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TV team's glimpse behind enemy lines shows confident Taliban is ready to go on fighting By Jon Boone (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)
composed of men from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-eIslami group as they attempt to ambush US and Afghan police Submitted at 1/30/2010 10:37:06 AM vehicles on the main road from A Channel 4 documentary Tajikistan, one of the US main provides evidence that the west supply routes. It comes amid has a long way to go to bring evidence that the insurgency, far Afghan rebels to the negotiating from faltering under a US surge, table is strengthening and expanding An extraordinary and intimate its operations. documentary depicting the lives The men are seen preparing of fighters within the Taliban's roadside bombs capable of insurgency in Afghanistan disabling armoured vehicles, reveals the challenges faced by p l a n n i n g a n a m b u s h a n d the west if it is to "buy off" the c o n d u c t i n g c o u r t s a n d rebels and persuade them to interrogations. Pashtun villagers re-integrate into civilian life. make clear that they are happy to The most detailed picture to pay taxes to the fighters and have emerged since the Taliban regard them as more legitimate renewed their insurgency in 2006 than the government in Kabul. shows fighters operating freely Operating in Baghlan and in large areas of countryside, Kunduz provinces, the fighters apparently with the backing of claim they can call on 4,000 men much of the local population. at the height of the fighting The documentary, made for season. They all declare they will Channel 4's Dispatches and to be continue fighting until the s h o w n t o m o r r o w n i g h t , Americans and "other infidels" concentrates on a group of are driven out. fighters including Taliban and al- Even more worrying for Nato – Qaida members but largely in an area overseen by German
forces – is the absolute denial by local police that the Taliban are operating near the road, despite the film's ample proof. A crucial proposal at last week's international conference on Afghanistan in London was that responsibility for a number of provinces should be transferred to the Afghan security forces. The scale of the growing insurgency is made clear by one of the leaders of the group, Commander Qalaqub, who explained that 30-35 groups were operating in the region, numbering as many as 150 fighters. "People come to us from all over Afghanistan," he added. "People come to us from other Islamic countries – Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. We get special mujahideen from abroad too, but we are not allowed to talk about them." It transpires they are largely from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Another leader, Commander Mirwais, is a millionaire former
importer of cars from Europe. "Jihad has become the duty for all the Afghan nation, because the foreigners and unbeliever countries have attacked us." Mirwais adds that the local groups control more than 1,000 villages. "We haven't taken control of cities and towns because we don't want civilians to die as there are a lot of people living in these areas." On his travels through the countryside with the fighters, Afghan journalist Najibullah Qureshi notes how a hospital built with US and UN money is under the fighters' control. One villager announces: "They are good. The government does not treat us well. They are good because they do not abuse and oppress us." During an ambush that goes wrong – an attack on the main road – it becomes clear how the group uses children to observe a Nato base and pass on information to an informer. The latter ensures that there is plenty of traffic near the site of the
ambush. When villagers walk past where the men are hiding with their weapons, they seem indifferent to their presence. It is this that will present the biggest challenge to the planned new approach to dealing with the insurgency in Afghanistan which continues to see the fighters as separate from the population. As part of the proposals to emerge from the conference last week, it was announced that the Afghan government is to set up a national council for peace, reconciliation and reintegration to oversee the channelling of funds to provide alternative livelihoods to lure insurgents away from the Taliban. • Taliban • Afghanistan • Hamid Karzai Jon Boone guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds