs financed by vested interests whose sole aim is to seize power

Investors are drawn to countries where rights and freedoms are protected by the constitution and enforced by an independent judiciary. Pakistan’s judiciary is finally free. It stood up to a powerful military dictator and defeated him. Pakistan’s rulers are on notice both from Pakistan’s free media and the Judiciary.

George Bush destroyed the American economy by invading Iraq for weapons that never existed; yet we did not see disgruntled generals taking over capital hill. His time has passed and democracy marches on. Democracy is not perfect but it is the only system that allows you to elect your rulers for a pre-determined duration. Pakistani politicians must earn their respect from the establishment that has so far treated them like puppets in a circus.

Pakistan must endure and nurture its democratic identity. The democratic process will shake out the non-performers. Politicians must restore power to the peoples house.

Today, Pakistan is at a crossroads. Amazingly all the lucky stars are in alignment. Pakistan army wants to return to its professional role of defending the borders of Pakistan and staying out of politics. Pakistan army also realizes the importance of a successful economy to funding defense budgets. The United States is willing to promote development of Pakistan’s infrastructure and educational institutions in addition to meeting Pakistan’s security needs with all kinds of military assistance.

A secular nuclear-armed democratic Pakistan minus the Hadood ordinance is more acceptable to the world body than one dominated by religious fanatics bent upon forcing their brand of made up Islam on the people of Pakistan. The state has no business enforcing matters of faith and there must be complete freedom of religion.

The iron is hot. Pakistan must strike now to get rid of Hadood ordinance, reform Madrassas & relgious organizations that support the Taliban and the enemies of Pakistan and realize Jinnah’s dream of a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan.

Pakistan Peoples Party as the majority party must motion a repeal of the Hadood ordinance and through this process identify those that still wish to stand with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Any political party that supports the Taliban should be condemned and disbanded.

Pakistani society must get rid of guns in the hands of civilians and create a peaceful environment for the ordinary Pakistani, so that once again one can hear laughter and the sound of the cricket ball striking the willow held by one of our cricketing rivals from abroad.

Shahbaz Sharif’s faux pas

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 19 Mar, 2010

Shahbaz Sharif appears to have his footprints all over the PML-N’s future. –File Photo

Shahbaz Sharif’s comments asking the Taliban not to attack Punjab have caused a furore in many parts of the country. In imploring the Taliban to not attack the PML-N-ruled Punjab since both had a common enemy in Pervez Musharraf, the Punjab chief minister is being accused of pleading for peace for only his own province.

He is being attacked from all directions despite his later claim of having being wronged by journalists who quoted him out of context.

Notwithstanding the fact that this is a typical excuse used by most people in high positions, the Punjab governor and others might just forgive him considering that unintelligent statements could be a family trait. One is reminded of the 1980s, when jokes used to circulate in the country regarding the older Sharif brother’s fondness for food and his inability to concentrate on food for thought. In fact, Shahbaz Sharif had the reputation of being the brightest of the Sharif lot and was loved by many, including Gen Ziaul Haq. His recent statement, however, shows that he does not think before he speaks. While the older Sharif may have learnt a few lessons from having been in exile, the younger one looks ready to shoot from the hip.

But then, why get angry, given that all political figures tend to talk unthinkingly? Perhaps Shahbaz Sharif did not intend to make such a statement but was so dumbfounded by the recent terrorist attack in Lahore that he was simply unable to hide his surprise at the jihadis breaking their promise yet again. Wasn’t it just a fortnight ago that his police officials gave him the assurance that Punjab was safe from terrorist activities? A fly on the wall might have overheard him mumble his frustrated thoughts on what had propelled the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LeJ) to deviate from the agreed-upon peace formula.

It’s not fashionable in Pakistan to talk about deals being brokered in Punjab, just like they were in the tribal areas. In our earnestness to accuse outside forces, we often forget that the main perpetrators of violence sit inside.

A number of people claim to see an Indian hand in the recent attacks in Lahore in the same manner as they suspected our neighbour of all earlier acts of violence. Let us assume for a minute that the Punjab government and the various intelligence agencies are able to prove that some outside agencies were involved in financing the attacks. Such an assumption still doesn’t answer the question of why the Punjab government is holding on to those terrorists who then engage in terrorist activities.

The case of Omar Saeed Sheikh planning a war between India and Pakistan, while in Hyderabad jail, after the Mumbai attack, allegedly organising the murder of Maj-Gen Faisal Alavi and even threatening Pervez Musharraf from his jail cell goes to show that such people cannot be controlled even if they are behind bars. Punjab has Malik Ishaq, who is the head of the LeJ and is currently incarcerated in Multan jail. And there are many others who traverse the length and breadth of the province, including some lethal proclaimed offenders, involved in various terrorist activities.

Anyone in the Punjab chief minister’s place may be equally shocked and disappointed to see the jihadis not delivering on their part of the bargain which was concluded over a year ago: not to attack Punjab in return for certain concessions. The agreement seemed to have gone awry even earlier when terrorist activities were carried out in and around Lahore, such as the attack on the Sri Lankan team. Sources claim that the LeJ leadership was probably involved in those cases.

Malik Ishaq of the LeJ is accused of carrying out hundreds of murders but was not convicted because of lacunas in the legal system and the police’s inability to collect evidence or run a sound witness protection programme. Resultantly, he is being kept in jail under the Maintenance of Public Order act; there is no other substantive case against him. Let us also not forget that there are many in the lower judiciary who are sympathetic towards the jihadi mindset. Not surprisingly, Malik Ishaq was apparently allowed to cross-examine prosecution witnesses inside jail even in cases not related to him. The police official who tried to stop this practice was later murdered.

Shahbaz Sharif is responsible for agreeing to keep silent on the jihadi ‘assets’. According to one source in the government, there was an understanding that he would take care of these elements, especially while the military was busy in the tribal areas. Therefore, the Punjab chief minister and his loyal law minister, Rana Sanaullah, deflected attention away from Punjab. There were even occasions when senior police officers covered up the jihadis’ tracks and maligned those that warned about such threats.

The younger Sharif brother was not keen to upset the apple cart he was trundling, since such a disturbance would have had a direct impact on the possibility of his riding the tide of the future of the PML-N. It is sad to see the elder Mian, who has learnt a few lessons from his exile, being gently sidetracked for the sake of political expediency. Shahbaz Sharif appears to have his footprints all over the PML-N’s future.

Then, there’s the fact that other politicians have also made deals with banned outfits to win seats in parliament. Hardly anyone in there or in any of the provincial assemblies has the capacity to challenge the growing tide of radicalism and jihadism in the country, especially in the two major provinces. For the leadership, it is convenient to blame ordinary people for being conservative, although the leadership has itself never tried to deliver any better message.

The problem with strategic assets, as Shahbaz Sharif may realise, is that they often bite the hand that feeds them since they can also feel insecure. Some ‘boys’ may interpret the arrest of Mullah Baradar and others as a strategy which may result in local networks being finally wiped out. The ‘boys’ who feel they are not getting the right signals are likely to jump the gun and turn into splinters of the splinters. It is up to the Punjab chief minister to face this reality before it’s too late.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

The Taliban in Their Own Words

By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau | NEWSWEEK 05 Oct 2009

During wars and after them, the real voice of the enemy is rarely heard. Propaganda is plentiful, as are prideful boasts—and the Taliban have certainly been quick studies at the modern art of information warfare. But the fears and ambitions of ordinary fighters are too often buried under statistics and theories propounded from thousands of miles away. That’s been even more true in Iraq and Afghanistan, where reporters who might accurately convey the other side’s perspective are at risk of being kidnapped or killed for their efforts.

After eight long years of war in Afghanistan, however, America and its allies can ill afford not to understand who the enemy is and why they fight. To put together this remarkable oral history, told through the words of the Taliban themselves, NEWSWEEK turned to contributing correspondent Sami Yousafzai, who has been covering the conflict for the magazine since 2001. Over that time he has developed and maintained contact with dozens of Afghan insurgents, including the six whose stories are told here.

Working with NEWSWEEK’s Ron Moreau, Yousafzai spent more than a month crisscrossing Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet these sources. He has known them all for some time, and in the past their information has generally proved reliable. Their accounts may sometimes be self-serving—most Afghan civilians recall the Taliban regime far less fondly, for one thing—but the facts are consistent with what Yousafzai knows about the men from earlier reporting. While it’s impossible to confirm the credibility of everything they say, their stories offer a rare chance to understand how the insurgents see this war, from the collapse of the Taliban, through their revival and, now, their budding ascendancy.

Chapter One: The Fall

‘The bombs cut down our men like a reaper harvesting wheat. it felt like judgment day.’
—Maulvi Abdul Rehman Akhundzada

HAQQANI: Two days before the September 11 attacks on America, we were all celebrating the death of [Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah] Masood, [who was assassinated by Qaeda agents posing as television reporters]. His forces were already on the verge of defeat, so his death all but assured us of total victory in Afghanistan. But the September 11 attacks turned our cheer into deep concern. We gave those camels [a derogatory Afghan term for Arabs] free run of our country, and they brought us face to face with disaster. We knew the Americans would attack us in revenge.

Realizing the danger, I immediately sent my wife and children to Pakistan. The entire government started to fall apart. I never thought the Taliban would collapse so quickly and cruelly under U.S. bombs. Everyone began trying to save themselves and their families. When the bombing began, I changed out of my usual white mullah’s garb, put on an old brown shalwar kameez, and headed for Pakistan. I crossed the mountains on foot, and at the top I turned around and said: “God bless you, Afghanistan. I’ll never come back to you under our Islamic regime.”

AKHUNDZADA: When the bombing started, I was commanding some 400 fighters on the front lines near Mazar-e Sharif. The bombs cut down our men like a reaper harvesting wheat. Bodies were dismembered. Dazed fighters were bleeding from the ears and nose from the bombs’ concussions. We couldn’t bury the dead. Our reinforcements died in their trenches.

I couldn’t bring myself to surrender, so I retreated with a few of my men in the confusion. Everything was against us. The highway south to Kabul through the Salang Tunnel was blocked. We walked four days in the deep snow without food or water. Kids started shooting at us from the hilltops, hunting us like wild animals.

By the fifth day I could barely walk. I hid my weapon and walked to a village, saying I was a lost traveler and asking for food. The villagers fed me, but I had lost touch with my comrades. I walked on until a minibus came along; I aimed my gun at the driver and forced him to stop. The van was full of Taliban. They said they had no room for me, but I threatened to shoot out their tires unless they took me. I had to lie on the floor with their feet on my body. It was uncomfortable, but I was warm for the first time in days.

A group of local militiamen captured us the next morning at a checkpoint on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. We were nearly dead. Our mouths were dry and cracked, our lips bleeding. It felt like Judgment Day. I lay in their filthy jail for a month before they let me go free, just after the Eid holidays. With the strength I had left, I made it to Peshawar. Our Islamic Emirate had collapsed with less than 40 days of resistance—I couldn’t accept that. Allah would let us rise again, I thought, because of all the blood we had spilled for Islam.

KHAN: After the mujahedin began retreating, Arabs, Chechens, and Taliban raced by our house and mosque in Ghazni in convoys of cars, pickups, and trucks, headed to Pakistan. Almost immediately they started getting bombed. So they abandoned their vehicles and started walking, even the wounded. Some injured Taliban, and Arabs with their families, came to seek shelter at my father’s mosque. Other villagers wouldn’t help them. Only my father and I brought them food.

YOUNAS: When I was a child, my father was a mujahedin commander in the jihad against the Russians, and he sent our family for safety to an Afghan refugee camp in Wana, South Waziristan. After the Taliban’s victory [in 1996], he became an official in a ministry in Kabul. I used to visit him on holidays from Wana. The Islamic Emirate’s collapse was like a nightmare.

I watched as wounded, disabled, and defeated Taliban fighters straggled into Wana and the surrounding villages, along with Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks. Every morning as I went to school I could see them wandering around town, almost like homeless beggars. Little by little, the tribal people started helping them, giving them food. Some people even took them into their houses; at first these once proud jihadis survived, thanks to the people’s charity.

The Arabs were disappointed the Taliban hadn’t stood and fought. They told me they had wanted to fight to the death. They were clearly not as distressed as the Afghans. That was understandable. The Arabs felt they had lost a battle. But the Afghans were much more devastated—they had lost their country.

MASIHUDDIN: When the Taliban fell, I was a madrassa student in Nuristan. Since all the Taliban officials and militiamen had fled, I decided to continue my studies in Pakistan.

[Then-Pakistani president Pervez] Musharraf imposed new rules on the Pakistani madrassas [in 2002], including a ban on foreign students. So I went to a mosque in an outlying village [near Peshawar] to study and wait for the situation to improve. We were 10 students studying and sleeping in one small room. The people couldn’t afford to bring us food, so we often went without dinner. We rarely had electricity. Without a fan it was hard to study, even to sleep. To make matters worse, the Peshawar police were harassing and arresting us. They didn’t hold us for long, though—I think they just wanted to frighten us. We began praying for the survival of the Taliban who had fled. There was no reason to pray for victory, since such a return seemed inconceivable.

HAQQANI:My father, brother, and family were at Mansehra [a town in northwestern Pakistan that is home to several Afghan refugee camps]. But I realized it wouldn’t be wise to move in with them. Too many people knew who I was, and some had no love for the Taliban. Instead I found a place to stay at a mosque nearby. I had to sneak over at midnight just to see my kids, like a thief. When I was visiting my daughter one night, she asked me about our Kabul home, why we didn’t have a car anymore. She complained that it was too hot in the refugee camp, and that she wanted to move back to the cool climate of Kabul. I couldn’t answer her. But she could tell from my eyes how sad I was. I was a wreck—nervous, worried, and almost panic-stricken.

AKHUNDZADA: Once proud Taliban mullahs and fighters changed the way they dressed so they wouldn’t be recognized. No one wanted to be identified as a Talib. Friends and relatives who had respected me while I was a commander now turned away. I had no money or job. I moved my family to a village in Punjab, far from Afghanistan, to become a day laborer, but I was a failure at it. I couldn’t speak the local language, and no one would hire me. So I returned to Peshawar and started selling vegetables from a basket in the market. I began making money. But I couldn’t get over the Taliban’s collapse, the death of my men. My wife said I was crying in my sleep. I went to a doctor, who gave me some medicine. I was so distracted that when a customer would ask me for potatoes, I’d give him tomatoes.

Chapter Two: The Rebirth

‘The end of the Taliban was the start of my Jihadi career.’
—Mullah Aga Mohammad

KHAN: Mullahs like my father became depressed. Under the Taliban they had been very influential, but after the collapse people paid less attention to them. My father was so upset, he had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. At the end of 2002 the Afghan police raided our mosque. They grabbed my father and hauled him in front of the villagers, accusing him of being with the Taliban. They demanded to know where the Taliban’s weapons were stored. They personally insulted him and then threw him in jail. He was 70.

The faithful at our mosque went to the police and complained. People who a few months before seemed to have turned against my father now supported him. They said it was a disgrace for the police to have entered the mosque wearing their shoes, and to have arrested an old, crippled imam. In early 2003 he died.

I was a just a kid, but the police arrested me too, twice—once from my house, once from the mosque. They interrogated me, asking stupid questions like: “Where are the Taliban?” “Where are the weapons hidden?” My family sold our motorbike to raise the money to free me. The police also arrested my brother, who was a schoolteacher. The police even arrested, insulted, and manhandled a 90-year-old mullah in our district. People’s attitudes were changing; they were becoming angry at the police and the local officials for the disrespect they were showing toward mosques and mullahs.

YOUNAS: At first I didn’t hear the Afghans talking about going back to fight. But the Arabs did, and they encouraged the Afghans and the local tribal people not to give up. Nothing much happened for the first year or so, but then the Arabs started organizing some training camps. The first one I heard about was at Shin Warsak village, near Wana. When I had some time off from school, I decided to visit. I was really impressed. There was more than one camp. One was run by Arabs, and another by Chechens and Uzbeks.

Thanks to my madrassa studies I could speak Arabic; I made friends with Egyptians, Saudis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Nek Mohammad Wazir [a pro-Taliban Pakistani tribal leader who was killed by a June 2004 Predator strike] gave the Arabs places to train and access to weapons and other supplies. They moved openly on the main roads and in the towns and villages, showing no concern about security. I decided to leave my studies and join their resistance.

MOHAMMAD:The end of the Taliban was the start of my jihadi career. My father died in 1994, leaving me to take care of my mother, brothers, and sisters. So I’d had no time to join Mullah Omar’s movement. For years I had a very heavy conscience for having missed the jihad. After the collapse of the Taliban in late 2001, many injured and traumatized mujahedin began coming to the mosque in Peshawar where I was the imam. Some of the worshipers asked me outright why I hadn’t fought in the jihad like these men.

I needed to make up for not joining the fight. I started asking around if the mujahedin were still active, but no one could give me a real answer. Then one day I heard about a young Afghan named Azizullah who had been in the resistance—he’s in jail now in Afghanistan. I went to his house, and told him I wanted to help the resistance against the Americans if it was forming. He lied, saying he was only a poor man and had nothing to do with jihad. Then one day I saw him walking to the mosque. I joined him. He was still hesitant, but finally he said he could help. He gave me directions to a militant camp in Waziristan and a letter of introduction.

HAQQANI: In early 2003 my family and I moved to a rented house near Peshawar. It was the first time I was living in my own house since 2001. I put my white clerical outfit back on. And suddenly the Taliban’s defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah, came to see me—the first senior Taliban leader I had seen since our collapse. He was traveling around Pakistan to rally our dispersed forces. Half the Taliban leadership was back in touch with each other, he said, and they were determined to start a resistance movement to expel the Americans. I didn’t think it was possible, but he assured me I could help.

He said to meet him again in two weeks, and gave me an address. I was surprised at the number and rank of the people I found at the meeting. There were former senior ministers and military commanders, all sitting together, all eager to resist the Americans. Obaidullah told me: “We don’t need you as a deputy minister or bureaucrat. We want you to bring as many fighters as you can into the field.”

AKHUNDZADA: One day a man came to buy vegetables—a mullah who had worked with our jihad in northern Afghanistan for years. We recognized each other. He asked me what I wanted to do: keep selling potatoes or go back to the jihad. I was making about 2,000 rupees [$33] a day, which was good, but I wanted to rejoin the struggle. We went to a meeting at night near Peshawar, and I couldn’t believe what I saw: my top commander [from the northern front], Mullah Dadullah! He was my ideal; his name meant victory for us. My interest in the vegetable business disappeared. After six or seven months I was called to Miran Shah [in North Waziristan]. Dadullah [who would be killed in May 2007] was there; so were Akhtar Mohammad Osmani [who would be killed in December 2006] and our defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah [who would be captured by Pakistani forces in March 2007]. It was decided that each commander should go find his former soldiers and prepare to return to Afghanistan to fight.

I was sent to Quetta, where survivors from my unit had settled. There had been 400 fighters under my command. In Quetta I found 15 of them. They embraced me and the idea of returning to free our land of the American invaders. In North Waziristan we trained, re-equipped, recruited more men, and got ready to return to Afghanistan.

MOHAMMAD:I left my family in the care of my younger brother and traveled to South Waziristan. I ended up at a mosque in a remote mountain village, where a mullah looked at Azizullah’s letter of introduction and led me farther into the rugged countryside to a secret place, well hidden among the hills, rocks, bushes, and trees. There were checkpoints guarded by armed men who would not even let locals pass by. A group of 20 or 30 Arab fighters from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Egypt met me there, with a few Afghans and Chechens. They were very distrustful and questioned me rather roughly.

Another more senior Arab interviewed me at length. The biggest question he wanted answered was why I hadn’t fought in Mullah Omar’s jihad. After a few hours I was taken to their leader, Abu Khabab [al-Masri, a senior Qaeda operative and bombmaker who was killed in a July 2008 Predator strike]. He was welcoming, not hostile like the others. He sat by my side on the floor of a mud-brick house and asked me why I wanted to join their struggle and what I thought I could contribute.

Only a few select Arabs and other jihadis were allowed up a mountain near the camp. That’s where most of the leadership lived. Some big jihadi stars were there besides Abu Khabab, like Abu Laith al-Libi [a guerrilla-war expert who was killed by a January 2008 Predator strike] and Abu Hamza Rabia [a senior Qaeda planner who was killed by a Predator in late 2005]. Even so, there wasn’t much food or money. I thought the mujahedin at the camp seemed disappointed at times because they had little to do. But the Arabs slowly grew friendlier with the locals. Soon local tribesmen were being welcomed into certain sectors of the camp, bringing food, supplies, and money. Some even brought us AK-47s and RPGs.

YOUNAS:In our camp there were about 150 Arabs, along with some Afghans, Chechens, and local tribal militants. The Arab instructors taught us how to fire Kalashnikovs, especially in close-range fighting; how to gather intelligence on the enemy; and how to fire mortars and rockets accurately. It was a friendly place; we all felt a commitment to help and sacrifice for each other. At the start of 2003, the weather became bitterly cold, and the camp closed. But the commander called me back that March. He told me he was working with Nek Mohammad to arrange for one of the first cross-border attacks against American forces in Afghanistan. Even with Nek Mohammad’s help, we only had usable weapons for 50 of the roughly 200 mujahedin who had been trained. But 50 of us—a couple dozen Arabs, three or four Afghans like myself, and some Waziri and Mehsud tribals—were armed and ready to go.

MOHAMMAD: The first thing I learned was to shoot, field-strip, and maintain an AK-47. Then we did ambush and guerrilla-war exercises day and night in the hills. The Arabs taught us how to make an IED by mixing nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel, and how to pack plastic explosives and to connect them to detonators and remote-control devices like mobile phones. We learned how to do this blindfolded so we could safely plant IEDs in the dark.

Discipline was strict. Any trainee who broke the rules could get a severe beating. You had to wake up before dawn every morning for physical exercises and to run in the mountains. Recruits were awakened at all hours of the night so they would learn to be alert in an emergency. I don’t see this kind of discipline in camps run by the Afghan Taliban today.

After two months of hard training, we graduated. There were 200 of us: about 160 local tribals, a few Punjabis, and about 40 Afghans like me. We were divided up into 10 groups. Each had two or three Arabs assigned to it as commanders and instructors. We split up: some groups went to Khost and Paktia provinces, and others to Ghazni and Kandahar. Three of our groups were bombed by the Americans crossing the border. It was very dangerous back then. We had to run quickly and stay out of sight. We didn’t want villagers to see us. At that time they weren’t very supportive, and there were spies looking for us. We wanted to reach the cover of ravines, rocks, and trees before the sun rose.

Chapter Three: The Taliban Surge

‘After these first few attacks, God seems to have opened channels of money for us.’
—Qari Younas

YOUNAS: One night in April [2003], we crossed the border in five pickups and one larger truck. Once we were safely across, we sent the vehicles back to wait for us on the Pakistan side. Our target was a U.S. base just across the border at Machda in Paktika province. We attacked at dawn. I think we really surprised them. We shelled them with 122mm rockets and mortars for about 30 minutes. But we didn’t get close enough to fire our Kalashnikovs; before we could move in, American helicopters came, raining rockets and bullets on us. Terrified, I crawled and ran to escape death. Amid the noise and explosions, dust and smoke, I remember seeing six of us cut down and killed: two Arabs, three tribals, and an Afghan.

Still, I was strangely exhilarated. We showed our resolve by fighting, by taking a stand. We knew we’d be back. We carried the stiff and bloodied bodies of our martyrs back to Wana. Thousands of locals attended their funerals, saying it was an honor to witness the burial of these martyrs. People brought flowers, ribbons, colored cloth, and flags to decorate their graves. As the news traveled, a lot of former Taliban began returning to Wana to join us.

HAQQANI:Arab and Iraqi mujahedin began visiting us, transferring the latest IED technology and suicide-bomber tactics they had learned in the Iraqi resistance during combat with U.S. forces. The American invasion of Iraq was very positive for us. It distracted the United States from Afghanistan. Until 2004 or so, we were using traditional means of fighting like we used against the Soviets—AK-47s and RPGs. But then our resistance became more lethal, with new weapons and techniques: bigger and better IEDs for roadside bombings, and suicide attacks.

KHAN:By the middle of 2004, we were hearing rumors that the Taliban were operating once again in Ghazni. Friends and relatives in other rural districts were saying that armed men were beginning to show up in villages at night on motorbikes. Within a few months, signs of them began appearing everywhere. At first we saw shabnama ["night letters"] that the Taliban were leaving in shops, mosques, and other public places warning people not to cooperate with [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and the Americans. By the beginning of 2005 the Taliban began targeted killings of police officers, government officials, spies, and elders who were working with the Americans.

One night around midnight someone knocked on the door of our house. We were terrified, fearing that the police had come back to arrest me or my brother once again. But when we opened the door, it was one of my father’s former students. He had a Kalashnikov on his shoulder and was a Taliban subcommander already. The two other Taliban he was with also carried AKs and had several hand grenades attached to their belts. This was my first encounter with the Taliban since the defeat. We invited them to spend the night. Early the next morning I accompanied them to the mosque. My father’s former student read out the names of those he accused of having betrayed Islam by following Karzai and the infidels. He warned them to cease all contact and to quit any job they may have had with the government or the Americans. He ended by saying he would return in one week.

MOHAMMAD:Those first groups crossing the border were almost totally sponsored, organized, and led by Arab mujahedin. The Afghan Taliban were weak and disorganized. But slowly the situation began to change. American operations that harassed villagers, bombings that killed civilians, and Karzai’s corrupt police and officials were alienating villagers and turning them in our favor. Soon we didn’t have to hide so much on our raids. We came openly. When they saw us, villagers started preparing green tea and food for us. The tables were turning. Karzai’s police and officials mostly hid in their district compounds like prisoners.

YOUNAS: After these first few attacks, God seems to have opened channels of money for us. I was told money was flowing from the Gulf to the Arabs.

Our real jihad was beginning by the start of 2005. Jalaluddin Haqqani’s tribal fighters came actively back to our side because the Americans and the Pakistanis had arrested his brother and other relatives. He appointed his son Sirajuddin to lead the resistance. That was a real turning point. Until then villagers in Paktia, Paktika, and Khost thought the Taliban was defeated and finished. They had started joining the militias formed by the Americans and local warlords, and were informing on us and working against us. But with the support of Haqqani’s men we began capturing, judging, and beheading some of those Afghans who worked with the Americans and Karzai. Terrorized, their families and relatives left the villages and moved to the towns, even to Kabul. Our control was slowly being restored.

KHAN: My father’s former student returned as promised a week later. I decided to join him. I helped assassinate those people who had continued their contacts with the government and the Americans. I didn’t want to kill, but I was determined to bring back our Islamic regime and get rid of the Americans and the traitors allied with them.

By the end of 2005 the Taliban’s ranks in Ghazni were increasing. There were new recruits like me and more former Taliban returning home from Pakistan. At the same time, we started receiving shipments of RPGs, rockets, mines, and bombs, most of which were old and rusty. My group only had three RPG launchers and only one mortar tube, and a few rounds for each. We had a few rusty Russian mines that only worked about 30 percent of the time. So we could only carry out very quick and limited attacks on convoys, construction crews, and district compounds. At first we didn’t have much success. But we were learning. Just firing a mortar, even if it didn’t hit the target, was a big deal: it proved to everyone we were there and were a force to be respected.

The Americans and their Afghan allies made mistakes after mistake, killing and arresting innocent people. There was one village in Dayak district near Ghazni City where the people had communist backgrounds, from the days of the Russians, and had never supported us. But the police raided the village, beat the elders at a mosque and arrested them, accusing them of being Taliban. They were freed after heavy bribes were paid. After that incident the whole village sent us a message asking forgiveness for the abuses of the communist era.

AKHUNDZADA: There are famous Taliban poems about how mujahedin come to free villages from occupiers at the point of a bayonet. I began living that poem. My body and mind got stronger and my mental problems disappeared. As word of our success traveled, I was able to organize another group of new, young recruits. They were smarter, more spirited, and better motivated than my former Taliban fighters.

Still, we lacked weapons and money. So I visited Mullah Dadullah. He had gone into Helmand province in early 2006 with 30 people. When he returned months later, he had organized 300 sub-commanders who each had dozens of troops. He had also signed up and was training hundreds of suicide-bomb volunteers. His return was like the arrival of rain after five years of drought.

I gave him a list of our needs. Even before he read the list, he smiled and said: “Whether I am alive or dead, remember this: the resistance will become greater than your greatest expectations. We will return to control Afghanistan.” The next day he called me, took a page out of a notebook, wrote something on it, and gave it to me. The note said to go and see this guy and he will help you. Back in Pakistan, I found the man. He kissed Dadullah’s letter. After two weeks this man had provided me with all the guns, weapons, and supplies I had requested. Dadullah gave such letters to many people.

MOHAMMAD:Once we sent a shipment for the making of IEDs to our forces in Zabul province. For some reason we forgot to include the remote-control devices. I got an urgent call from the commander asking me to quickly send the missing items. So I hid the remotes among some books and clothes in several travel bags. At Torkham [the Khyber Pass crossing], the police asked me to open the bags. At first I thought I should flee. But where could I run? I started searching for the key to open the bags. There was a long customs queue. The impatient policeman finally said: “You’re taking too long. Get out of here.”

Another night I was in a hotel in Kabul on a mission to smuggle remote devices and explosives. Afghan police and intelligence were checking all the travelers staying in the hotel. My fellow mujahedin and I hid the bags containing the remotes in the bathroom. The police checked our luggage and pockets. But God blinded their eyes to the bathroom. If they had found the devices I would have ended up in jail for life. All these close calls strengthened my faith and my commitment to the jihad.

HAQQANI: In 2007 I returned to Afghanistan for the first time. I visited the south and spoke to Taliban units, to elders and villagers, and raised new recruits. Mullah Omar has entrusted me with the job of touring towns and villages on both sides of the border to encourage people to support, contribute to, and join the jihad. Between 2006 and 2009 I have personally raised hundreds of new recruits to join the resistance. [In August] I traveled to eight Afghan provinces in 20 days. The unpopularity of the Karzai regime helps us immensely. In 2005 some Afghans thought Karzai would bring positive change. But now most Afghans believe the Taliban are the future. The resistance is getting stronger day by day.

Chapter Four: You Have the Watches, We Have the Time

‘We were born here. We will die here. We aren’t going anywhere.’
—Mullah Aga Mohammad

MASIHUDDIN: That base on top of the mountain [in Barge Matal] had to go. The Americans there were monitoring our phone calls and walkie-talkies, and they ran intelligence operations with Afghan spies from there. So [last June] we began carefully planning an attack. One of our men said that the mission would be hard even if the Americans only threw stones at us, as we’d be attacking up a steep mountain. Everyone laughed at him, but we knew there was some truth in what he said.

I asked for volunteers, and everyone signed up. As usual we prepared a medical team, including donkeys and stretchers to evacuate our wounded. But as I divided up weapons, ammunition, explosives, and communications gear, it started to rain heavily. The Americans have heavy boots and other mountain equipment that allows them to move up and down the steep rocks. But our men mostly wear leather sandals that don’t give us any grip. So we postponed the attack for two weeks.

KHAN: Fighting the Americans is not easy. One night in the summer of 2007, my commander, Mullah Nurla, was killed in an American raid on his house. Other Americans killed 12 of our commanders. All the raids came between midnight and dawn. We found out that the Americans were finding us by tracing our cell-phone calls, and by calls from spies giving away our locations. So we forced the cell companies to stop all transmissions from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. We still worry about helicopters and bombers, but we are suffering fewer American night raids. I think they just don’t have the intelligence they used to have. Fewer people are willing to cooperate with them and betray us.

Our men, on the other hand, are watching American bases 24 hours a day. They inform us of American movements. We used to hit the Americans with roadside bombs and then disappear. Now when we explode an IED, we follow that with AK and RPG fire. We now have more destructive IEDs, mostly ammonium-nitrate bombs that we mix with aluminum shards. We get regular deliveries of these fertilizers, explosives, fuses, detonators, and remote controls. One heavy shipment is on its way right now. I think we are better at making IEDs now than the Arabs who first taught us.

HAQQANI: I admit Taliban commanders are being captured and killed, but that hasn’t stopped us, and it won’t. Our jihad is more solid and deep than individual commanders and fighters—and we are not dependent on foreigners, on the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence agency], or Al Qaeda. Personally I think all this talk about Al Qaeda being strong is U.S. propaganda. As far as I know, Al Qaeda is weak, and they are few in numbers. Now that we control large amounts of territory, we should have a strict code of conduct for any foreigners working with us. We can no longer allow these camels to roam freely without bridles and control.

MASIHUDDIN: Late Friday afternoon, after prayers, we began to move. We slowly sent our people up the mountain as the shadows lengthened. The mujahedin climbed slowly, steadily. We waited quietly on the ridgeline overnight without fires for warmth or to cook food. We’ve learned that the Americans are always listening for the smallest sound.

I gave the signal to attack just before sunrise. We started with our mortar and rocket teams shelling the base from the surrounding hilltops. By dawn our mujahedin were almost hugging the base’s outer walls. We killed a number of Afghan Army soldiers, and one U.S. soldier who may have been hit in a guard tower. As we fought, our video team filmed our advance. Our mortars, rockets, and RPGs destroyed most of one outer defensive wall. We yelled to those inside to come out and surrender. No one came out. So we set fire to one side of the post and moved around to wait on the opposite side. The smoke forced some, if not all, of the soldiers to abandon the post. During the attack we didn’t lose any fighters.

Then American helicopters arrived, firing rockets and machine guns. We fought until sunset. We lost 12 Taliban to martyrdom, largely to the helicopter fire that comes down like heavy rain. We cannot compare our military strength to that of the Americans. But we have learned how to stay protected behind rocks and mountains. Even with all their advanced technology, we forced them to withdraw and captured that base. [Coalition forces retook the post three days later and later abandoned it; a U.S. chronology of the battle differs in some details.]

YOUNAS: Not long ago, when one of my younger brothers got married, my mother asked me: “Boy, when will you marry?” I told her that the day I help to bring the Taliban back to Kabul and restore the Islamic Emirate is the day I will marry. That day may be far away, but I know it will come.

KHAN: The Americans talk about getting Taliban to leave the jihad for their dollars. That’s ridiculous. I was engaged to be married a year ago, but I don’t have the $1,500 bride price to give to the girl’s father or the $500 for the wedding. If I had money, I would not delay my marriage. Who would marry me? You’d be surprised. The people here are not worried about giving their daughter or sister to Taliban, who can get killed within one week of the wedding. They are happy to be part of the jihad.

It’s not easy being in the Taliban. It’s like wearing a jacket of fire. You have to leave your family and live with the knowledge that you can be killed at any time. The Americans can capture you and put you in dog cages in Bagram and Guantánamo. You can’t expect any quick medical treatment if you’re wounded. You don’t have any money. Yet when I tell new recruits what they are facing they still freely put on this jacket of fire. All this builds my confidence that we will never lose this war.

MOHAMMAD: We never worry about time. We will fight until victory no matter how long it takes. The U.S. has the weapons, but we are prepared for a long and tireless jihad. We were born here. We will die here. We aren’t going anywhere.

MASIHUDDIN: In the south the mujahedin have adjusted to Obama’s new crusade by making some small strategic withdrawals and fighting back mostly with IEDs. But we mujahedin in Kunar and Nuristan are lucky. These mountains and forests are our protectors. Trees and rocks shelter us everywhere. The Americans can’t match us here.

Two or three years ago, U.S. soldiers in the region acted as if they were on holiday. They were taking videos and photos of themselves and walking in the mountains for fun. They were playing games in the open. Those days are over. Now they are forced to keep their fingers on their triggers 24 hours a day.

AKHUNDZADA: Sometimes I think what’s happened is like a dream. I thought my beard would be white by the time I saw what I am seeing now, but my beard is still black, and we get stronger every day.

_____________________________________________________________________

Maulvi Mohammad Haqqani , 40, is a former Taliban deputy minister who fled Kabul during the U.S. bombing campaign, suffered a nervous breakdown in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, and is now an important propagandist and insurgent recruiter on both sides of the border.

Maulvi Abdul Rehman Akhundzada , 40, commanded a 400-man Taliban unit in northern Afghanistan when the U.S. bombing campaign began, ended up selling potatoes in Pakistan in 2003, and now commands 50 insurgents operating in three provinces.

Bari Khan, 27, the son of an imam who died of a stroke in the wake of the Taliban’s collapse, now commands a unit of some 15 fighters in Ghazni province.

Qari Younas , 27, was a Madrassa student in 2001 and now arranges shipments of arms, money, and communications gear to insurgent forces.

Mufti Masihuddin , 31, a student and part-time militiaman in 2001, now oversees some 200 Taliban fighters in Nuristan province.

Mullah Aga Mohammad, 45, a Madrassa student and part-time imam in 2001, is now an insurgent recruiter and a member of the Taliban’s governing council in Zabul province.

Baitullah's era

By: Iqbal Khattak

The death of the head of the Taliban in Pakistan appears to have confused the insurgency as much as it has the rest of the world.

In May last year, in a schoolroom in the village of Kotkai in South Waziristan, a member of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) named Qari Hussain, a man who trains potential suicide bombers, patted an Arabic-language television reporter on his back, telling him, “Please wrap up the interview – there is danger coming.” But the man being interviewed merely gestured with his left hand to let the interview continue, all the while holding a small automatic assault rifle in his right.

In that small classroom, the danger was clearly mounting by the minute, as the sound of a US unmanned drone overhead became louder and louder. The more you hear the sound of a drone – bmmmmm – the more it hurts your head. The lower the pitch means the drone is higher in the sky; the louder it is, the closer. Sitting on a chair, I looked through a broken window to see whether I could see any sign of impending attack. There was good reason to be nervous: the man being interviewed was claimed by Washington DC to be ‘hosting’ al-Qaeda in Pakistan, actively engaged in planning attacks on US and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. Islamabad, meanwhile, held him responsible for all the major terrorist activities in the country, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

After the interview, I asked the man about the drone that we had heard. “I have no fear,” said the short, stocky Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the TTP, the umbrella of militant organisations that since early 2007 had spread throughout the tribal belt along the Afghan border. In retrospect, of course, perhaps he should have. On 5 August, a drone killed him at his father-in-law’s house in South Waziristan, in an attack that left his second wife dead as well – if Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik is to be believed. Indeed, the days following 5 August were suddenly rife with rumours, claims and counterclaims, by various governments and those close to Baitullah himself. His lieutenants continue to deny his death, though the 17 August arrest of TTP spokesperson Maulvi Omar seemed to confirm the reports of Baitullah’s death. Either way, this ‘chief terrorist’, whom American and Pakistani intelligence officials have said to be as dangerous as Osama bin Laden, has not been heard from or seen in public since.

How was Baitullah able to create such a large and powerful organisation as the TTP within two years? Personally, I found the man far more mature, serious and intelligent than I have found other militant commanders, such as Nek Muhammad and Abdullah Mehsud. Others agree. “He was gentle and very friendly in his dealings, but that did not hide the real militant within him,” says BBC journalist Haroon Rashid. “He was one of the most dangerous militants … but his biggest weapon was his ability to organise, such as what he did with the TTP – to make it, within a few years into a widespread umbrella organisation.” Indeed, Baitullah’s primary achievement was not his much-expanded militancy network, but how he took the war out of his relatively remote area of Waziristan and directly to the Pakistani metropolis, which are today barricaded and literally under siege. Until his death, he was leading the single largest group of hardened militants in Pakistan, which officials believed numbered some 10,000 – including Pakistanis, as well as Uzbeks, Arabs and other foreign militants. His spending on military activities is said to have exceeded PKR 3 billion (USD 36.2 million) per year.

Dodging drones
The Mehsud are a Pashtun tribe based in the very centre of South Waziristan, which it dominates along with its bitter rivals, the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe. The Mehsud are divided into three clans, the Manzai, Bahlolzai and Shamankhel, which are collectively referred to as the dre maseed, or the Three Mehsud. In the words of Sir Olaf Caroe, the one-time governor of the British Indian frontier, the Mehsud tribe is made up of “a people who could never dream of submitting to a foreign power.” From 1860 to 1937, English forces repeatedly attacked Mehsud positions, but were never able to get a foothold in the area.

Baitullah Mehsud, who turned 37 on his last birthday, appeared for the first time in 2004 as deputy to Abdullah Mehsud, another militant leader whom Washington found innocent after keeping him for more than two years in the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Having served as a commander with the Taliban during its rule in Afghanistan, Baitullah formed his own group after Abdullah went underground following Islamabad’s displeasure with his October 2004 kidnapping of two Chinese workers at a key hydropower project in South Waziristan. A strong military push in November 2004 against the Mehsud militants resulted in ‘peace deal’ with Baitullah the following February; since then, there has been little reliable information about the militant leader.

Baitullah was obsessed with the concept of jihad. “Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Quran extols Muslims to wage jihad,” he used to say when pressed as to why he was waging a war he could hardly sustain. “We only fulfil god’s orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world.” Accepted Pashtun hatred for invaders ran high in his blood. “Believe me, these infidels want to capture Afghanistan. We should not let them do this,” he said in April 2007. I asked him what logic he could offer for attacks inside Pakistan or on the Pakistani security forces. “The Pakistan Army’s support for the Americans is delaying the defeat of the Americans in Afghanistan,” he said. Baitullah developed his ‘nuisance value’ through small groups in different places, using them as pressure groups against the government to extract concessions in Waziristan.

After the peace deal, the military moved back to its barracks in Wana and other towns in and around South Waziristan. What followed was the targeted killing of a slew of pro-government tribal elders by the militants; all the while, the federal government simply sat on the sidelines watching, as it were. The government had at that time been following a “policy of retreat”, admitted NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani during a speech on 14 August this year. He said the new policy was to “hold-the-line” against militancy. Yet by the time the government officials began to wake up to reality in 2007, considerable damage had already been done: Baitullah had extended his influence beyond the Waziristan border, far into the NWFP. According to many, the government of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a conglomerate of religious parties with considerable sympathy for the Taliban that was in power in NWFP from 2002 until 2007, may have assisted Baitullah’s spread across the province.

In the early years of its rule in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban restricted itself to jihad in Afghanistan. However, the militants began to see increased public support in the Pakistani frontier areas following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001. This was particularly so as General Pervez Musharraf’s approval rating in Pakistan plummeted following the ‘unprecedented concessions’ that the public saw him giving the US to track down al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives on Pakistani soil. Thereafter, the militant influence spread slowly. Outside of the tribal areas, for instance, there was no attack of any kind until 8 November 2006, when a young suicide bomber walked towards army recruits in the town Dargai, near Swat District, to avenge the 30 October US strike in a seminary in Bajaur during which some 80 students had been killed.

The Dargai attack opened something of a floodgate of militancy across the country by the Taliban, and Baitullah Mehsud missed no opportunity to take credit for every attack his men executed successfully. Pakistanis first tasted real Taliban-style ‘justice’ in Mingora, the district headquarters of Swat, where beheaded bodies were hung in public as a warning to those who could resist Taliban diktat. The violence then spread massively. Within the next year and a half 1366 attacks had taken place with 2686 killed.

Yet similarly disastrous has been the state’s response, something that Baitullah said was good for his own recruiting purposes. In early spring 2007, I asked him, “Your guerrilla tactics may pose a threat to the US and the Pakistani military. But how can you face the US dominance in the sky?” To which he responded, “If the US morale is as high as mine, then we have a long war to fight. If I go on a three-month campaign for the hearts and minds of the civilians, I may win over 50 or 60 people. But a single air strike brings out the whole population, because it kills more innocent people than wanted men.” Indeed, the US drones might be good at taking out wanted targets; but the cost of these attacks seems incredibly high in terms of losing hearts and minds. David Kilcullen, a former adviser to the US Army, has stated that drone attacks inside Pakistani territory are today “creating more enemies” than they eliminate.

Importantly, the Baitullah killing comes following sharp criticism by senior Pakistani civil and military officials of the US role in ‘allowing’ militants to harm Pakistan while specifically targeting militants who are seen as posing serious challenge mainly to American security and strategic interests. Indeed, the US has been seen to focus increasingly on Baitullah’s strongholds in South Waziristan. Last year, the CIA carried out 26 drone attacks in South and North Waziristan and the Orakzai tribal region, mainly targeting groups that cross into Afghanistan to strike against coalition forces. The number of drone attacks also increased significantly following the swearing-in of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led coalition government on 25 March 2008, with a total of 50 drone attacks having taken place in the last 17 months.

TTP finished?

Iqbal Khattak

Baitullah Mehsud is now the third top militant leader, after Nek Muhammad and Abdullah Mehsud, to have been pursued and killed since Pakistan joined the US-led ‘war on terror’. Yet one mystery will remain regarding Baitullah: Who he was ‘working’ for? The Afghan government claims the militant groups operating in the border areas are protected by the Pakistani state as ‘assets’ to use for achieving ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. But the fact is that it will take years if not decades to deal with the damage that Baitullah caused to the Pakistani psyche and infrastructure. Since militancy spiked in 2002, Islamabad says the country has suffered USD 35 billion in losses due to the collapse of the tourism industry and, plummeting domestic production, and loss of investment. Alas, the question of just whom Baitullah was working for was buried with him.

On the assumption that Baitullah is indeed now dead, what is to happen to the TTP? Public sentiment in Pakistan has dramatically shifted towards the government in recent months, with Taliban, be gone! and similar slogans for the first time being seen on Pakistan’s streets. In the past, any time a top militant leader has been killed, the group that he was leading has also quickly disappeared or merged into other groups. The passing of Nek Muhammad and Abdullah Mehsud are both cases in point, with both leaders being replaced by pro-government commanders.

To date, no militant leader has publicly stated that Baitullah is dead. However, in what appears to be a ‘silent coup’, on 19 August the TTP deputy chief, Maulvi Faqir, elevated himself to the post of amir; two days later, Baitullah’s deputy, Hakimullah Mehsud (see photo below), was likewise nominated. Theses are indications of internal differences over the selection of new leader – with rumours of significant violence between potential torchbearers immediately after Baitullah’s alleged death. Regardless, though, the most significant question today is whether the government will finally be able to utilise the current situation to its advantage. One way or another, the war against militancy will not be won unless the damage done by Baitullah Mehsud is undone.

Iqbal Khattak is bureau chief for the Daily Times in Peshawar.