Covering the Taliban

The LA Times runs a long story, reminds one of this in Globe and Mail:

Behind the lines with the Taliban

A Times writer joins Taliban fighters in an especially dangerous part of Afghanistan. The men appear to have no fear of troops, and prove to be gracious hosts.

Reporting from Ghazni, Afghanistan -- The main highway is "enemy territory" for the Taliban, a busy two-lane road where U.S. troops race down the middle, trying to steer clear of suicide bombers. The guerrillas drive it like they own it.

Grinning with contempt at a convoy of Polish troops trying to plow its way through traffic the other day, three Taliban fighters with guns and long knives concealed under their heavy woolen cloaks calmly eased into the other lane and beat the jam.

When they reached the edge of this provincial capital just an hour and a half south of Kabul, the driver pulled onto a dirt track into the desert, coaxing the creaking old van over a speed bump and past a nervous-looking Afghan army sentry. The fighters flashed him a dirty look.

Just 30 yards from the American-built highway, we were entering Taliban country.

The speed bump presumably makes it easier for soldiers or police to stop vehicles and search them for guerrillas or weapons. But government troops usually stand back and look the other way as Taliban fighters move in and out of their vast desert stronghold.

"Police and soldiers can never come to our territory," said one of the fighters, a 28-year-old who identified himself only as Ahmadi. "If they do, they won't go back safe and sound."

Seven years after a U.S.-led invasion routed the Taliban regime, hard-line Islamic fighters who had scattered under massive bombardment to their villages and rear bases in Pakistan once again govern large swaths of Afghanistan. Although they are strongest in the south and east, they have launched attacks in all regions of the country -- and are well dug in across regions that surround Kabul, the capital...

The Talibs, whose thick, black beards and large turbans are as much emblems of a proud Pashtun heritage as symbols of allegiance to the militant mullahs, said they make regular trips to and from Ghazni city, and up the highway to Kabul.

In Ghazni province, at least, the Taliban militants are not frightened fighters skulking in caves, sneaking out to ambush and then scurrying off to another mountain hide-out. They live comfortably in the farming villages where many of them were born, holding territory, recruiting and training new troops, reveling in what they see as God's gift of inevitable victory against heathen foreign occupiers.

"In the early days, there were many spies, so we had to move around in small groups," Ahmadi said. "But now we are in groups of 300 or 400. We have no problems."

During their downtime, they watch satellite TV and stay current with each day's news. Lately, they've seen a lot of bombing and corpses on Al Jazeera television coverage of the Israeli offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Ghazni guerrillas said the images made them more determined than ever to fight, and if necessary die, to expel U.S. troops and their allies, whom they consider Crusaders bent on destroying Islam...

By a roundabout route, trundling through the stubble of harvested fields and across streams fed by snowmelt from mountains on the horizon, we reached a village within clear sight of a small white observation blimp floating on a tether above a Polish base.

A pair of Talibs, their faces obscured by head scarves, met the van with fingers on the triggers of their Kalashnikov assault rifles. After a quick frisk and a handshake, they escorted us by motorcycle to a large compound with towering mud-brick walls.

The building hardly had the feel of a besieged guerrilla hide-out. The small reception room had new white curtains, clean cushions for guests to recline on and a well-kept wool rug. A few framed photos of family elders decorated the white-painted walls.

In keeping with the Pashtun custom of generous hospitality, the guerrillas served glasses of steaming hot sweet tea and a bowl of white candied almonds. In no hurry to end the conversation, they laid out bowls of chicken broth, yogurt, a shaker of salt and freshly baked flatbread for lunch.

As the discussion progressed, and the Talibs relaxed, most unwound the cloths covering their faces. One reached into a camouflaged vest bulging with a bayonet and banana clips of ammunition for his AK-47 and pulled out a small round tin to enjoy a pinch of chewing tobacco.

Any indulgence that harms the body is haram, or forbidden, to strictly observant Muslims. But in Taliban-held villages, the guerrillas' taste for chew wasn't the only hint that the mullahs may be taking a softer line on at least some of their old edicts, though they continue to execute people deemed un-Islamic enemies, such as teachers and other government workers.

The Talibs' van carried a selection of music cassettes for their tape deck. When the Taliban ran most of the country, cassettes were seized at checkpoints, and countless strands of shiny brown tape were strung up on poles to blow in the wind like raffia dolls.

Taliban enforcers used to grab men's beards, and anything less than a fistful of facial hair warranted a severe beating on the spot. But several men walking the roads in Taliban territory were cleanshaven. Even one who attended the meeting was without a whisker. The others called the bashful, baby-faced Talib "The Doctor."

The Talibs admitted burning government schools, but argued that doesn't mean they are against education, as long as it conforms to their idea of proper Islamic schooling.

"Now the government is doing voter registration in schools, and we are against elections as long as foreigners are in the country," said the second Talib. "They are using schools as trenches against us. So when schools get burned, it is their fault."

The Taliban's courts mete out justice under Islamic Sharia law. It is harsh, yet popular with many Afghans tired of seeing justice go to the highest bidder in government courtrooms, and angry that Western donors have pressured President Hamid Karzai to stay the executions of most convicted criminals on death row...

The Taliban is also benefiting from foreign reinforcements, and the guerrillas' ranks include Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Chinese and other fighters, said Maulavi Arsalan Rahmani, who was minister of higher education in the ousted Taliban government.

Now senator in the Afghan parliament, Rahmani said senior Taliban leaders who answered Karzai's call for reconciliation, and moved to Kabul and other government-controlled cities, feel betrayed by the promise of rapprochement. Anger is simmering among almost 60 high-ranking Taliban defectors because the U.N. Security Council refuses to lift sanctions against them.

They include the Taliban's former foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel, its commerce minister, Abdul Razaq, and Qazi Habibullah, who served as ambassador to the Taliban's closest allies, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

That discourages other Talibs from dropping their weapons, Rahmani said...