Taliban shadow still looms as war turns against Afghan royalists

PHILIP SMUCKER IN GARDEZ


HUNDREDS of escaping elite al-Qaeda fighters have passed through the mile-high city of Gardez, where heavy factional fighting erupted this week.

Dozens of senior Taliban officials had already fled to Gardez and were here to greet the al-Qaeda fighters. There was talk of creating a safe haven - that is, until the US air force unleashed a fresh bombing campaign in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora.

In the last six to eight weeks, most of the al-Qaeda fighters have dispersed. Some of them have fled into the Black Mountains, a range that runs north to south through the provinces of Paktika, Zabul and Kandahar. Other Bin Laden loyalists are still lingering in the remote villages just south of Tora Bora.

Most of the Taliban officials haven’t bothered to hide. With a crushing military victory last week against men loyal to a Pathan royalist governor appointed by Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, the remaining Taliban in eastern Afghanistan have extended their stay indefinitely.

They have formed a union unthinkable to the US military a few weeks ago, linking up with Northern Alliance factions believed to be financed by Iran.

Both the former Taliban factions and the Northern Alliance groups - which often field Shia Muslim fighters as opposed to the majority Sunni Muslim population in the country - are allied in their determination to prevent royalists, like the governor of Paktia province, Badshah Khan, from regaining power in Afghanistan.

Paktia does not appear, on the surface, to be a likely place to lead Afghanistan’s royalist revival. But loyal tribesmen here are famous for having used remote mountain roads to spirit two Afghan kings - including Zahir Shah’s own father, Nadir Shah - back from exile. For their loyalty, the Pathans of eastern Afghanistan earned the sobriquet, ‘the king makers’.

Zahir Shah, who left Afghanistan in 1973 for Britain to receive treatment to an eye injured playing volleyball, was ousted by a coup and never returned. With Afghanistan’s king still out of the country nearly two months after the collapse of Taliban rule and no date for his return, royalists leaders still haven’t been able to deliver their promises.

Balancing royalism with the region’s often virulent strain of fundamentalism has never been easy. Afghanistan’s Pathan tribes ushered in the Taliban movement and ended up using the Taliban to turn Pathan customs - including burqa wearing - into the religious law of the land.

Besides the king, the region’s other favourite son is Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former war hero who has financed mosques and charity work for nearly a decade. He has a long, prosperous friendship with Bin Laden. Haqqani, the target of several recent US military raids, is now believed to be plotting his own comeback from a village across the border in Pakistan.

In the fighting around the ancient Bala Hisar fortress in Gardez last week, one fighter stood out. Commander Malim Jan, whose tanks fired the first shots at the ancient Buddha statues in Bamiyan last year under orders from Taliban cultural ‘experts’, was slightly injured in the fighting.

Commander Jan swears allegiance to al-Qaeda’s regional chief, Haqqani, and is unapologetic for the services he gave them. "I didn’t agree with their policies, but I had friends in the Taliban and those friends protected me and gave me a job," he said.

Other Taliban officials are now living openly in Gardez, including Naim Kochai, the former minister for frontier and tribal affairs. Kochai provided 800 fighters to the Taliban militia in exchange for his ministership.

"He won’t flee because he doesn’t have to and he is holding onto his men to fight another day," said Lutfullah Mashal, a local writer.

Slumped against the wall of his home governor Khan brooded about what his next move would be.

Khan, also a hero of the war against Soviet aggression, was one of the few royalists who dared fight in the name of Zahir Shah against the Russians. For other Afghans it was enough to "kill the infidels" and take payoffs from the Saudis and the CIA.

Badshah Khan claims he has been betrayed by the Americans. He believes the US military is being led by the nose by the Northern Alliance which has a greater interest in serving its Iranian political benefactors in crushing the royal movement, than fighting terror in Afghanistan.

"Taliban and al-Qaeda officials who escaped the US bombing didn’t go north," said Khan. "They are right here in these mountains and the city council in Gardez are their puppets. When the Americans leave, they will just walk back down from the mountains."

Khan is an appointed governor but he knows that the man who assigned him does not have the power to see him take office.

"The Americans should know who their enemies are and if they do not help us - the moderate Pathans - with money and air power, you can be sure that eastern Afghanistan will remain a base for their enemies."


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