Nbadan
06-09-2006, 04:16 AM
Taliban take the fight to the country
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN border areas - The Taliban movement has evolved beyond its guerrilla struggle into an organized widespread rebellion. It has fully matured in southern Afghanistan and is heading north toward Kabul and beyond, all the way drawing on growing popular support.
"Don't consider the present [insurgency] movement as Taliban only. This is a mass mutiny against the foreign presence, and all common Afghans are solely responsible for that," Gul Mohammed, a Taliban commander, explained to Asia Times Online in an interview in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province in Afghanistan.
Gul Mohammed's views are not exaggerated. They confirm exhaustive ATol on-the-ground-investigations and reports over the past few months. And this week, the Senlis Council, a London-based international security and policy advisory think-tank, reached a similar conclusion.
"Helmand [where the Taliban have a strong foothold] is an early warning of what the whole of Afghanistan could become if a radically different approach is not taken in the coming months," the Senlis Council, an independent group actively engaged in work in Afghanistan, said in its report.
"The United States unilaterally bombing Kandahar undermined the civilian population's support for the [Hamid] Karzai government," the council said. "The recent riots in Kabul were also an example of the increasing hostility of the Afghan people towards the international community."
Gul Mohammed picked up the point: "Americans crashed our gates and the sanctity of our houses. They disrespected our traditions and gave Christian missionaries a free hand to operate in Afghanistan. We just explained these features to the masses, who are our brothers and sisters."
Mullah Gul Mohammed Jangvi (the last name means "warrior"), to give him his full name, was the commander of the Taliban at Pul-i-Khumri in central Afghanistan when the US attacked in 2001. When the Taliban retreated from Kabul in the face of the invasion, he took refuge in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.
In 2003, he was betrayed to US forces, arrested and taken to Bagram Base near Kabul, where he was tortured and then coerced into joining the Jaishul Muslim, a proxy US outfit established among the Taliban in an attempt to dislodge Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
But soon after Gul Mohammed was released, Jaishul Muslim evaporated and he rejoined the Taliban, along with 1,600 men. He is now one of the main commanders in the Qalat and Helmand area.
The US invested millions of dollars to built a support system in this region, which included buying the loyalties of local warlords, establishing proxy organization such as Jaishul Muslim, appeasing local tribes by releasing their men from Bagram Base, and recruiting local youths for the Afghan National Army.
However, when this year's spring offensive by the Taliban started, the whole scheme fell apart like a house of cards, with the chief beneficiary of the elaborate investment being the Taliban.
"Before the present [spring] campaign, we had adopted a strategy to educate the masses about the high-handedness of the Americans. Whenever we entered any village, we surrounded the whole area and asked the people to gather in a nearby mosque," said Gul Mohammed.
"We then told the people that they are under foreign occupation and there is a need to stand up against the foreign forces. We distributed night messages [a traditional Afghan way of spreading information] and passed on our messages through audio cassettes and computer disks."
Gul Mohammed maintained that the Taliban would continue their twofold strategy - military and political - and expressed confidence that soon the movement would reach into northern Afghanistan and foreign forces there would be very much under attack, as they are in southern Afghanistan.
"At present we have made Kandahar, Qalat and Helmand our strategic nucleus, where we have completely debased the enemy. There are seven main districts in Kandahar which are completely in our hands. Soon we will intensify our suicide operations throughout Afghanistan, and then you will see how the Afghan administration will collapse," said Gul Mohammed.
This is substantiated by the Senlis Council report: "About 80% of the population in Helmand supports the Taliban. The British troops [who are to replace US troops] will need to regain control, and for this they will need a different approach. That approach will have to be to listen to people and their needs."
The report continued, "The perception of the local people has changed ... they now see the Taliban as acceptable. So actually the Taliban are about to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the local population."
Gul Mohammed is of the same view: "In the next stage, ethnic groups from the Tajik and Uzbek communities will join hands in our struggle and foreign forces will not have any option except to leave Afghanistan.
"We have made southern Afghanistan a hell for foreign forces. There is little media coverage on our activities, otherwise [people would know] we are far ahead of the Iraqi resistance. There is not a single day when the Taliban don't carry out an operation against foreign forces.
"In the last two months we launched 20 successful attacks against foreign forces in which they lost men and assets. For instance, a recent incident happened in Maroof district of Kandahar in which we targeted a military convoy in which two tanks and eight US [foreign troops] were killed. The media did not mention this operation," Gul Mohammed said with some satisfaction.
Gul Mohammed said the Taliban had stored a lot of weapons before the US invasion, which they were now using, including Stinger missiles.
Again, the Senlis Council report confirms this. "We're talking about attacks being conducted every day. We're talking about a rise in suicide bombings, from five in 2004 to 21 in just the first semester of 2006. We're talking of a sophistication of terror techniques used, for example in the explosive devices used. So there is definitely a change in the way the insurgents are organizing their operations."
The rise in insurgency activity is admitted by General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, as quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "In the last two months, the Taliban have been conducting larger attacks this year than they did during the same time last year.
"The problem for the Taliban is that as they have gotten larger groups together, they have become much bigger targets. And they have lost about 300 Taliban in the last two months during those operations. So the Taliban are a tactical problem for the coalition in Afghanistan. [But] the coalition in Afghanistan is a strategic problem for the Taliban," said Pace.
Gul Mohammed, however, maintained that the real asset for the Taliban was the mass support they already had, and which was increasing multifold.
"The Americans bombed Panjwai [a district of Kandahar province], where innocent civilians were killed. The Taliban did not sustain a single injury in that incident. However, the way the Americans brutally bombed the area brought cascading effects. People turned against the Americans with conviction. There were 18,000 soldiers in Kandahar in the Afghan National Army. After the bombardment, it was reduced to 7,000 as the rest left the army in anger.
"The more they oppress Afghans, the more the reaction generates against the Americans. The same happened with Soviet Russia [in the 1980s], and ultimately it was defeated in Afghanistan and collapsed. The same will happen with the Americans," Gul Mohammed predicted.
Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HF09Df02.html)
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN border areas - The Taliban movement has evolved beyond its guerrilla struggle into an organized widespread rebellion. It has fully matured in southern Afghanistan and is heading north toward Kabul and beyond, all the way drawing on growing popular support.
"Don't consider the present [insurgency] movement as Taliban only. This is a mass mutiny against the foreign presence, and all common Afghans are solely responsible for that," Gul Mohammed, a Taliban commander, explained to Asia Times Online in an interview in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province in Afghanistan.
Gul Mohammed's views are not exaggerated. They confirm exhaustive ATol on-the-ground-investigations and reports over the past few months. And this week, the Senlis Council, a London-based international security and policy advisory think-tank, reached a similar conclusion.
"Helmand [where the Taliban have a strong foothold] is an early warning of what the whole of Afghanistan could become if a radically different approach is not taken in the coming months," the Senlis Council, an independent group actively engaged in work in Afghanistan, said in its report.
"The United States unilaterally bombing Kandahar undermined the civilian population's support for the [Hamid] Karzai government," the council said. "The recent riots in Kabul were also an example of the increasing hostility of the Afghan people towards the international community."
Gul Mohammed picked up the point: "Americans crashed our gates and the sanctity of our houses. They disrespected our traditions and gave Christian missionaries a free hand to operate in Afghanistan. We just explained these features to the masses, who are our brothers and sisters."
Mullah Gul Mohammed Jangvi (the last name means "warrior"), to give him his full name, was the commander of the Taliban at Pul-i-Khumri in central Afghanistan when the US attacked in 2001. When the Taliban retreated from Kabul in the face of the invasion, he took refuge in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.
In 2003, he was betrayed to US forces, arrested and taken to Bagram Base near Kabul, where he was tortured and then coerced into joining the Jaishul Muslim, a proxy US outfit established among the Taliban in an attempt to dislodge Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
But soon after Gul Mohammed was released, Jaishul Muslim evaporated and he rejoined the Taliban, along with 1,600 men. He is now one of the main commanders in the Qalat and Helmand area.
The US invested millions of dollars to built a support system in this region, which included buying the loyalties of local warlords, establishing proxy organization such as Jaishul Muslim, appeasing local tribes by releasing their men from Bagram Base, and recruiting local youths for the Afghan National Army.
However, when this year's spring offensive by the Taliban started, the whole scheme fell apart like a house of cards, with the chief beneficiary of the elaborate investment being the Taliban.
"Before the present [spring] campaign, we had adopted a strategy to educate the masses about the high-handedness of the Americans. Whenever we entered any village, we surrounded the whole area and asked the people to gather in a nearby mosque," said Gul Mohammed.
"We then told the people that they are under foreign occupation and there is a need to stand up against the foreign forces. We distributed night messages [a traditional Afghan way of spreading information] and passed on our messages through audio cassettes and computer disks."
Gul Mohammed maintained that the Taliban would continue their twofold strategy - military and political - and expressed confidence that soon the movement would reach into northern Afghanistan and foreign forces there would be very much under attack, as they are in southern Afghanistan.
"At present we have made Kandahar, Qalat and Helmand our strategic nucleus, where we have completely debased the enemy. There are seven main districts in Kandahar which are completely in our hands. Soon we will intensify our suicide operations throughout Afghanistan, and then you will see how the Afghan administration will collapse," said Gul Mohammed.
This is substantiated by the Senlis Council report: "About 80% of the population in Helmand supports the Taliban. The British troops [who are to replace US troops] will need to regain control, and for this they will need a different approach. That approach will have to be to listen to people and their needs."
The report continued, "The perception of the local people has changed ... they now see the Taliban as acceptable. So actually the Taliban are about to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the local population."
Gul Mohammed is of the same view: "In the next stage, ethnic groups from the Tajik and Uzbek communities will join hands in our struggle and foreign forces will not have any option except to leave Afghanistan.
"We have made southern Afghanistan a hell for foreign forces. There is little media coverage on our activities, otherwise [people would know] we are far ahead of the Iraqi resistance. There is not a single day when the Taliban don't carry out an operation against foreign forces.
"In the last two months we launched 20 successful attacks against foreign forces in which they lost men and assets. For instance, a recent incident happened in Maroof district of Kandahar in which we targeted a military convoy in which two tanks and eight US [foreign troops] were killed. The media did not mention this operation," Gul Mohammed said with some satisfaction.
Gul Mohammed said the Taliban had stored a lot of weapons before the US invasion, which they were now using, including Stinger missiles.
Again, the Senlis Council report confirms this. "We're talking about attacks being conducted every day. We're talking about a rise in suicide bombings, from five in 2004 to 21 in just the first semester of 2006. We're talking of a sophistication of terror techniques used, for example in the explosive devices used. So there is definitely a change in the way the insurgents are organizing their operations."
The rise in insurgency activity is admitted by General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, as quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "In the last two months, the Taliban have been conducting larger attacks this year than they did during the same time last year.
"The problem for the Taliban is that as they have gotten larger groups together, they have become much bigger targets. And they have lost about 300 Taliban in the last two months during those operations. So the Taliban are a tactical problem for the coalition in Afghanistan. [But] the coalition in Afghanistan is a strategic problem for the Taliban," said Pace.
Gul Mohammed, however, maintained that the real asset for the Taliban was the mass support they already had, and which was increasing multifold.
"The Americans bombed Panjwai [a district of Kandahar province], where innocent civilians were killed. The Taliban did not sustain a single injury in that incident. However, the way the Americans brutally bombed the area brought cascading effects. People turned against the Americans with conviction. There were 18,000 soldiers in Kandahar in the Afghan National Army. After the bombardment, it was reduced to 7,000 as the rest left the army in anger.
"The more they oppress Afghans, the more the reaction generates against the Americans. The same happened with Soviet Russia [in the 1980s], and ultimately it was defeated in Afghanistan and collapsed. The same will happen with the Americans," Gul Mohammed predicted.
Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HF09Df02.html)