The Taliban face their toughest test as diplomatic and military pressures mount
THE euphoria of capturing Kabul hadn’t even ended, when the Taliban found themselves on the backfoot. In quick strikes, Burh-anuddin Rabbani라이브 바카라 military commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, had seized control of the crucial towns of Jabalus Siraj, Charikar and Salang. Even the airbase at Bagram was seized but the Taliban managed to wrest it back. Meanwhile, the diplomatic temperature also hotted up.
India broke its silence last week when the External Affairs minister announced that New Delhi still recognises the Rabbani regime. While this was not surprising, the long silence from India certainly was—it revealed a certain confusion in the Indian thinking. Iran, on the other hand, launched a hectic diplomatic exercise to mobilise countries with interests in Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati visited New Delhi for a few hours on October 17 and held discussions with I.K. Gujral. According to highly placed sources, Iran feels the Taliban were bolstered by SaudiPak-British and American help, without which they would have never got Kabul. Iran is in touch with the Central Asian republics and Russia and is likely to organise a regional conference on Afghanistan, to which India may be invited.
The discussions also covered the response of the Central Asian republics. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan had earlier adopted a wait-and-watch policy. Now there is a consensus that the Taliban may not be the most conducive force for regional peace and security—a stand reflected in the military resistance to the Taliban. Iran, of course, is worried about the Americans getting into Afghanistan and creating problems for Teheran.
Last week, fighting north of Kabul between the Taliban and troops loyal to Masood, only encouraged Iran, Russia and some Central Asian republics to help forge an anti-Taliban military alliance between the Uzbek warlord, Gen. Rasheed Dostum, the Tajik commander Masood, and Karim Khalili, a Shiite Hazara.
Caught in a cleft, the Taliban held peace talks with Dostum and Khalili, a move engineered by Pakistan, which insisted that they had to be weaned from Masood so that the Taliban didn’t have to face the military might of all three.
Stunned by their military reverses in Salang, Jabalus Siraj and Charikar in Masood라이브 바카라 native Parwan province, the Taliban forces retreated to within a few kilometres of Kabul to regroup and rethink strategy. Emboldened by his defence pact with Dostum and assured that his rear was now safe, Masood employed his famed guerrilla tactics to inflict considerable damage on the Taliban in Salang, Jabalus Siraj and Charikar. Unfamiliar with the areas and its Persian-speaking Tajik population, the largely Pashtun Taliban soon found out that they were at great risk from snipers provided sanctuary by a hostile populace in these towns. Unable to sustain growing losses, the Taliban pulled out.
In public, the Taliban refused to admit the reverses. Information Minister Mullah Amir Khan Mutaqqi defended the retreat by arguing that the Taliban didn’t want the densely populated towns of Saland, Jabalus Siraj and Charikar to become a battleground.
All the while, the Taliban sent SOS messages to areas under their control, seeking urgent reinforcements to Kabul. Needless to say, the area commanders obliged. In Khost province in southern Afghanistan, busloads of armed men headed for the Kabul frontline. Khost Governor Mullah Syed Abdullah said each of the 13 sub-districts in his province had promised to furnish between 50 and 200 fighters.
A noted Mujahideen commander, Mullah Jalaluddin Haqqani, came out of retirement and left for Kabul with 4,000 Mujahideen to reinforce the Taliban. Batches of volunteers trudged to Kabul from Paktia, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Ghazi and other provinces.
A replenished Taliban launched counterattacks to strengthen their positions around Bagram airbase north of Kabul and recapture some of the lost territory on the strategic Kabul-Salang highway. More worrying for the Taliban was the defence pact between Dostum and Masood. There were reports of Dostum troops arriving in Masood라이브 바카라 stronghold of Jabalus Siraj. Dostum had warned of retaliation if any one dared to enter beyond Salang Tunnel across the Hindu Kush mountains. At this juncture, Pakistan라이브 바카라 interior minister, Maj. Gen. (Retd) Naseerullah Babar, stepped in to the Taliban라이브 바카라 rescue.
As an army general in the ’70s, he had trained Rabbani, Hekmatyar, Mullah Yunis Khalis and other leaders to fight late Afghan president Sardar Daoud라이브 바카라 government. On orders from the Pakistan라이브 바카라 ruling troika, he began a shuttle diplomacy between Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif and in three days brought the Taliban, Dostum and Khalili to the negotiating table.
It was a remarkable achievement for Dostum, a factory worker-turned-militia boss, to win the recognition of Taliban. In fact, the popular joke in Afghanistan is that any Islamist Afghan leader who is defeated in battle or is facing defeat promptly heads for Mazar-i-Sharif, acknowledges Dostum as a true Muslim and great Mujahid, and seeks out an alliance with him.
Dostum is the key and his alliance with Masood is sure to create problems for the Taliban. Pakistan may be trying to get him into the Taliban fold, but Kabul라이브 바카라 neighbours are unlikely to remain mute spectators. And the external interference will continue to haunt this benighted nation.바카라 웹사이트