[Peace-discuss] Taliban nears Kabul

[C. G. Estabrook]

    As Taliban nears Kabul, shadow gov't takes hold
    Taliban shadow government wields growing influence
    in Afghanistan, moves closer to capital
    JASON STRAZIUSO and AMIR SHAH
    AP News
    Dec 27, 2008 15:20 EST

Two months ago, Mohammad Anwar recalls, the Taliban paraded accused thieves 
through his village, tarred their faces with oil and threw them in jail.

The public punishment was a clear sign to villagers that the Taliban are now in 
charge. And the province they took over lies just 30 miles from the Afghan 
capital of Kabul, right on the main highway.

The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous 
parts of Afghanistan, but its power is now spreading north to the doorstep of 
Kabul, according to Associated Press interviews with a dozen government 
officials, analysts, Taliban commanders and Afghan villagers. More than seven 
years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Islamic militia is attempting — at least 
in name — to reconstitute the government by which it ruled Afghanistan in the 
late 1990s.

Over the past year in Wardak province alone, Taliban fighters have taken over 
district centers, set up checkpoints on rural highways and captured Afghan 
soldiers. The Taliban in Wardak has its own governor and military chief, its own 
pseudo-court system and its own religious leaders who act as judges. Bands of 
armed militants in beat-up trucks cruise the countryside, dispensing their own 
justice against accused spies and thieves.

"After night falls, no police drive through here," the 20-year-old Anwar said, 
urging an AP journalist to return to Kabul before the militants drove into view.

Two miles down the road, a policeman named Fawad manned a checkpoint, wearing 
the traditional shalwar kameez robe so he could pretend to be a simple villager 
in case of a Taliban attack.

"There are more and more Taliban this year," said Fawad, who like many Afghans 
goes by only one name. "The people of the villages are not going to the 
government courts. The Taliban are warning them that no one can go there."

In a growing number of regions, insurgents have put in place:

_ Militant commanders who serve as self-described governors and police or 
military chiefs of provinces.

_ A 10 percent "tax" — a forced payment at gunpoint, Western officials say — on 
rich families, or donations by poorer families of food and shelter for fighters.

_ A military draft that forces fighting-age males to join the Taliban for 
months-long rotations.

_ A parallel judicial system run by religious scholars who impose such 
punishments as tarring, public humiliation and the chopping off hands.

_ The closing of Afghan schools or the forcing of schools to replace science 
with more religious study.

_ Manned Taliban or militant checkpoints to demand highway taxes and search 
vehicles for government employees or foreigners.

The increasing "Talibanization" is taking place in wide areas of countryside 
where the U.S., NATO and government of Hamid Karzai don't have enough troops for 
a permanent presence. Recognizing this, the U.S. plans to send its newest influx 
of troops in January into Wardak and Logar, right next to Kabul. Between 20,000 
and 30,000 new American forces are scheduled to arrive by the summer.

Some Western officials argue that the rise of a shadow government is nothing 
more than the return of different emboldened warlords. They suspect militants 
simply stepped in where they saw a void in areas not reached by the Karzai's 
government, and it is still not clear if they have a coherent strategy. U.S. 
Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, has noted deep 
fault lines between Afghan insurgent groups.

McKiernan said the Taliban is trying not to govern but to intimidate.

In some cases they do try to have shadow governors or court systems, McKiernan 
said, "but they certainly do not bring with them any incentives to a community, 
any socio-economic programs, any perks, if you will..."

It's not clear just how far the shadow government goes. Taliban officials and 
analysts boast that there are now Taliban shadow governors in almost every 
Afghan province.

"Three years ago the Taliban had no control in Afghanistan. They were spread too 
thin. Now they have power. They have soldiers. They have governors, district 
chiefs and judges. It is a very big difference from what you saw in 2003 or even 
2005," said Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan.

The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, which provides safety information to aid 
organizations operating in the country, said that by a conservative estimate, 
anti-government militants operate in more than 35 percent of the country, and 
that the number is growing.

In 2007 militants attacked foreign troops only in small formations, worried that 
bombing runs by fighter aircraft would result in huge battlefield losses. But 
over the last year, that has changed.

Recently, some 300 militants massed for an attack in the Bala Murghab district 
of Badghis province. About 250 insurgents took part in an attack on a government 
center in Paktika province in late November. And earlier this year some 200 
militants attacked a small U.S. outpost in the east and killed nine soldiers.

An hour's drive south of Kabul in Logar, the Taliban took over the district of 
Baraki Barak just before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in 
September. They rented shops and armed men wandered the streets, residents say.

They ordered barbers with TV sets to throw them away and kicked the satellite 
dishes on some houses to the ground.

After Friday prayers on the 25th day of Ramadan, Taliban fighters announced they 
were going to implement sharia law by their conservative and punitive reading of 
Islam. They warned that anyone working for the government would be considered a 
spy and killed.

"Everyone with links to the government fled the area," said a shopkeeper in 
Baraki Barak who spoke only on condition he wasn't identified for fear of the 
Taliban. "The people are very afraid of the Taliban, but if anyone shows any 
kind of reaction, the Taliban will mark that man and say, 'You are a spy of the 
foreigners and infidels.'"

In Helmand province, perhaps Afghanistan's most militant-infested region, Mullah 
Mohammad Qassim was appointed as the Taliban police chief last spring. Qassim 
said each of Helmand's 14 districts has a Taliban government leader and police 
chief, and courts across the province implement strict Islamic or sharia law.

The Taliban in Helmand have no relations with Karzai's government, he said. "We 
are more powerful than them. Even most of the capital of Helmand is under our 
control."

Every week Taliban judges hold court after Friday prayers, said tribal elder 
Mohammad Aslam from the district of Sangin. In the Kajaki area of Helmand, the 
site of a large U.S.-funded dam project, militants tax houses with electricity, 
he said. Trucks using the highways are also taxed.

Aslam estimates that 90 percent of people in Helmand side with the Taliban. 
Echoing a common complaint of Afghans across the country, Mohammad Aslam labeled 
the Afghan government "corrupt."

"No one can trust them," he said of government officials. "Whenever we have a 
problem, we go to the Taliban and the Taliban court."

___

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Noor Khan in Kandahar 
contributed to this report.

Source: AP News