KABUL, 11 February — The Taleban is regrouping, the foreign minister of Afghanistan has warned. Its leaders have formed two new political organizations, “in another country” and are threatening to destabilize the interim government in Kabul and undermine international efforts to bring peace, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah said.
“The Taleban leaders...apparently ...are running new organizations ...There are two organizations outside Afghanistan”, he said in Kabul at the weekend.
No one can doubt that the “other country” Dr. Abdullah referred to was Pakistan. Pashtuns, whether notionally Afghan or Pakistani, have never acknowledged the 1400-km long border between the two countries. That remains the situation today, which is why American special forces can fruitlessly comb the arid slopes east of Kandahar while senior Taleban leaders are sitting pretty on the Pakistani side.
Three senior Taleban leaders are living comfortably in the southern Pakistani province of Balochistan, including Maulana Abdul Sahadi, the Taleban’s deputy defense minister, and at least three others are believed to hiding out in madrassas or private homes in Pakistan, including the former ministers of Justice, Culture, and the Interior.
On Sunday, in an interview with a British newspaper Abdul Sahadi explained how their getaway had been arranged. “We shaved off our beards, changed our turbans from Taleban white to Kandahari green, got in cars and drove across the border,” he said.
“We’re not broken, we’re whole,” Sahadi was quoted as saying. “Now we are just waiting. We are regrouping. We still have arms and many supporters inside (Afghanistan), and when the time is right, we will be back.”
After the collapse of the Taleban, most of the movement’s members simply changed their black turbans, swapped sides and stayed put in the cities of Afghanistan. But a number of senior commanders, who feared they would be arrested by the US, went on the run. Among those on the run are Mulla Dadullah responsible for some of the worst war crimes in Afghanisation and Mohamed Wali, the former minister for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. Many former Taleban leaders are believed to have revived a defunct Afghan political organization called Khuddamul Furqan which may be one of the two groups Dr. Abdullah was referring to.
The case of Taleban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil who was taken into custody at the weekend, reinforces the point. Muttawakil is now being interrogated by the Americans in Kandahar, but he was not “captured” as some reports have claimed; he merely walked in and gave himself up.
Muttawakil’s movements over the past months illustrate how Taleban leaders have been able to flit back and forth between the two countries, even when American bombs were raining down. In mid-October, Muttawakil materialized in Islamabad, having been spirited out of Afghanistan aboard a light aircraft by Pakistani secret agents. Once in the Pakistani capital he huddled for 90 minutes with Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq, President Musharraf’s hand-picked chief of ISI, the powerful military intelligence agency. It was reported that he was trying to get Pakistan to persuade the US to suspend bombing for a few days, in return for which he would persuade Taleban leader Mulla Omar to hand Bin Laden over to the Americans. The deal, of course, came to nothing.
Muttawakil was sighted in Pakistan again in early December, when he granted Associated Press an interview in the southern Pakistani city of Quetta.
“For a man whose world was falling apart,” the reporter commented, “his demeanor was calm, even relaxed...smiling an occasional gap-tooth smile.”
Muttawakil, thought to be aged only 32, held down various jobs in the Taleban high command, including Mulla Omar’s driver, translator and food taster, before becoming foreign minister. It is questionable how moderate he is, but he remains the relatively smooth, sophisticated voice of the ex-regime. Dr. Abdullah describes him as a “war criminal”, but it is likely that Pakistan will urge the US to handle him gently, on account of whatever deal-brokering utility he may still possess.
Because, as Dr. Abdullah says, the Taleban are down but not out.
(The Independent)
