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Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Second Edition

Page 41

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

 

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