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| On The Job With A Taliban Recruiter |
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| tincanman |
| 11/26/03 at 14:26:11 |
| On The Job With A Taliban Recruiter Nov 26, 2003 By Massoud Ansari, Asia Times Online Abdul Zahir's day starts with morning visits to a number of mosques in the Pakistani border area with Afghanistan, where the faithful gather for the first of their five daily prayer sessions. And once his morning session is over, he goes to some of the many madrassas (religious schools) in the area, or shows up at social gatherings, such as weddings, if there are any taking place. Abdul is unflagging in his rounds because he has an almost missionary zeal: to find recruits for jihad - or holy war -waged by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Himself blinded in one eye from action in Afghanistan, Abdul tells prospective recruits: "You might fight at the front line, or you might stand guard at night. You can cook for other Islamic warriors, or you can be a male nurse. Or you can give the fighters money or grain - everything is welcome because the jihad has started." On Abdul's most recent foray into Afghanistan he was accompanied by 14 youths from the remote Pakistani tribal areas in Killa Abdullah district in northern Balochistan province, whom he had rallied to the cause to fight against the "foreign invaders". Since his return he has another six lined up, all of whom are ready to cross the porous border. He took the last batch to a post in Zabul province, but he has no idea where the fresh recruits will go. "I have already sent a message to Taliban commanders to seek instructions," Abdul says, "We will go wherever our services are needed." In recent months the Taliban have become more brazen and open in their operations, and they are known to be within relatively easy contact by wireless sets or by satellite phones. "The Taliban also have radios and regularly listens to the BBC's Pashtu service to keep themselves abreast of the situation in the Muslim world, especially in Iraq." Abdul says that he had been itching to join the Afghan jihad ever since the Taliban were driven from power in December 2001. But his Taliban superiors only told him in July that the jihad had resumed. "I had always thought of fighting Americans because they are the real enemies of Islam and when I realized that they were next door, I took up the gauntlet to prepare all Muslims to go and fight them." As reported in Asia Times Online in recent months, the Taliban have regrouped, rearmed and upped the ante in their battle against US-led forces in the country, as well as against the newly-instituted Afghan Army, forcing international aid organizations to limit their operations and raising doubts about the viability of plans to hold national elections next year. Afghan leaders have consistently accusing Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of giving direct support to the allies of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and the Taliban, charges that the Pakistani government has denied. "We are with the [Hamid] Karzai government and we have nothing to do with Taliban," Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said, believing that Pakistan's commitment to the "war on terror" is known to everyone. "The world should stop suspecting us and should understand that we simply cannot arrest every black-turbaned person, and it would be ridiculous if someone expected us to do that." The Pakistan government's claims apart, independent politicians in Balochistan province said that it would be simply impossible for the Taliban to operate freely on Pakistani soil unless they had some guarantees from the powers-that-be. Says Haji Sardar Lashkari, a former provincial minister in Balochistan: "How is it possible for senior Taliban leaders and the likes of Mullah Dadullah and other most-wanted Taliban remnants to come to Pakistan quite often, convince students at the religious schools openly or even to attend social gatherings like weddings, without the knowledge of the ISI and other secret agencies?" Lashkari said that without finances, the Taliban couldn't fight. "It is quite obvious that there is someone who is not only financing them, but also encouraging them to fight, but I cannot say whether these agencies are operating on their own or have the blessings of [President] General [Pervez] Musharraf." Indeed, on a visit to the border areas and Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, one witnesses hundreds of Taliban in their unique black robes, black turbans and long beards. They reside in mosques, madrassas and in nearby villages or refugee camps, seemingly with the full support of the ruling provincial party and militant groups. In many of the mosques in the surrounding satellite town of Pashtunabad or Nawakili, the clergy openly incite people through mosque loudspeakers and ask them to sign up for jihad. "In every madrassa in Balochistan there are one or two Taliban recruiters," says a local politician in Quetta, requesting not to be identified. "If you want to sign on for jihad, the easiest thing is to stay at one of these madrassas and someone will for sure contact you. These recruiters keep a vigil on your activities, and once they realize that you are a genuine fighter, they will certainly talk to you and put you in touch with the Taliban commanders." So the madrassas, from where the Taliban originally emerged, are once again serving as a means of their revival. Even Karzai recently lashed out at the Pakistani religious clergy for their support of Taliban resurgents. Karzai in particular mentioned the Shaldara madrassa in Quetta, run by the Jamait-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI)-backed member of the National Assembly, Maulana Noor Mohammed, and called it a headquarters of the Taliban. Sitting cross-legged, with two flags, one used by the Taliban as their "country" flag and the other by the JUI, flying outside his office on Najamuddin Road in Quetta, Noor says that when it comes to sympathies for the Taliban, they are known to everyone. "We are pro-Taliban and totally against the Pakistan government's policy supporting the US war in Afghanistan," says Noor, who believes that bin Laden is an innocent Muslim who is "unnecessarily maligned" by Jews as a pretext to fight against Muslims. Flanked by a few Taliban, Noor says that people in Afghanistan welcomed the Taliban when they took over in 1996 "and they still welcome them". He points out that the Taliban now have control of 13 districts alone in Zabul province, "while people in other areas are waiting for their call". He believes that "the puppet government of Karzai will soon fall like a house of cards because it has failed to provide peace in Afghanistan". And peace there certainly is not, as daily reports of clashes illustrate, and the writ of the Karzai government barely extends beyond the capital Kabul. Abul, the Taliban recruiter, says that it is easy to move around the country. "Afghanistan is a second home for people living in these border areas," he says. "They don't have - or need - any passports or other travel documents." Abdul explains that the last batch of 14 youths that he escorted to Afghanistan claimed that they were Afghan refugees who had been living in Pakistan but were now returning home. "We crossed the border at the regular check posts, but we could have sneaked into Afghanistan through non-formal routes and nobody on earth would have known about these journeys." This is how the Taliban guerrillas initially operated, by taking sanctuary in Pakistan for forays into Afghanistan, as the border is impossible to monitor. But as they have been more successful, they have been able to establish more permanent bases within the country, and tend now to use Pakistan only for emergencies - or to round up more recruits. Abdul, a Pakistani Pashtun farmer by profession, recalls that on his last trip he took his recruits to a militant camp near Zabul, where Taliban commanders gave them weapons. "They had huge deposits of weapons, both sakeel [heavy] and safeef [light]," he says. They were then told that whichever weapon they managed to master, they could take. Abdul grabbed an AK-47 rifle for himself, while he also assisted his comrades in carrying bags of bullets and grenades whenever they had to go to a battle. Abdul says that he spent 40 days with his jihadis in Afghanistan, during which they had at least one major combat with an Afghan army patrol in the mountains of Zabul province. He then returned to Pakistan in mid-October "to regain some energy". "It is not easy to live in the mountains. You are at the verge of death every now and then. You survive only on plain bread, or at the most, yogurt milk," he says. "At the same time, you walk for miles every day on foot, it's very tiring." Not that Abdul can put his feet up. He has been tasked to round up more youths, for the battle continues until "we completely flush out the Americans and their proteges from Afghanistan. The Americans have robbed us of our right to live and now we are using our right to die." cutandpast from www.jihadunspun.com |
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