Tue, Oct 09, 2001 page2

• History shows fragility of Taliban myth

  ON SHAKY GROUND Afghanistan's ruling regime's road to power has been characterized by many defeats in a country where battles are fought by all sides without mercy

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  The Taliban may have controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan, but their road to power has been marked by serious defeats as well as victories. They have never been as invincible as their myth suggests.

  Fired with the certainties of the most simplistic interpretation of the Koran and angered by the corruption of an older generation of mujahedin leaders, the Taliban captured Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city, with astonishing speed in November 1994.

  Three months later, they had stormed north and east and captured 12 of the country's 31 provinces, and were on the outskirts of Kabul, the capital.

  

  A Nothern Alliance soldier watches over the town of Dashti Kola in northern Afghanistan yesterday. As the Taliban decided to resist the US, the Northern Alliance was preparing for a major offensive against the Taliban.

  PHOTO: REUTERS

  But then their luck turned, and Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Tajik leader of the mujahedin (later to become the Northern Alliance), drove them back from Kabul in a series of bloody battles.

  It was the Taliban's first defeat. They were no match for the war-hardened mujahedin.

  A month later, without an airforce, they suffered another crushing blow near the western city of Herat. Massoud sent aircraft to bomb them and flew reinforcements in to attack them on the ground. Without medical facilities, and poor logistics, hundreds of Taliban died in the desert, either outright or of untended wounds and lack of water.

  The Taliban have gained combat experience and learned to use the hardware captured on the way. They have become a more effective force. But it is still important to be realistic about their potential. Their second attempt to take Kabul in November 1995 also collapsed.

  Taliban success has depended on two things. They appear to have an unending supply of enthusiastic Afghan recruits from the madrassas (religious schools) in the refugee communities of Pakistan. They also get money, fuel, weapons and training from Pakistan.

  When the Taliban took Kabul in September 1996, it was largely a result of superior firepower, money and treachery rather than fighting skill.

  The city might have held out for another 10 months if Pakistan had not unexpectedly opened a second front by allowing thousands of new Afghan volunteers from the refugee camps, aided by Pakistani troops, to join the Taliban. Jalalabad fell, and the strategic town of Sarobi was surrendered without a fight. Massoud withdrew to his beloved Panjshir valley.

  The Taliban have managed to hold Kabul for the last five years but have not been able to drive north to the Panjshir. The frontline, which is about 40km north of Kabul, has remained virtually static.

  The Taliban took the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in May 1997 after an Uzbek general changed sides, but the Taliban overplayed their hand and disarmed the Uzbeks, herded women off the streets, shut the schools and enforced Sharia law. People rose in revolt. Hundreds of Taliban were hunted down.

  Malik Pahlawan, the defecting general, changed sides again and the Taliban were driven out. The Alliance forces later tortured and executed many Taliban prisoners.

  A year later the Taliban seized Mazar again, almost provoking an Iranian invasion after killing some of their diplomats.

  The upshot is that battles in Afghanistan are fought by all sides without subtlety or mercy, and that money and intrigues play as important a role as weapons. Victory flows from the pouch of a bagman as much as the barrel of a gun.
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