by Ahmed Rashid
9. Reuters, 9 August 1997. Quoted in Dawnnewspaper.
10. Heslin, Sheila. Testimony at Senate hearings into illegal fund-raising activities, 17 September 1997.
11. Lees, Caroline, Oil barons court Taliban in Texas, Sunday Telegraph,14 December 1997.
12. Interview with Imle, 29 January 1999, Davos, Switzerland.
13. Starobin, Paul, The New Great Game, the National Journal,12 March 1999. The Kaplan quote is from his book. Kaplan, Robert, The Ends of The Earth, A Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy,Vintage Books, 1997.
14. Rubin, Barnett, US Policy in Afghanistan, Muslim Politics Report,Council of Foreign Relations, New York January 1997.
15. Interview with Iranian diplomat, Islamabad, January 1997.
16. Although publicly Pakistan supported the arms embargo, the ISI warned the CIA privately that such a measure would complicate its arming of the Taliban and delay a Taliban victory and the Unocal project. The US still supports an arms embargo, but subsequently it has not been pushed by the Clinton administration. Pakistan diplomats told me that Unocal had paid for some air tickets for Afghan speakers for the Hank Brown hearings.
17. Raphel, Robin, Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, 11 May 1996.
18. Raphel, Robin, text of speech at the closed door UN meeting on Afghanistan, obtained by the author, 18 November 1996.
19. Rubin, Barnett, US Policy in Afghanistan, Muslim Politics Report, Council of Foreign Relations, New York, January 1997.
20. Interview with US diplomat, Islamabad, 20 January 1997. Aramco was the consortium of US oil companies which controlled Saudi oil development until it was nationalized by the Saudi government.
21. While the CIA did not embark on a new Afghan operation of its own, Unocal officials were briefed extensively by US intelligence analysts. Unocal and Delta hired as consultants every available member of the inner circle of those Americans involved in Afghan operations during the jihad years. Mackenzie, Richard, The United States and the Taliban, in Maley, William (ed.), Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban,C. Hurst, London 1998.
22. Interview with John Imle, 29 January 1999, Davos, Switzerland.
23. Interview with US official, Islamabad, 27 January 1998.
24. AFP, US wants puppet government in Afghanistan, 11 March 1998. Ayub's reference was to an abortive American attempt to talk to neutral Pashtun figures, who might play a role in diluting the Taliban's hardliners.
25. Talbott, Strobe Speech at Stanford University, California, 23 January 1999, US Information Service.
26. Rohrabacher, Dana, US Policy towards Afghanistan, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, Washington, 14 April 1999.
27. Testimony of Mavis Leno to US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on gender apartheid in Afghanistan, 2 March 1998.
28. Waxman, Sharon, A cause unveiled – Hollywood women have made the plight of Afghan women their own, Washington Post, 30 March, 1999.
29. AP, Mrs Clinton takes on Afghan government, 28 April 1999.
Chapter 14
1. Interviews with cabinet ministers and bureaucrats in June 1998. Much of this subsequent information was gathered by me from civil and military officials beween 1995 and 1999. See Rashid, Ahmed, Pakistan and the Taliban, in Maley, William (ed.), Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban,C. Hurst, London 1998.
2. Babar, Mariana, The Battle for economic gains in Afghanistan, the News, 15 January 1996.
3. Yousufzai, Rahimullah, We have no intention of exporting jihad, the News, 19 August 1998.
4. Ahmad, Eqbal, What after strategic depth? Dawn, 23 August 1998.
5. Roy, Olivier, Middle East Report, Winter 1997.
6. This above assessment, which I have written about widely in the past, is a result of dozens of interviews over the years with senior military and intelligence officials, diplomats and bureaucrats involved in Afghan policy.
7. Both the army chief General Abdul Waheed and the head of Military Intelligence Lieutenant General Ali Kuli Khan were Pashtuns, as were all operational ISI field officers involved with the Taliban.
8. Rashid, Ahmed, Isolated in Asia, Pakistan's Afghan policy fails to reflect regional realities, Far Eastern Economic Review, 5 March 1998.
9. Rashid, Ahmed, Pakistan undermines UN in peace process, the Nation, 23 January 1998.
10. Interview with Pakistan official, Quetta, April 1995. See also Rashid, Ahmed, Nothing to declare, Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 May 1995.
11. Braudel, Fernand, A History of Civilizations, Penguin Books, London 1993.
12. Ismael Khan, the warlord who controlled Herat, was charging exorbitant customs fees, having raised his customs duty from 5000 to 10,000 rupees per truck.
13. Interviews with CBR officials in 1996, 1997, 1998. In 1993 US$1 was worth 40 rupees. In 1999, US$1 was worth 50 rupees.
14. The racket involved the police, customs officials and bureaucrats who all got a cut from the mafia. After my nephew's car was stolen in Lahore in 1997, he was told by his local police station that his car was now in Afghanistan and he could get it back if he paid the police a recovery fine, in cash. Otherwise it would be resold.
15. Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Study on informal economy, December 1998.
16. Business Recorder, Afghan transit trade destroyed local industry, says NWFP Chief Minister, 15 December 1998.
17. Chase, Robert and Kennedy, Paul and Hill, Emily, The Pivotal States. A New Framework for US Policy in the Developing World, W. Norton and Co., 1999.
18. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba, offshoots of the JUI who demanded the expulsion of all Shias from Pakistan, sent thousands of volunteers to fight with the Taliban and in return the Taliban gave sanctuary to their leaders in Kabul.
19. Rashid, Ahmed, Afghan conflict eroding stability in Pakistan, the Nation,21 January 1998.
20. Yousufzai, Rahimullah, Pakistani Taliban at work, the News,18 December 1998. See also AFP, Murder convict executed Taliban style in Pakistan, 14 December 1998.
21. Roy, Olivier, Domestic and Regional Implications of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, conference paper delivered at St Antony's College, Oxford University, 24 April 1999.
Chapter 15
1. Interview with Kharrazi, Tehran, April 30 1998. See also Rashid, Ahmed, Iran trying to improve ties with old enemies, the Nation,5 May 1998.
2. Between 1984 and 1986 the Saudis gave US$525 million to the Afghan resistance; in 1989 they agreed to supply 61 per cent of a total of US$715 million or US$436, with the remainder coming from the USA. In 1993 they provided US$193 million to the Afghan government. The total amount they contributed during the course of the war was at least as much as and probably more than the US$3-3. 3 billion spent by the US, Huntingdon, Samuel, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,Simon and Schuster, New York 1996.
3. Interviews with Pakistani intelligence officers 1989. Also quoted in Rubin, Barnett, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System,Yale University Press, 1995.
4. Interviews with cabinet ministers in 1990. Also see Rubin, Barnett: The Fragmentation of Afghanistan.
5. The Saudis appealed to the Mujaheddin to send a military contingent to Saudi Arabia to help their fight with Iraq, in order to show Islamic solidarity and counter propaganda in the Islamic world that the Saudis were solely dependent on Western troops. All the Afghan parties declined, except for the moderate National Islamic Front of Afghanistan led by Pir Gailani which the Saudis had always sidelined.
6. Hunter, Shireen T, The Islamic Factor in Iran's Relations with Central Asia, February 1999. Unpublished paper. I am grateful to Hunter for many of these ideas.
7. Rashid, Ahmed, The Resurgence of Central Asia, Islam or Nationalism?Zed Books, London 1994. In this book I deal extensively with the early period of independent Central Asia's relations with Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
/> 8. As none of the Central Asian leaders allowed a democratic opposition to flourish, all the opposition to their regimes took the shape of underground Islamic fundamentalist which these leaders conveniently dubbed Wahabbism even though the Islamic opposition was not made up solely of Saudi-trained Wahabbis. For a discussion of Wahabbism in Central Asia between 1991-94 see, Rashid, Ahmed: The Resurgence of Central Asia, Islam or Nationalism?
9. The other bodies are the Higher Council of Qadis, the Institute for Scientific Study, the Supervision of Religious Affairs and the Committee for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue. The latter was copied by the Taliban.
10. The result was a fatwa issued by the most powerful ulemaleader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz which read, Even though the Americans are, in the conservative religious view, equivalent to non-believers as they are not Muslims, they deserve support because they are here to defend Islam. I am indebted to a private paper on Saudi Arabia. Obaid, Nawaf, Improving US Intelligence Analysis on the Saudi Arabian Decision Making Process, Harvard University 1998.
11. Several Saudi sources told me that after the Taliban captured Kabul, Saudi mosques regularly took up collections from the congregation after Friday prayers, for the Taliban – just as they did for the Muslims in Bosnia.
12. Obaid, Nawaf, Improving US Intelligence Analysis on the Saudi Arabian Decision Making Process, Harvard University, 1998.
13. AFP, Taliban claim Saudi support, 21 April 1997.
14. AFP, Taliban battling for northern city, 17 September 1997.
15. Quoted in Rashid, Ahmed, Afghanistan – Road to Disaster, Heraldmagazine, November 1996.
16. I interviewed Prince Saud in Jeddah in 1986 and Prince Turki in Islamabad in 1989. Both men are extremely intelligent and articulate, but poorly informed on the details of what was happening in Afghanistan. As with the CIA, Saudi intelligence depended to a large extent on the ISI for its information and analysis.
17. AFP, Convoy carrying weapons stopped, 12 October 1998.
18. AFP, Taliban shut down Iran embassy in Kabul, 2 June 1997.
19. AFP, Taliban warn of retaliation against Iran, 22 September 1997.
20. AFP, Iran says Taliban threat to the region, 14 August 1998.
21. AFP, Iran presses Nawaz over Afghan policy, 15 June 1997.
22. Iran based this assessment on the evidence of one Iranian diplomat who had escaped the massacre by feigning death. Although wounded, he arrived back in Tehran and talked to reporters. Ironically Mullah Dost Mohammed was jailed when he returned to Kandahar. His wife complained to Mullah Omar that he had brought back with him two Hazara concubines whom she refused to accept in her home.
23. Interviews with senior Iranian diplomats in September 1998 in Islamabad and January 1999 in Davos, Switzerland.
24. Albright, Madeleine, Speech to the Asia Society, New York, 17 June 1998.
25. Interview with Kharrazi, Tehran, 30 April 1998.
Chapter 16
1. Ignatieff, Michael, The Warrior's Honor, Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience,Vintage, New York 1999.
2. Interview with Brahimi, Islamabad, 14 May 1998.
3. AFP, Afghan casualty figures show no signs of easing, the News, 13 October 1998.
4. Fange, Anders, Challenges of Aid in Afghanistan, Paper for Stockholm Conference on Afghanistan, 24 February 1999.
5. Elleston, Harold, The General against the Kremlin. Alexander Lebed: Power and Illusion, Little Brown and Co, London 1998.
6. AFP, Oil pipeline not ready for main production, 20 May 1999.
7. The elected governments dismissed are those of Mohammed Khan Junejo May 1988, Benazir Bhutto August 1990, Nawaz Sharif April 1993, Benazir Bhutto November 1996.
8. Braudel, Ferdinand, A History of Civilizations,Penguin Books, London 1993.
9. Private communication, 6 March 1999.
10. Fange, Anders, Difficulties and Opportunities; Challenges of Aid to Afghanistan, Paper for Stockholm Conference on Afghanistan, 24 February 1999.
Chapter 17
Readers interested in exploring the material in this chapter in greater depth should consult my Descent into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia,Penguin Books, New York, 2009, and the sources cited therein.
1. Schroen, Gary C, First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan,Ballantine Books, New York, 2005.
2. Schroen, as above.
3. Biden promises $130 million for security in Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times,17 May 2002.
4. Jones, James and Ullman, Harlan, What is at stake in Afghanistan, letter to the Washington Post,10 April 2007.
5. Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry's testimony was given at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Washington DC, 13 February 2007. Text provided by US Embassy, Islamabad.
6. Moreau, Ron, America's new nightmare, Newsweek,26 July 2009.
7. Cordesman, Anthony, Let's get serious, The Times,London, 10 August 2009.
8. Aizenman, N. C, In Uzbekistan families caught in nightmare, the Washington Post,18 May 2005. See also Bullets were falling like rain: The Andijan massacre, May 13, 2005, Human Rights Watch,Vol 17 No 5, June 2005.
Index
Abbas, Mullah Mohammed
Abdali, Ahmad Shah
Abdullah, Crown Prince
Abdullah, Dr Abdullah
Abu Dhabi
Achakzai, Mansur
Afghan, Abdullah
Afghan Hindus
Afghanistan
Bush strategy of preserving US resources in
conflict
Election Complaints Commission
ethnic groups
future of
history
Independent Election Commission
international terrorism
Islamicists
jihad
Marxists
Mujaheddin
Pashtuns
Persians and Arabs conflict
presidential and parliamentary elections
pro-Pakistan Pashtun Mujaheddin government
radical Islam
reconstruction
refugees
Shias
Soviet
invasion (1979)
withdrawal of troops
Trade Development Cell
Transit Trade (ATT)
Turkic peoples
Turkmen
women
Afghan National Army
Afghans
Afghan Taliban
Afridi, Major Zahooruddin
Agha, Mohammed
Agha, Mullah Syed Ghayasuddin
Ahmad, Eqbal
Ahmad, Mullah Wakil
Ahmadzai, Shahpur
Ahmed, Qazi Hussain
Akashi, Yasushi
Akayev, Kyrgyz President Askar
Akhora Khatak, NWFP
Akhund, Mullah Obaidullah
Akhunzadeh, Ghaffar
Al'Aiban, Badr
Al'Aiban, Mosaed
al-Banna, Hasan (1906–1949)
Albright, Madeleine
Alexander the Great
al Faisal, Prince Saud
al Faisal, Prince Turki
Algerian Afghans
Al-Jihad
Al Qaeda
drug smuggling network
military base
philosophy of global jihad
al-Sahab
al-Zawahiri, Dr Aiman
Amanullah, King
Amar Bil Maroof Wa Nahi An al-Munkar
Amin, President Hafizullah
Anaconda, Operation
Angel, Alejandro
Anglo-Afghan war
Annan, Kofi
Ansari, Khawaja Abdullah
anti-Kabul alliance
anti-Shia programme
anti-Shiism
anti-Taliban
alliance
aid
Kabul
Mazar-e-Sharif
Syed Nadir Hus
sain meeting
Taliban meeting
forces
Anti-Terrorism Act
Arab-Afghans
Arab Gulf states
Arabian Sea
Arab militants
Arabs
Ariana (Afghan national airline)
Arif, Maulvi Arifullah
Arlacchi, Pino
Armed Islamic Group (GIA)
Aryan invasions
Ashkhabad (capital of Turkmenistan)
Atta, General Mohammed
Ayub, Gohar
Azam, Abdul
Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC)
Babar, General Naseerullah
Babur