The Creeping Menace: Taliban

10th of October, 2009 in broad daylight a white Suzuki van approached the outer gate of the GHQ. Riding inside this civilian vehicle were the ruthless killers of the TTP dressed in army uniforms on a suicide mission. The next twenty two hours were a scene of a gory and bloody drama resulting in the loss of valuable lives including two senior officers of the Pakistan army. The brave boys of the SSG finally managed to eliminate the fanatic killers and saved the lives of the hostages. The audacity and viciousness of this latest act of butchery has stunned the nation and once again after the military operation in Swat people are scared and have doubts about the future of the country.

During the last sixty two years Pakistan has had its share of trials and tribulations. It has clashed with its hostile and powerful neighbor India. Endured the multiple horrors of poverty, illiteracy, and economic deprivation. Lived through the machinations of vile and corrupt politicians. Suffered the despotic and autocratic rule of military dictators and has been the victim of insidious conspiracies hatched by internal and external forces including the bloody and gory drama of sectarian violence. None of these happenings have ever posed such a potent and serious threat to the very existence of the country as the creeping menace of the rabidly fanatic religious fundamentalists called “Taliban”

Who are these fanatics? These mindless zombies always prepared to kill and be killed for their cause? Where did they come from? What motivates them? What is their objective and who supports and nurtures them? In historical terms the Taliban are a very recent phenomenon and arguably one of the most secretive movements in world history. Equal in ferocity, bloodlust, cruelty and intolerance to the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot in Cambodia. The Taliban movement is based on an extreme, violent and archaic interpretation of Islam, Islamic laws and jurisprudence.

After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan the puppet Government of Najibullah was totally isolated, the seven mujahideen groups who had fought a long and bitter war of resistance against the might of the USSR became entangled in ethnic disputes and power struggle leading to a civil war with the neighboring powers Pakistan, Iran and Uzbekistan supporting their own favorites. The USA and other western nations just washed their hands off the sordid affair of Afghanistan and left the area leaving a total mess behind them and expecting Pakistan to pick up the pieces. During this period of a vacuum of leadership in Afghanistan, the rag tag army of the one eyed Mullah Omar swept across the landscape like a horde of locusts. They first conquered Kandahar and then raced north to capture the capitol city of Kabul in September 1994. Most of the foot soldiers in the army of Mullah Omar were “Talibs” or students educated in the religious schools or madrissahs of Pakistan/Afghanistan hence the name Taliban. The illiterate sepremo of the Taliban Mullah Omar himself is a product of a deeni madrassah or religious seminary belonging to the “Deobandi” school of thought in Pakistan. Their rapid advance and success in battle was due to the support and help of powerful intelligence agencies in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. They were armed, trained, supplied and funded by their supporters. The Taliban also received immense moral, material and political support from the right wing religious parties in Pakistan such as the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and a few others. Students from the religious schools became ardent supporters of the Taliban and these madrisahs became the academies for supplying cannon fodder to the Taliban. Even today the suicide bombers who willingly die for the Taliban are mostly fanatic bigots from the madrissahs.

Modern Afghanistan is spread over 2, 45,000 square miles divided into North and South by the Hindu Kush mountain range. To the south of the Hindu Kush live the majority of the Pashtuns who are 40 % of the total population and have ruled Afghanistan for over 300 years. The north is abode to the Persian and Turkic ethnic groups. The one eyed leader of the Taliban Mullah Mohammed Umer is an enigmatic mystery within a paradox who has managed to avoid being photographed. He was born in 1959 in a small village called Nodeh near Kandahar to poor landless peasants. As a young man he became the imam in his village mosque and established his own madrissah. During the Soviet occupation he spent time in Pakistan to hone his knowledge and skills in Islamic laws. He became a part of the resistance forces by joining the Khalis faction called the Hizb-i-Islami and fought against the forces of Najibullah under Commander Nek Mohammed during 1989-92. He has three wives and five children. He was wounded several times and lost an eye during an engagement with the Govt. forces. Almost all the battle hardened leaders of the Taliban bore the scars of war. Their supreme leader with the title of Amir-ul-momineen Mullah Umer, Nur ud din Turabi the justice minister, and one time foreign minister Mohd. Ghous were all one eyed. The mayor of Kabul Abdul Majid had an eye and a leg missing.

Immediately after taking control of Kabul the Taliban regime imposed the most repressive and archaic system of governance on the entire country. All women were banned from work. Girls’ schools and colleges were closed down which affected over 70,000 girl students and a very strict dress code of head to toes veil for women was ruthlessly enforced. Women were forbidden to come out of their homes with out a male escort. Shias and other minorities were persecuted, thrown out of their jobs and in many cases tortured and brutally killed for not believing in the Taliban philosophy. “Thieves will have their hands and feet amputated, adulterers will be stoned to death, and those taking liquor will be lashed” came the announcement over radio Kabul which was renamed radio shariat. All forms of entertainment such as movies, TV, music, dance, theatre and even games like football, chess, snooker and kite flying were banned. Men without beards were arrested and beaten. Mullah Umer now appointed six member council or “Shura” of illiterate Mullahs to run the country including Mullah Mohd. Rabbani, Mullah Mohd. Ghous (Foreign Minister) Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi (Information Minister) Mullah Syed Ghias ud din, Mullah Fazal Mohd, and Mullah Abdul Razzaq.

The most horrific and grisly act of the Taliban victory celebrations was the brutal murder of the then Afghan president Najibullah who had taken refuge in the UN compound in central Kabul. A Taliban unit of five men commanded by Mullah Abdul Razzaq the governor of Herat arrested Najibullah. He was severely beaten, mercilessly tortured taken to the presidential palace and castrated. His battered and bruised semi conscious body was then dragged behind a jeep until finally being shot dead. His dead body was then hanged from a concrete traffic post and remained there for many days until decomposing. His younger brother and a few bodyguards received the same brutal and inhuman treatment at the hands of the Taliban.

Usama Bin Laden, scion of the immensely rich Bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia was under the protection and patronage of the Taliban Govt. in Afghanistan. He had founded and trained the radical Islamic group called Al Qaeda. On 7th August 1998 US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by the Al- Qaeda terrorists killing 224 and wounding about 4000 people. In a massive retaliatory action the USA launched a missile attack on the Al Qaeda camps and training centers in North Eastern Afghanistan on 20th August 1998. Then came the tragic events of 9/11 and the rest is history.

The US Invasion of Afghanistan brought about the fall of the Taliban regime and the mysterious disappearance of Mullah Mohammed Umer and Usama Bin Laden. The North West frontier region bordering Afghanistan proved to be a safe haven for thousands of Taliban warriors who took to their heels before the advancing forces of the Americans and their allies. The fleeing Taliban fighters were not only Afghans but Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, Uzbek, and even some Muslim radicals from a few European countries. These Taliban groups were welcomed by their supporters in various villages and small towns of the Pakistani frontier regions. Here they regrouped, rested, replenished their stores of weapons and ammunition and then started their hit and run attacks on the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban gave birth to a new faction called the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by a veteran of the Afghan resistance Bait Ullah Mehsud. Another Pakistani Muslim group is the Tehreek-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM), founded by Sufi Mohammed and now commanded by his Son in law Maulana Fazalullah. Two other prominent Islamic groups jockeying for power are the Laskar-i-Islam of Mengal Bagh and the Ansar-ul-Islam. All these factions and splinter groups have a common aim and objective and that is the establishment of the Islamic emirate of Taliban. Pakistan today is faced with a Taliban type revolution and the writing on the wall is very clear. Schools and colleges in Islamabad have received chilling threats. Women leaders like Benazir Bhutto have made the supreme sacrifice. The ruling party chief of the Frontier province Asfandyar Wali Khan narrowly escaped death. People from Swat, Bajaur, FATA, and other Taliban infested regions are fleeing from their ancestral abodes to find safety in other areas of the country. Most people are not aware that the casualties suffered by our armed forces at the hands of the Islamic militants are more than the combined casualty figures of the 1965 and ’71 wars with arch enemy India.

The Pakistani Taliban appear to be more militant vicious and cruel than their Afghan counterparts. They have been active for the last many years now and they take immense pride in blowing up girls schools and torching Govt. properties. They have formed their own Sharia courts where death sentences are imposed on their enemies and then throats are slit in front of video cameras. Suicide bombings in Pakistan are a daily routine. UN agencies have ordered evacuation of families from Islamabad, American and British schools are closing down, and all foreign nationals in Islamabad have become virtual prisoners within the four walls of their missions.

Some leaders of our religious parties have demanded that we should wash our hands off the US led war on terror. Deny the USA any supplies through Pakistan and some drawing room Field Marshals have even advocated declaring war on the USA. One can only sympathize with such naive and senseless proposals. Any such hostile move from our side will be counter productive. Pakistan will become isolated in the community of nations. It will be pariah state to be hated and shunned. We are already on the brink of an economic melt down. Can we afford to cut our lifeline and expedite the process of self destruction? This is exactly what the Taliban are aiming and hoping for. Pakistan today faces the most grave and serious danger it has ever faced. Time is running out and if something is not done immediately the creeping menace of the evil forces of obscurantism will destroy everything achieved during the last sixty two years of our independence.