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'150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

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    '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan (OP)


    Salaam

    Another update on the situation in Afghanistan

    Rare interviews with militants shine light on resilient movement that resisted both Obama’s surge and now Trump’s ‘killing terrorists’ strategy

    Squatting on the floor, a brown shawl draped over his shoulders, the Taliban commander and his bodyguard swiped on their phones through attack footage edited to look like video games, with computerised crosshairs hovering over targets. “Allahu Akbar,” they said every time a government Humvee hit a landmine.

    Mullah Abdul Saeed, who met the Guardian in the barren backcountry of Logar province where he leads 150 Taliban militants, has fought foreign soldiers and their Afghan allies since the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan when he was 14. The Taliban now controls its largest territory since being forced from power, and seems to have no shortage of recruits.

    By prolonging and expanding its military presence in Afghanistan, the US aims to coerce the Taliban to lay down arms, but risks hardening insurgents who have always demanded withdrawal of foreign troops before peace talks.

    In interviews with rank-and-file Taliban fighters in Logar and another of Afghanistan’s embattled provinces, Wardak, the Guardian found a fragmented but resilient movement, united in resistance against foreign intervention.

    Referring to Barack Obama’s surge, Saeed said: “150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us.” And an extra 4,000 US soldiers, as Donald Trump will deploy, “will not change the morale of our mujahideen,” he said. “The Americans were walking in our villages, and we pushed them out.” For the Taliban to consider peace, he said, “foreigners must leave, and the constitution must be changed to sharia.”

    Active Taliban footsoldiers rarely agree to meet western reporters. Men such as Saeed, who spoke without leadership permission, provide valuable insight into a movement that after 16 years in armed opposition remains largely an enigma.

    Arriving on a motorbike kicking up dust, Saeed and his Kalashnikov-carrying bodyguard, Yamin, were aloof at first but warmed as the conversation evolved. Saeed said that as the war has changed, the Taliban have adjusted, too. US soldiers now predominantly train Afghans, and have ramped up airstrikes.

    “It’s true, it has become harder to fight the Americans. But we use suicide bombers, and we will use more of them,” Saeed said. “If the US changes its tactics of fighting, so do we.” That change has meant ever-fiercer attacks, with large truck bombs in populated areas and audacious assaults on military bases.

    In April, Taliban fighters in army uniforms stormed a northern army academy and killed at least 150 soldiers in the biggest assault on the army of the entire war. This month, suicide bombers wiped out a whole army unit, ramming two Humvees packed with explosives into a base in Kandahar.

    As Saeed spoke, three young boys from the civilian family at the house where the interview took place brought tea. They giggled as they listened in on the fighters’ radio. Saeed spoke with a calm, professorial demeanour but his words brimmed with the anger of a man who has spent his adult life fighting a generation-long war, and lost 12 family members doing it.

    Pressed on the record-high number of civilian deaths in the war, he said the Taliban “make mistakes” and try to avoid harming civilians, but added: “If there is an infidel in a flock of sheep, you are permitted to attack that flock of sheep.”

    The Taliban was always outnumbered and technologically outmatched by its foreign adversaries, but is arguably at its strongest since 2001, threatening several provincial capitals. The movement, though, is divided, with some lower-ranking commanders backing rivals of the current chief, Mawlawi Haibatullah, or more radical outfits such as Islamic State. But rifts have not stopped the group from advancing.

    Saeed claimed: “10-15 people join the mujahideen [in Logar] every day, sometimes also policemen,” adding that mistreatment by government and foreign forces helps recruitment.

    “Many Taliban become suicide bombers after prison. Why?” he asked, describing how prison guards torture detainees by applying air pressure, beatings or electric shock to their genitals. After a detainee is released, he said, the shame is too much to bear. Such claims of government torture have been documented by the UN.

    While few in the international community think the war can be won militarily, the US shows little intention of reviving the dormant peace process. “We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists,” Trump said when announcing his south Asia strategy. “In the end we will win.” Crucially, Trump has not established criteria for when US troops will be pulled home.

    In a separate interview in the beleaguered Wardak province, Omari, 23, who has six years’ frontline experience, told the Guardian he had considered leaving the insurgency and taking his family to Kabul. “But if the Americans come back to Wardak, I will fight them,” he said. Omari was less cavalier than Saeed about civilian casualties, which he said damaged the Taliban’s standing with ordinary Afghans, who have become more reluctant to shelter them.

    Yet, the two militants did agree on one thing: American soft power is as dangerous as uniformed soldiers, especially as US troops have dwindled in numbers. That belief materialised last year when militants, in a stunningly grisly attack, stormed the American University in Kabul, killing 16 students and staff members. In the capital, many regard the university as one of the pinnacles of post-Taliban Afghanistan.

    Though no group claimed responsibility for the attack, Saeed and Omari agreed the university posed a threat. “We should kill those teachers who change the minds of society,” Saeed said.

    Currently, the Taliban seem capable of upholding a slow-burning war, with the help of outside benefactors. After recent US pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militant sanctuaries, some Taliban fighters consider opting for another regional neighbour, Omari said: “Many Taliban want to leave Pakistan for Iran. They don’t trust Pakistan anymore.”

    Pakistan denies harbouring militants, but Saeed admitted receiving assistance from Pakistan, though he denied being under anyone’s thumb. “Having relations is one thing, taking orders is something else,” he said. “Every party, if they want to be stronger, need to talk to other countries. We should talk to Iran, and we should talk to Pakistan. Just like the Afghan government goes to India and China.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/150000-americans-couldnt-beat-us-taliban-fighters-defiant-in-afghanistan

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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Report bad ads?

    Yes, Ill take the bait.

    Yes yes yes that buzzword. Anybody not of your political persuasion, call it fascism. Its so overused that its lost most of its meaning. Many have made the same point. eg. Orwell decades ago.

    In 1944, the English writer, democratic socialist, and anti-fascist George Orwell wrote about the term's overuse as an epithet, arguing: "It will be seen that, as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print.
    The American response to the attacks was not justified (and thats putting it mildly). As subsequent history has shown.



    The rest of your spiel is little better than white mans burden rhetoric.

    What you imagine it to be.

    450px 22The White Man27s Burden22 Judge 1899 28cropped29 - '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Versus the reality.

    The white mans burden 1 - '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Heres some advice. Before your country goes of on another rampage in the name of 'freedom' 'democracy' 'human rights' 'womans rights' or whatever is the latest fashionable snake oil (and no, invading a country to save the LGBTXYZ123+- brigade isn't going to cut it). Take a look at your own society.

    Lets start with your leadership class.



    And more generally.

    It’s Time For The United States To Divorce Before Things Get Dangerous

    You can agree or disagree with this analysis but theres little doubt America has serious internal problems that aren't going to be wished away.

    Exhibit A

    I didn't realize you had to be a qualified biologist to determine what is a man or woman.



    Exhibit B

    Another school shooting, I understand this has almost become a regular feature.



    Deal with your own dysfunction rather than imposing your dysfunctional 'values' on others. Shocking as this may sound not everyone wants to be 'Amercanised'.
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    On to more happier news.

    On this edition of The Big Picture, we look at the successes and failures of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan one year after they took power in August 2021.



    Lots of comments, this one stood out for me.


    unknownpng


    i watched the whole session with interest , it was very instructive . it is always a pleasure to see your muslim brothers and sisters from different countries , may Allah help Afghanistan . and may Allah bless the 5pillars team. love from Morocco
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    Another update.

    Roshan Muhammed Salih talks to Afghanistan expert Hameedullah Oryakhil about all the latest happenings in Afghanistan - from the dire economic and humanitarian situation, to stricter enforcement of Shari'ah law, to girl's education and women's rights.

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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    The decision to ban Womens University education (temporary or otherwise) is a deeply disappointing, but as always theres more to it then meets the eye. Lots to be said but Ill post this article and get the ball rolling.



    As the Taliban ban on girls’ schools is expanded to universities, Ahmed-Waleed Kakar examines a century of politicised education in Afghanistan.

    Much has been said about the new Taliban government in the sixteen months since their August 2021 takeover. Had the Taliban changed? If so, was this part of a wider ideological re-orientation, or due to political maturity? Front and centre in all discussions was one topic: girls’ schools.

    Girls’ schools between grades six and twelve were closed following the Taliban takeover. Schools would be opened, it was initially promised, on 23rd March. Hours into that day, the academic year’s first, schools were again closed ‘until further notice,’ and have remained closed since. After months of contradictory explanations and unrelenting chorus of (inter)national criticism, Kabul finally settled on an explanation. ‘The government is trying,’ said Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘to take an approach that is gradual.’ This was due to a ‘large percentage of society that has very strict ideas on what women can do and what they cannot do.’ The closure was ‘a temporary suspension,’ not a ban. (1)

    Then came yesterday’s edict. Civil servants were to ‘urgently implement’ in universities the existing ban on girls’ schools, again, ‘until further notice’. Girls are officially barred from university (2), and outrage is boiling.

    Ancient is the debate on ‘good’ education versus ‘bad’ indoctrination: discussed by minds as old, and as great, as Plato’s. The debate is not, contrary to disproportionate coverage, exclusive to Afghanistan. Even Western classrooms find themselves subject to a lengthening shadow of navigating increasingly polarising social issues, including those as foundational as gender.

    Otherwise diametrically opposed foes, the Soviet Union and United States shared a surprising level of similarities as far as their occupations of Afghanistan were concerned. From an Afghan perspective, both occupations constituted phases of one war that ended only with the Taliban’s takeover. Both secured Afghan cities whilst confronted by a surrounding sea of expansive, increasingly hostile countryside. Both struggled with Pakistani assistance to insurgencies. Both insurgencies, in turn, shared the same DNA: rural and Islamic. This was despite the US in 2001 coopting some anti-Soviet mujahideen, now loyal to an occupier in exchange for her favours.

    Wherein the two were remarkably similar, however, was the embellishment of their occupations. Geopolitics dictated the impetus to invade Afghanistan. Yet the Kremlin and Washington alike invoked higher values to galvanise support for what quickly descended into bloody, increasingly unpopular military occupations. Russians, Americans and Afghans alike were told repeatedly that occupation would herald a new dawn. A new chapter of modernity that had thus far eluded Afghanistan beckoned, underpinned by education and women’s rights.

    ‘Peace will be achieved,’ President Bush promised in 2002, ‘by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government [and] through an education system for boys and girls.’ Afghanistan would ‘develop an economy that can feed its people without feeding the world’s demand for drugs.’ (3) As it turned out, not quite. The US, like the Kremlin, ended its occupation. Both times, troops were withdrawn, client regimes collapsed, and religiously conservative insurgencies, hardened by the above, barged into power.

    As the dust on Afghanistan settled, the consequences of decades of politicising education and women’s rights were laid bare. Tainted were the values in whose name war was waged and the country subject to occupation. Now victorious, the insurgencies represented the blocs wherein those sentiments were strongest; sentiments soon enshrined in policy. In post American-Afghanistan, it is modern education that has emerged as a source of contention, and not for the first time.

    ‘Afghan men,’ a BBC guest recently claimed, ‘stand behind the Taliban,’ in their policies toward women. That was part of an answer to the presenter, who asked why Afghan men, like Iranian men, were not protesting for women’s rights (4). It wasn’t just the question, betraying a lack of any appreciation for the vast differences between the two countries, that was jaw-dropping. The guest, even after a bigotry-reeking answer, remained unchallenged by the presenter. In full force is mainstream media’s tried and tested modus operandi: hysterical sensationalism.

    Blanket racism against Afghans is normalised on international fora, and deeper developments remain ignored. One such development is the Taliban’s recent book: The Islamic Emirate and Her System. For those discontented with dim-witted questions and even shoddier answers, such developments are not merely noteworthy; their dissection is imperative. Covering legislation, judiciary, and, most importantly, education, the book is a watershed. It is the Taliban’s first peacetime attempt to articulate, on their own terms, their philosophy toward governance. Its significance is compounded by its author: Shaykh Abdul-Hakim Haqqani.

    Haqqani

    Haqqani hails from the group’s coterie of madrassa-graduated religious mashran (elders) from the Afghan deep south. His rank was displayed in Doha. Chief of the Taliban delegation, Haqqani led talks during intra-Afghan negotiations; negotiations made redundant with the Taliban’s military victory. Tutor to all three Taliban leaders thus far and known as ‘ustad al-ulama’ (teacher of scholars), Haqqani boasts a scholarly pedigree commanding the respect, and reportedly, even the deference, of Amir Hebatullah Akhundzada. His importance cannot be overstated. Now Chief Justice, it is Haqqani, above others, tasked with achieving the politico-legal goal of making the Taliban’s Emirate, true to its name, sufficiently Islamic. Whether feasible or ill-advised, Haqqani’s role in the endeavour is telling.

    ‘We do not,’ Haqqani declares, ‘deny the importance of modern education.’ Nor, despite a caveat on which he expands, ‘do we deny its permissibility or necessity.’ It was ‘obligatory’, however, ‘for an [Islamic] state to prioritise religious education over secular education’. Secular education should be incorporated into and under the umbrella of a wider religious education. Separating the two, per Haqqani, was akin to relegating the religious to the secular.

    Haqqani has probably never read Professor Wael Hallaq of Columbia. His objection toward bifurcating religious and secular education, though, is almost identical to Hallaq’s broader assessment of secularism. Through the lens ‘of political theology,’ Hallaq postulates, ‘secularism is the murder of God by the State,’ as the ‘state can delimit, limit, exclude and curtail any religious practice and thus has the power to determine the quality and quantity of the religious sphere as it sees fit.’ In this paradigm, the state did not conform to a religious framework, but religion was subject to the state definition of religion, and thus state power. ‘The state,’ therefore, ‘is the ultimate Sovereign.’ (5)

    Similarly, separating religious and secular education was the ascendance of the temporal over the spiritual. It empowered an outside, non-religious authority to decide for religion what it was, and what it was not. Haqqani’s criticism against this is not just excoriating; it was to be stopped ‘with the most forceful of means,’ constituting a plot ‘to corrupt the moral uprightness of Muslims and deviate them from the religion of God.’ This bifurcation was not responsible just for instability in Afghanistan; it was responsible for the decline of the Islamic world as a whole.

    In April, I wrote about the reinstituted Ministry of Vice and Virtue (6). Like that Ministry and its surrounding controversy, the debate over education has a lengthy, pre-Taliban history. Controversy over schooling started almost immediately following initial state modernisation attempts. Debate over education and its separation (or lack thereof) between religious and secular is part of a larger theme: the ongoing and unresolved dialectic between modernity on one hand and the largely classical religious framework on the other. That framework, commonly derided as outdated, proved resilient, persisting through Kabul’s repeated, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful attempts at destroying it. Too often, this was done with foreign assistance. Modernity itself was tainted with memories of foreign armies, Soviet or American, and their repeated assaults on everything Afghan.

    The Troubled Beginnings of Afghan Education

    The nineteenth century was traumatic from an Afghan standpoint. Previously an empire, Afghanistan was now a buffer state sandwiched between and at the mercy of Russia and British India. The British had twice invaded. Twice ousting them, Afghanistan had, in the process, ceded to Britain territory and control over its foreign affairs. Of some solace was the late nineteenth century’s unprecedented statebuilding and centralisation. By the twentieth century, Afghan elites, joined by Afghans returning from exile and in growing sync with the wider world, were coming to a growing realisation: Afghanistan was in dire need of modernisation. One Afghan, returning from Ottoman exile and a relative of the royal family, was particularly important: Mahmud Tarzi. He had new ideas.

    The efforts of Tarzi’s Young Afghans (inspired by the Young Turks) led Afghanistan’s first modern school in 1904. Kabul’s Habibiyya taught biology, chemistry, history, Pashto (promoted as a national language) and Turkish (demonstrating Ottoman influence) (7). Afghanistan was entering modernity slowly, but controversially; traditional curricula had operated under the aegis of the madrassa system with the ulama at the helm. Modern schooling triggered their opposition; many were paranoid about wider changes a Western education could engender. The compromise was that admission into Habibiyya was conditional on completing the primary and secondary stages of madrassa (8).

    Prevalent historiography predictably depicts Tarzi as a ‘progressive’ advocate of (Western) education. His detractors, on the other hand, easily fit the archetype of powerful and religious men hellbent on backwardness and opposing enlightenment. Tarzi’s push for education, however, was part of his pan-Islamism: largely in response to the European imperialism with which both the Ottoman Empire and Afghanistan were confronted. Tarzi believed the panacea to be modern education, to which the ulama had little exposure and less understanding. Their antipathy was specifically toward Western education. Parallels to the present day are glaring.

    This historiography and logical conclusions thereof underpin contemporary coverage of Afghanistan. Lazily relying on a bland salad of orientalist tropes and obsolete Hegelian terminology, frequently used are the omnipresent binaries of ‘backwards’ versus ‘progress’. The discourse refuses to address the unresolved tensions that contribute to the seemingly unending Afghan cycle of being back and forthwith each militarily induced change of government, between revolution and counter revolution, progressive forces versus reactionary forces, ‘good’ versus ‘bad.’ In doing so, contemporary discourse contributed directly to war. Arbitrarily defined ‘moderate’ heroes were lionised against religious villains, identified far too often, with deadly consequences for thousands of Afghan men, with beards and turbans.

    Amidst this, fundamentally ignored is the uncomfortable reality that Afghanistan under the Taliban has not gone ‘backwards,’ in the same way that, despite passionate claims to the contrary, it never truly ‘progressed’ during two decades of American occupation. The glaring testament to this is Afghanistan being lurched side to side, ground continually by the opposing poles of ideologues and the reactionaries they breed.

    Tarzi was directly challenging an understanding of education in place for centuries. Inherent to Tarzi’s preferred education was the secular-religious distinction; a distinction that was anathema to the classical Islamic curricula for centuries prevalent in Afghanistan and the wider Islamic world (9). This style of education was not just prevalent but persists to the present day. Akif Muhajir, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue’s spokesman whom I interviewed, studied at Pakistan’s infamous Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa. His curriculum incorporated logic and philosophy besides Quran and hadith under the wider umbrella of a religious education.

    ‘Islam refuses,’ then Prince of Wales and now King Charles III admiringly affirmed in 1993, ‘to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and [our] world.’ To his surprise, probable discomfort and with no shortage of irony, nodding in agreement with Charles on classical Islam’s lack of religious-secular distinction would be none other than Afghan Chief Justice and Taliban ideologue: Abdul Hakim Haqqani. (10)

    It was already likely that there would be opposition to Tarzi and modern education; it became inevitable with the extremity of attempts at implementation. When Tarzi’s mentee and son-in-law Amanullah assumed the throne, he aimed to transform his impoverished kingdom into a modern state. Initially careful to align himself with Islamic orthodoxy, Amanullah even won the backing of some influential ulama for reforms. He opened the country’s first girls’ school and, in 1924, attempted to promulgate its first codified constitution. Strong religious backing notwithstanding, Amanullah still came under growing domestic pressure; pressure he sought to offset by going as far as Delhi’s Deobandi Mufti Kifayatullah for a fatwa (legal edict) on girls’ education. Amanullah was, the Mufti explained, the Islamic ruler and ‘shadow of God on Earth’: compelled to ensure religious norms on gender segregation were upheld and ‘immorality’ prevented. Beyond that, the Mufti wrote, the modern age necessitated a widening of education, and the pursuit of ‘knowledge is a necessity of a human soul, whether male or female.’ Any justification, as such, ‘differentiating between men and women in this regard does not exist in the Sharia.’(11)

    Education’s Foreignness and Amanullah’s High Modernism

    By 1928, Amanullah was frustrated by his lack of progress, caring little for religious sensibilities. He announced sweeping measures. Coeducation would be compulsory for children and foreign-run schools were to be established in all provinces. Afghans, including girls, would be sent to study abroad. This was part of a broader package of reforms. These included the official holiday being shifted from the Islamic Friday to Thursday. Kabulis would henceforth wear European clothes. Polygamy was to be abolished (12). Even Tarzi, the erstwhile modernist, was appalled. The message derived by Amanullah’s opponents was clear: modern education formed part of a wider crusade against everything Afghan, whether Islam, gender segregation, even clothing.

    Demands were eventually presented to Amanullah. He was to divorce his wife: a driving force behind his reforms and photographed without a hijab in Europe. He was to reinstitute the veil and lift the ban on polygamy. In a staggering display of how politicised girls’ education had become, he was demanded to close all girls’ schools and recall all girls sent abroad for education (13). Islamic jurists had, for centuries, posited that the sultan (ruler) was God’s shadow on Earth. That, however, was contingent on the Sultan’s sharia-compliant rule. Through anti-Islamic reforms, Amanullah had overstepped his prerogative, forfeiting his Islamic legitimacy, and soon enough, his throne itself. Overthrown and to die in exile in 1960, Amanullah’s legacy, rooted in his moronic understanding of modernity, vindicated those who had from the beginning warned against modern education. Casting a long shadow, he haunts Afghanistan to the present day.

    Amanullah’s attempts at mandating schooling were a Western inspired ‘prescription for immorality and promiscuity.’ That, at least, was the view of Kabul’s ex-governor, Neda Muhammad Nadeem, in a video that went viral wherein Nadeem castigated Amanullah (14). Taliban sources denied the authenticity of the account sharing the video, purporting to be Nadeem’s official account, but the video remained alarming. Nadeem was not just a senior Talib, he was also Shaykh al-Hadith; his influence bound to be augmented by his credentials.

    Most concerning, though, was Nadeem’s recent appointment as Minister of Higher Education by Amir Hebatullah himself, and what this could possibly mean for education overall. Subsequent videos showed Nadeem, following his appointment as Minister, talking of bridging ‘the gap between the school and the madrassa,’ echoing Haqqani’s objection to the secular-religious distinction. (15) Soon enough, it was Nadeem that signed the communique ordering the ‘urgent’ ban of girls from university. There was, unsurprisingly, no explanation on how banning secondary schools and universities bridged the school-madrassa gap. Or why this applied to one gender alone.

    Amanullah’s attitude was reminiscent of what James Scott termed ‘high modernism’: utilising the state in the top down reorganisation of society to achieve material progress (16). Amanullah was perhaps the first to embody and attempt to implement that zeitgeist yet he would, as the decades transpired, certainly not be the last.

    In 1978, just under half a century after Amanullah’s overthrow, President Daud and seventeen family members were killed in a communist coup. Soon thereafter, Afghanistan was plunged into a forty year war. The perpetrators, with Nur Muhammad Taraki at their vanguard, saw themselves as heirs to Amanullah’s crusade for modernity. Even their coup was presented as righting a historical wrong; celebrating the end of a dynasty that had usurped Amanullah’s throne. Like Amanullah, Taraki’s reforms attempted to curtail polygamy, and went further: arresting and executing imams en masse. Where Amanullah once derided the ulama as superstitious and exploitative (17), and spoke of ‘discarding old outworn ideas and customs [being] the great secret of success,’ (18) Taraki asserted:

    ‘We respect the principles of Islam….but religion must not be used by those who want to sabotage progress. We want to cleanse Islam in Afghanistan of the ballast and dirt of bad traditions, superstition and erroneous belief. Thereafter we will have progressive, modern and pure Islam.’ (19)

    Amanullah and Taraki alike shared their fundamental high modernism, necessitating cutting religion down to size. Both castigated their religious opponents: either self-interested, superstitious or exploitative. Taraki’s high modernism went further than Amanullah’s: buttressed by a greater means and readiness for brutality and relegating Afghanistan to the ideological and military power of the Soviet Union, but it was high modernism nonetheless. Every action has a reaction, and every phase of high-modernism bred a religious counterpart, the latest iteration being the Taliban.

    Amanullah was overthrown by his former soldier: illiterate bandit now self-styled ‘Servant of the Religion of the Prophet,’ Habibullah Kalakani. Kalakani promptly closed all schools, imposed restrictions on women leaving their homes, and, in glaring testament to Amanullah’s reforms being tainted with foreignness, announced a ban on teaching ‘the languages of foreigners and kuffar [infidels].’ Uncomfortably for some, Kalakani was a Tajik, contradicting the view that opposition to schooling was rooted in Pashtun cultural norms. He was ousted nine months later in 1929 by Amanullah’s clansman: Nader Khan. (20)

    Nader was, albeit cautious, a moderniser. He did, however, disagree with Amanullah’s high modernism. Forcing new ideas on society was not government prerogative, nor was it necessary. Islam and progress could, he asserted, ‘march side by side,’ as Islam did ‘not constitutionally prohibit progress.’ Such statements may have been expedient; his kingship was born out of an alliance with a clergy eager to enthrone a sober ally. Yet Nader did not deny his belief in modernisation. It was, indeed, a medicine; a medicine that Amanullah had administered in a dosage that was ‘tenfold stronger than prescribed by the doctor.’ (21). Wary of clerical influence and widespread disdain for education borne of Amanullah’s erraticism, however, Nader towed a careful line. He and his successors’ approach was gradual but, in hindsight, yet to be replicated in success.

    Playing a delicate balancing act, Nader traded limited modernisation with deference to religious sensitivities still inflamed by Amanullah. He succeeded in making primary schooling compulsory. Foreigners could continue teaching in Afghan schools. They could no longer, however, open new schools or direct them. Education was to remain firmly under government control, ensuring its adherence to Islamic tenets, determined by a Nader-appointed body of clergy (22). Concurrently, Afghanistan’s first modern morality police was instituted and initially, at least, girls’ schools remained shut. Girls were forbidden from study abroad. Like Amanullah before him, an Indian scholar wrote to Nader. Mawlana Najaf Ali, Amanullah’s former teacher, pleaded with Nader to open girls’ schools (23). History, per the adage, repeats itself. When pertaining to Afghanistan, it is doubly and depressingly so. In 2022, another scholar from the Indian subcontinent, Mufti Taqi Usmani, appealed to another Afghan government to open girls’ schools. (24) His plea was not just ignored, but girls were barred from university to boot.

    Effective but brutally authoritarian, Nader’s reign ended prematurely as he was killed in 1933. Yet he and his successors could boast of success in their consultative approach toward the country’s conservatives. Afghanistan’s first medical school, later Kabul University, was established in 1932. The following decades saw a slow return to initiatives made taboo by association with Amanullah’s anti-Islamic reforms. Girls’ schools, initially secretly, were reopened, and universities were established; religious and secular sciences were taught separately therein. Statebuilding could be a dangerous endeavour rurally; a safe focus on infrastructure ensured slow but prudent expansion of government writ.

    There was, however, a catch. Foreigners, principally Indian Muslims and Turks, were heavily relied upon from the dawn of schooling. As decades passed and antipathy toward schooling seemed to dampen, a chronic shortage of teachers ensured education remained subcontracted and insufficiently Afghan. The top brass of schools remained foreign. There was the Soviet built Kabul Polytechnic University for engineering, the Amanullah era German Nejat college, the French-run Lycees Istiqlal and Malalai (for girls), and the English Ghazi College to name a few. Kabul University’s varying faculties were sponsored by France, the US and Britain. The University’s theology department was closely linked to Egypt’s Al-Azhar. Amidst the Cold War, military officers increasingly went to the Soviet Union for training. The consequences became clear in 1978’s communist coup.

    Enter Haqqani


    That is why, at least according to the Taliban’s Chief Justice, things went wrong. ‘Delving excessively in modern sciences destroys [religious] belief and acts of worship,’ Haqqani declares. Earlier Islamic generations, Haqqani maintains, achieved worldly success only through prioritising the Quran and Sunnah; a prioritisation that had been lost and led to a decline of religious scholarship that had, over centuries, been in full swing. Haqqani charged al-Ma’mun, the notorious ninth century Mu’tazili Abbasid Caliph, as being the first to overemphasise worldly sciences. The modern secular-religious divide took this misprioritisation to new heights by officially relegating religion. This was responsible broadly for Islam’s weakness, and specifically for 1978’s communist ‘revolution against the government of Afghanistan.’ Alluding to the outsized Western role in education, Haqqani lambasts schools as places where even ‘the uniforms are European.’

    Haqqani’s tirade against schooling is unsurprising. Schools had, due to their foreignness, long served as incubators of foreign ideas and resultant political unrest. This went back to the establishment of the Habibiyya; it quickly spawned a constitutionalist movement. By the mid 20th century and Cold War, schools were a conduit for a slew of foreign ideas creeping into the country. Foremost amongst them was communism.

    As President, Hafizullah Amin oversaw an unprecedented apex of state terror that even his Soviet allies warned him against. His background, however, was far less violent. Amin was a teacher by trade; he had lectured at the Education and Teaching Faculty at Kabul University, served as principal at both the prestigious Dar-ul Mu’alimeen (Teacher Training School), Ibn Sina (Avicenna) schools, and the government’s newly established Teacher Training Institute. Per his biography, as teacher, he busied himself with ‘enlightening socio-political understanding and making the democratic movement among the students and teachers highly powerful.’ Too ambitious to content himself with radicalising mere students, Amin had set his sights on indoctrinating their teachers. (25)

    Communism was not the only ideology seeping into the country, but its adherents’ belligerence toward religion made it most striking. Many were of rural stock, almost all were either foreign or state educated. Taraki was first exposed to Marxism in British India. Soon confronted by the Herat Uprising after his 1978 coup, Taraki begged the Kremlin for military support. He could rely, he confessed, ‘only [on] students of the Lyceums, pupils of the eldest forms and a small number of workers.’ (26) His confession simultaneously underscored communist unpopularity together with the importance of state education in radicalisation into communism. Amin, who succeeded Taraki by suffocating him, had studied in the USA. After killing Amin, the Soviets installed Babrak Karmal as President: a graduate of the German Nejat College and foreign sponsored Kabul University. Karmal’s successor, Dr. Najib, was a graduate of Kabul University’s Medical Faculty.

    Many, however, remained convinced by modern schooling. In cities but also in the countryside, schooling was not just seen as part of a national duty to modernise the country. It was also a religious obligation based on the Quranic injunction to ‘read’. According to one saying popularly attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), it was part of a commandment for Muslims to seek knowledge even afar as China.

    Claiming that most Afghans disagreed would be far-fetched. Enough Afghans, however, did. This reality became undeniable as scepticism toward schooling survived and reared its head decades later to be practically implemented under the first and now second Taliban Emirates. The rise of communism coincided with laxer enforcement of Islamic norms in cities. A golden age for some; for others, it only deepened the conceptualisation of modernity, and its schools, as avenues of anti-Islamic influence.

    Now immortalised in classical Arabic in his book, that conceptualisation is summarised by Haqqani in bleak terms. With religion relegated to a footnote in secular curricula, permeated by a wider atmosphere of ‘immorality and irreligion,’ and rampant freemixing, schools are, Haqqani contends, ‘amongst the greatest barriers between Muslims and Islam, and the greatest preventors of the teaching of the Quran, the rulings of the Sharia, and the moral uprightness of Muslims.’

    The pre-Taliban antipathy toward schooling was recollected by pre-eminent Afghan historian Muhammad Hassan Kakar. A tribal elder from Paktia in the 1980s had narrated to Kakar how Kabul, decades earlier, approved plans for local road and school construction. Locals had generally acquiesced, with the exception of his valley’s elders: convinced by a holy man to oppose the plans. Decades later, in the 1980s, the other valleys were subject to the destruction of their own sons turned communists as a result of the schools. With neither school nor roads, theirs was the only valley spared of the violence. The holy man was right. ‘Common people destroyed schools from the foundation. The educated persons became discredited, and the mullahs became unrivalled rulers.’ (27)

    The Taliban founding fathers thus grew up in a milieu subsumed in the same attitudes. Per one Taliban official, the movement’s previous leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, had attended school in his native Maiwand in Qandahar. A prodigious talent, Mansour was soon enough noticed by his teachers. Customary for children of his intelligence, they recommended the young Mansour be sent to Kabul for higher education. His mother, however, was horrified. Apostasy, as she saw it, was inevitable in Kabul. ‘I would rather,’ she proclaimed ‘that he dies in front of me.’

    Mansour went on, as far as technology, media and schooling were concerned, to be the movement’s most permissive leader. His Taliban predecessors, successors, and his own mother, however, all shared an ambivalence toward schooling. Mansour was later killed in a 2016 US drone strike. The one Taliban leader that the US managed to kill was the one that would who died at US hands to be one they would find most agreeable. The irony.

    By the Soviet occupation, hostility toward schooling had hardened further. Schooling had been identified, as early as Amin, as the the engine of social engineering in the creation of a Marxist utopia. Curricula, replete with communist propaganda, was the fuel. Deliberately ‘void of Islamic studies and Afghani culture,’ these curricula, according to Dr. Zuhra Faizi, provoked opposition toward state schooling even in urban centres, including Kabul. No longer was it confined to a countryside otherwise liable to easily being dismissed as backward. So bitter was opposition to these curricula that even Afghan refugees in Pakistan were resistant to schooling. Schools themselves were synonymous with sacrilegious propaganda. (28)

    It was not, however, merely Amanullah or even Soviet communism to blame for politicising education. Across the Durand Line, Afghan children in Pakistan were raised on a curricular diet of US-produced textbooks extolling the virtues of jihad. It was a square that the US, in its later occupation of Afghanistan, never succeeded in circling.

    The US occupation – feeding the cycle

    The occupation of Afghanistan was part of the wider War on Terror’s strategic goals. Foremost amongst these was cultivating a globally neutered Islam that would, at least, not challenge American foreign policy interests. In 2004, political scientist Cheryl Bernard wrote a policy paper for the Rand Corporation on promoting what she termed ‘Civil Democratic Islam.’

    Dividing Muslims into categories, Bernard suggested promoting Sufism as a pacifist variant of Islam (29). The US, she advised, should ally with ‘traditionalists’ against its principal adversary: ‘fundamentalists.’ This was a catch-all term that included the Taliban, who were ‘radical fundamentalists.’ That was not, however, a token of Bernard’s approval for traditionalists; they remained ‘leery of women’s social and economic integration’ and ‘wary of modern, secular education.’ (30) In turn, to break the traditionalist monopoly on religious scholarship, Bernard proposed supporting ‘modernists.’. This could be done through various avenues; ‘modernist scholars’ could be encouraged ‘to write textbooks and develop curricula’ (31) as well as incorporating modernist ‘views into the curriculum of Islamic education.’ (32) Bernard’s emphasis on curricula was prolific; curricula could also ‘facilitate and encourage an awareness of pre and non-Islamic history and culture.’ (33)

    In the same year as Bernard’s recommendations, President Bush delivered his 2004 State of the Union (34). Afghanistan, he announced, had been a success. It had just promulgated a new, democratic constitution. ‘The boys and girls of Afghanistan are back in school,’ Bush boasted. ‘Aggressive raids against the surviving members of the Taliban’ were ongoing, and ‘men and women are building a nation that is free and proud and fighting terror.’ By ‘terror’, the reference to the Taliban was obvious. Similar statements by Western statesmen and their Afghan clients littered the two decades of American occupation. The shared aim was appealing to a Western audience by legitimising and maintaining public support for spending billions on an occupation and the insatiable appetite for foreign dollars amongst the installed Afghan elite. Glad tidings were forthcoming; a new generation of young, ‘educated’ Afghans, it was promised, would turn the page on a chapter arbitrarily defined as one of religious extremism.

    Education and women’s rights were thus the legitimising and reinforcing pillars for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Blissfully unaware or supremely indifferent, the statements, whether Bush’s or Bernard’s, only vindicated the suspicion that education was a Trojan horse for Westernisation. Repeatedly presenting education as an integral ingredient of the War on Terror achieved the net result of repeatedly vindicating Haqqani; education was aimed at castrating Islam whilst fostering an understanding of women’s rights that clashed with women’s domestic role that he believed divinely ordained. Modern schools were ultimately barriers between Islam and Muslims; barriers intended specifically to ‘deviate [Muslims] from the religion of God.’ The Taliban’s hawks, with education and women constantly weaponised against them, were listening.

    Scepticism toward state schools thus persisted during the American occupation. The increasingly common slurs of the occupation’s dying years only pointed toward enduring resentment toward Western education. ‘Tommy’ referred derisively to many young, Western educated, suit wearing and English fluent Afghans serving in government or NGOs; they were so distant that they were given a fitting Western name to boot. ‘Fulbrighter’ mocked those who benefited from the famous US scholarship. Both terms, according to their users, referred to Afghans who, by virtue of their Western education, had lost the Afghanness of which Islam was the key constituent. ‘A mujahid will graduate from a madrassa,’ Amir Hebatullah reportedly said. Referring to former President Karzai, he added ‘[but] a Karzai will graduate from a school.’ (35)

    Modest gains, however, were made. A national curriculum in attempted adherence to Islamic tenets was codified. Access to schools widened across the country, especially in urban areas. Particularly in war-stricken rural areas, though, Dr. Faizi highlights community-based schools filled the void. These enjoyed greater local trust and were often staffed by locals who worked as teachers. This was whilst distrust toward state-schools persisted. ‘For many,’ Dr. Faizi told me, ‘public schools continued to represent state indoctrination efforts.’

    I encountered an example of this in Zharey, Qandahar. The district’s only girls’ school lay in ruins. Locals, especially Taliban, keenly told me how the school was used as a regime military outpost in the Republic’s dying years. The scars of military use were apparent. The school’s outer perimeter was delineated by now crumbled walls. Beneath the walls’ rubble, amidst tattered pieces of paper, were sandbags held in wired metal containers. The school in Zharey did not represent state indoctrination efforts; it synonymised indoctrination with military machinery.

    Far from the polished answers given by Kabul spokesmen, it was in Zharey that schooling’s equivocation with anti-Islamic influence became apparent. A former Talib turned lavender farmer insisted to me on having no objection to girls, including his daughter, attending school. As long as, he added, this did not clash with the Sharia. He didn’t elaborate on how and why schooling could conflict with the Sharia. He did, however, refer to the international outcry caused by the school closures. ‘This issue [girls’ schools],’ he contended, ‘is being used to undermine Islam.’ He was not alone; the antipathy toward education was present at the highest Taliban echelons. Held by what is widely reported to be a minority, that minority is influential enough to again bring the country to a standstill.

    The first and second Taliban Emirates have both featured restrictions on modern, especially girls’ schooling. Afghanistan has seemingly come full circle, when modern schooling was first banned by Kalakani in 1929. Haqqani’s attitude toward schooling, though, is not one of blanket hostility. Modern education, he concedes, was a necessity; it undoubtedly provided benefits that were worldly, or, as Haqqani puts it ‘material [and] finite.’ These benefits went beyond waging war in defence of Islam; Haqqani accepts that society’s wellbeing was dependent on the study of subjects such as agriculture, chemistry, amongst others. ‘We do not,’ he attempts to clarify, ‘deny the importance of modern education.’

    In 2022, even the Taliban can no longer deny, at least in words, the importance of modern education. Progress, albeit slow, has been made in the Afghan paradigm. Whether that progress is sufficient is a separate discussion; one that must highlight Afghanistan never being permitted the luxury of evolving and solving its differences on its own terms. Indigenous evolution was precluded by the cross-temporal alliance of Amanullah, the ideologues he inspired, and the thousands of foreign soldiers who installed them. Destiny did not afford Kalakani the luxury of time, but it certainly did to the Taliban.

    Yet it remains important to couch Haqqani’s admission, perhaps cause for some relief, within his broader stance. ‘A Muslim,’ through service to Islam, ‘will use modern education for this life [as well as] the Hereafter.’ This is in contrast to the kafir [infidel]; bereft of salvation in the Hereafter, he would find utility in modern education ‘only for this life.’ It was only logical, therefore, for an Islamic government to abandon taqleed (blind imitation) of the West in its secular-religious distinction: the real cause for the Islamic world’s decline. ‘It is important for an Islamic government,’ Haqqani elucidates, ‘to not abandon secular education, but incorporate it within a broader religious education.’

    The Way Forth

    Daunting tasks confronted the Taliban after their takeover: governing a wartorn country, distributing the proverbial spoils of war between tens of thousands of hardened fighters, the clashing interests of their base, the country’s diverse blocs, and the wider world. All, to differing degrees, are disillusioned. The general amnesty extended to previous regime personnel coincided with limited but greater maturity in governance, an emphasis on diplomacy and decreased enforcement of religious propriety. The implementation of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue’s edicts, or ‘advice’, with the inexorable focus on women, is lacklustre. A softer touch overall, but a government whose contradictions, unpredictability and volatility point toward intra-party friction and woeful incompetence.

    The increasing assertiveness of Qandahar’s hawks was signalled by the Ministry of Vice and Virtue’s escalating ‘advice’ following March’s closure. With Amir Hebatullah at the helm, the impulse, it appeared, was to stamp central authority over a hitherto decentralised insurgency. In August 2021, I told Al Jazeera that whilst circumstances differed, the Taliban’s ‘theoretical interpretation of the Sharia would remain by and large the same as the 90’s.’ (36) That unchanged interpretation and Qandahar’s increasing assertiveness appeared in reimplementing ta’zir (discretionary) penalties, including stoning, flogging and amputations for specific crimes. Those penalties, though, are neither unique to the Taliban or even Afghanistan, and are unlikely to provoke opposition within either.

    That is not true for education. Stinging criticism was forthcoming almost immediately following the school closure, including from analysts otherwise in favour of the Taliban. Yesterday’s ban on universities only exacerbated anger. Education policy seems a unique area whose criticism does not warrant repression, even amidst calculated suppression of criticism elsewhere. Indeed, it’s difficult to see how dissent could be stifled when voiced increasingly publicly by Taliban figures themselves. Minister of Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani, repeatedly and publicly promised the reopening of schools, upping the ante and indirectly challenging the closure’s advocates. At one point, Zabihullah Mujahid, after intense questioning, bluntly answered that the ban was not his decision. Had it been, the closure would have never happened.

    ‘[Modern] education is obligatory on men and women,’ Deputy Foreign Minister Affairs Stanakzai recent declared. His cabinet colleague, the Minister of Vice and Virtue, subtly challenged him; education was, he highlighted, indeed permissible. The implication was clear; being permissible meant it was not obligatory. Obligatory, he added, was obedience to the Amir: authorised to suspend even the permissible. (37)

    Juxtaposed with rosy promises once made in Doha, Taliban policy in Kabul has attracted accusations of barefaced and stunning duplicity at home and internationally. Ranging from fatawa from Herati religious seminaries to tribal petitions from Paktika, domestic pressure on the school ban has been unrelenting. With the ban extended to universities, still under formation is a quickly swelling avalanche of international condemnation, punitive measures and further domestic outrage. Deepened intra-Taliban fissures are inevitable; only their extent is to be determined.

    Solutions, however, lie at home. That is especially pertinent for yesterday’s Afghan politicians, whose maturation was possible only by an occupation fattening them on foreign dollars. Attempting a resurgence by leveraging loathing for the ban, their decades-old impulse to internationalise domestic standoffs is no longer feasible, assuming it ever were. Problems rooted in or exacerbated by foreign involvement cannot be remedied by more foreign involvement. Decades of politicising education would have provided the necessary panacea were it the case.

    Internationalising Afghan standoffs ensure two things. The discussion grows in remoteness to Afghanistan and domestic initiatives fall liable to the charge of being foreign backed, and thus sullied. A discussion on a gendered ban cannot and will not be solved by countries internally divided on what constitutes biological gender, or if such a thing even exists.

    Reorienting the discussion to centre around Afghan sensitivities, however, can leverage existing pressure across the Afghan political spectrum, including Taliban dissenters. Pressure that could, from within, be brought to bear against those blinded by hubris, ideology and paranoia; and dooming Afghanistan to domestic divisions and international isolation alike.

    It is not the participation of girls in either schools or university to which Haqqani is opposed; his antipathy is toward the fundamental idea of the school and university itself. When or if either of these will reopen for girls is uncertain. That vagueness, per his wider epistemological critique of secular education, applies equally to the possibility of closures for boys. Assuming such a thing ever came to fruition, the practical form of a Haqqani-approved curriculum that turns the clock back on modernity is woefully unspecified.

    One question, above all, is whether Afghanistan or even the Taliban can afford being held hostage to philosophically abstract critiques of modernity. An economic crisis and chronic shortage of resources would make operating the previous education system challenging enough. Creating a functional system that, in essence, replaces the university with the madrassa, is another task altogether.

    One thing is certain: whether education or governance more broadly, questions on the Taliban will not stop.

    https://afghaneye.org/2022/12/21/afg...rls-education/
    Last edited by سيف الله; 12-28-2022 at 09:07 PM.
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  8. #145
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    More discussion.

    Blurb

    In 2023's first episode, Sangar interviews Ahmed-Waleed on his recent article analysing the history and legacy of politicised education in Afghanistan. Amidst increasing Taliban restrictions on Afghan women's right to work and an expanded ban on female secondary and university education, the duo predict the directions that could be taken by Afghanistan under the Taliban government.

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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Regardless of the argument of whether female education is halal or haram in Islam, the fact remains that the American Zionist and globalist occupiers in Afghanistan shoved liberal tyranny and "female empowerment" down Afghans' throats. Therefore any self-respecting Afghan should reject "female empowerment" including "education", even if simply out of defiance, spite and revenge. And by extension they should reject every single bit of inculcation and social engineering the malicious American occupiers foisted on them! So if it's ANY principle or "moral instruction" the Americans and British "educated" the Afghans into adopting, the new and free Afghans should simply UNDO it -- ALL of it! And if Afghans aren't stupid they should while they're at it ALSO expel every single Western "NGO" from Afghanistan immediately! There is no such thing as a "benign" Western entity, especially one that wants to impose itself on a non Western country. You know that when they are doing that they are therefore up to no good. They are all nefarious cultural Marxists, spies, trouble makers and tools of the Jewish Totalitarian World Order even though they might often mawkishly deny it by saying "No, that's not right, we are only here to do good. We are so benevolent, that's why we care so much about you". It's a TOTAL LIE. The infiltrating scoundrels are nothing more than wolves in sheeps clothing, they are agents of Western governments and they are only there to poison minds with their toxic ideology, and that's why they need to be driven out IMMEDIATELY

    Actually, "female empowerment" was regarded by Marx as absolutely vital for the communist cause, and that is why feminism remains a key cornerstone of Marxist ideology to this day. And I can't help but assume that when the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Afghans must have thought "Wow, isn't it strange that the USA and Soviet Union are belligerent towards each other, primarily because the Soviet Union is communist and that America is purportedly anti communist, yet the Americans have embraced SO MANY ideas of Marx!! This includes FEMINISM. On so many levels the Soviets and Americans THINK IDENTICAL!"

    I fully understand why many Afghans would be fiercely opposed to female education and employment, as even myself as a Westerner am completely opposed to it too. I won't tolerate any feminist nonsense in my household and I don't believe in giving my daughters a formal Western education. The only kind of science I want for my daughters is to learn domestic science so that they know how to look after their future households and to tend to the needs of their husbands and offspring. Neglect of the household translates into the household going into rack and ruin and therefore evident of a neglectful and irresponsible wife!
    Last edited by Karl; 01-09-2023 at 01:09 AM.
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    Like to share.



    New Lives in the City: How Taleban have experienced life in Kabul

    A large number of Taleban fighters have moved to Afghanistan’s cities since the movement’s capture of power, many of them seeing life in the city for the first time in their lifetime. These fighters, many of whom are from villages, had lived modest lives, entirely focused on the war. Their circumstances have changed entirely since the Taleban’s victory. Guest author Sabawoon Samim has interviewed five members of the Taleban who have come to live in Kabul, a city they had seen as being at the heart of the ‘foreign occupation’ with its ‘puppet government’ and a population degraded by Western ways. How have they found the actual Kabul and its people, and what do they think about having to earn a living for the first time, keep office hours and live in a city full of traffic and millions of other inhabitants?

    In the aftermath of seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021, a huge number of Taleban foot soldiers rushed to the country’s capital, Kabul. For many, born into rural families and with their adult lives spent primarily on the battlefield, it was the first time they had come to the capital. They had not even been born or were still children when the Taleban’s first emirate fell. Even their seniors, who had experienced life in a major city like Kabul, would find the Afghan capital of 2021 a very different place to when the Taleban had last ruled there – the ruins left by the civil war had long ago been re-built, the city itself had become vastly bigger and the population increased manifold. Some of those newcomers to Kabul have settled in the city and we wanted to find out how they had experienced this sudden shift and what they thought of Kabul – and Kabulis.

    To this end, the author conducted in-depth conversations with five members of the movement about their new, post-takeover life. They ranged in age from 24 to 32 and had spent between six and 11 years in the Taleban, at different ranks: a Taleban commander, a sniper, a deputy commander and two fighters. They were, respectively, from Paktika, Paktia, Wardak, Logar and Kandahar provinces.

    All the interviewees had spent their formative years within the Taleban, typically joining as teenagers. Following the fall of the Islamic Republic, they had secured jobs in the new government. Two were appointed to civilian roles, the other three to security jobs, one in the Ministry of Interior and two in the armed forces. All are now living in Kabul, without their families, and only return to their home provinces during vacations. Four out of the five interviews were conducted in October 2022 and the last in November, all face-to-face in Kabul. The interviews have been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

    The interviewees refer to ‘the fatha’, pronounced fat-ha. This is the Arabic word for conquest or victory, used for when new lands are ‘opened up’ to Muslim victors, or lands ‘recovered’ from non-Muslims. The interviews also refer to the war as a jihad and themselves as mujahedin. They speak of going on ‘tashkils’, which are similar to deployments – specific periods of time when they were away fighting.

    In the Taleban hierarchy, fighters were organised into ‘groups’, bands of a few dozen men under a sub-commander, known as a ‘sar-group’ (head of the group). Several groups formed a ‘dilgai’, headed by a senior commander, known as a ‘dilgai meshr’. He was directly associated with the Emirate’s Military Commission.

    Throughout the text, the interviewees refer to their old commanders as ‘Mawlawi Sahib’, as a mark of respect, combining the term used for an advanced religious scholar with the word for ‘sir’.


    Omar Mansur, 32, Yahyakhel district of Paktika province, married and father of five, head of a group

    I was born in North Waziristan but spent my childhood in Yahyakhel. I started my education in the village mosque and then moved to a small madrasa that was built during the first emirate in the neighbouring district. At the time the Americans invaded, I was only 11 years old. Because of that invasion and the subsequent indiscriminate bombardments and night raids, I was determined that the jihad against the foreigners[1] was fard [obligatory in Islam]. I had only studied up to wara dawra [12th grade of madrasa] when I abandoned the rest of my madrasa studies, and for the next 14 years or so, I would go on tashkil.

    The jihad was already in full swing in our district at the time. I did my first three tashkils in Yahyakhel and then relocated to Kunar province. The rest of my jihad was in various provinces, including Laghman, Nangarhar, Paktia, Paktika and Ghazni. I first became a deputy of our group in Mawlawi Sahib’s dilgai and then its commander.

    Praise be to Allah, after the fatha, Mawlawi Sahib introduced me to the Minister of [name withheld] and told him to appoint me somewhere. I was appointed to a grade 3 position as head of office.[2]
    I haven’t brought my family to Kabul. The rent of houses is very high for us since our salary is no more than 15,000 afghanis [roughly 180 USD]. It is fully sufficient for Yahyakhel but not for Kabul. As soon as, God willing, I have a good salary, I will bring my family here.

    I had never been to Kabul before. We heard from the radio and people who travelled there that it was constructed very beautifully by the Americans and [Hamid] Karzai. But still, you know, it’s not as beautiful as it should have been. The Americans brought untold amounts of money, but rather than spending it on building the city to a higher standard,[3] most of it went into the pockets of [Marshal Qasem] Fahim [the late vice president and Shura-ye Nizar/Northern Alliance military leader], Karzai, and their like. Yet, I assume, it’s the most gorgeous city in Afghanistan. In contrast to Kabul, our Paktika seems very displeasing. It’s like the Karzai government only spent money on Kabul.

    What I don’t like about Kabul is its ever-increasing traffic holdups. Last year, it was tolerable but in the last few months, it’s become more and more congested. People complain that the Taleban brought poverty, but, looking at this traffic and the large number of people in the bazaars and restaurants, I wonder where that poverty is.

    Another thing I don’t like, not only about Kabul but broadly about life after the fatha, are the new restrictions. In the group, we had a great degree of freedom about where to go, where to stay, and whether to participate in the war.

    However, these days, you have to go to the office before 8 AM and stay there till 4 PM. If you don’t go, you’re considered absent, and [the wage for] that day is cut from your salary. We’re now used to that, but it was especially difficult in the first two or three months.

    The other problem in Kabul is that my comrades are now scattered throughout Afghanistan. Those in Kabul, like me, work from 8 AM to 4 PM. So, most of the week, we don’t get any time to meet each other. Only on Fridays, if I don’t go home, do we all go to Qargha, Paghman or Zazai Park. I really like Paghman and going there with friends makes me very happy. Such a place doesn’t exist in the entire province of Paktika.

    What I like most in Kabul is its relative cleanness and how facilities have been modernised and improved, the buildings, roads, electricity, internet connection, and so many other things. You can find taxis even at midnight, hospitals are on the doorstep, and schools, educational centres, as well as madrasas are all easily available on every corner of the city. The other positive feature of Kabul is its ethnic diversity. You can see an Uzbek, Pashtun and a Tajik living in one building and going to the same mosque.

    Some people have a very negative picture of Kabul. What I experienced here in the last years, though, is that one can come across the perfect Muslim and the worst. Unlike villages where a lot of people go to the mosque to impress others, people in Kabul go there just for the sake of Allah. Unlike the villages where people endeavour to be called generous, people here do charity for the sake of Allah – people know little about each other and so they don’t need to impress each other.

    Similarly, there are plenty of bad and wicked people. They’re morally corrupt, Muslim only in name, sinners. I can’t make up my mind whether there are more good people or bad here, though there are both, and it’s up to you who you interact with. Living in Kabul could have either consequence; it could corrupt a very good mujahed or turn a very bad mujahed into a good man. It all depends on who you socialise with.

    Huzaifa, 24, from Zurmat district of southeastern Paktia province, married and father of two, sniper

    I grew up in Zurmat. I was around 13 years old when my father enrolled me in a nearby madrasa. I left it without finishing my studies after five years because a friend of mine convinced me to join him in the Taleban. My family tried their best to persuade, at first me to leave the Emirate, and then our commander to expel me from his ranks. They said if I came home, they’d get me engaged to someone. But once someone spends time in the group, leaving that friendly and endearing environment is difficult. There was love, sincerity and above all the thirst for martyrdom. Worldly pursuits were not even a minor part of life at that time. All we were doing was sacrificing in the way of jihad as hard as we could.

    I was a lizari [sniper] and spent most of my time in Paktia, only on some occasions going to Khost and Paktika provinces. In the time of jihad, life was very simple. All we had to deal with was making plans for ta’aruz [attacks] against the enemy and for retreating. People didn’t expect much from us, and we had little responsibility towards them, whereas now if someone is hungry, he deems us directly responsible for that.

    After the fatha, we moved to Kabul and our dilgai meshr was appointed head of a police district and later head of a directorate at the Ministry of Interior. I, along with a few other friends, were given masuliat (official jobs) in the police district the day we arrived in the city, while other friends were sent to the MoI.

    It was the first time I ever saw Kabul. I haven’t seen all the provinces, but people say Kabul is the most beautiful city in Afghanistan. When I joined my group, I was of the idea that Kabul would be full of bad people, but to be honest, in the last couple of years, after we met some of the people living here, I realised I was wrong. Of course, it has plenty of negative aspects, like their support for the occupation, women not wearing proper clothing, youths flirting with girls and cutting their hair in a style even people in America might not adopt, but these are the problems that nowadays exist also in the rural areas.

    After we arrived in Kabul, we were stunned by its complexity, its expanse, its size. We didn’t know where to go. Everything was strange to us and of course, we were strange to the local people – to the extent that they were afraid of talking loudly to us. When we came to our hawza [police district] and saw the compound, the weapons and the security measures, it was unbelievable how they’d abandoned such places without firing a single bullet. We were stunned by the cowardice of the [former] army and police. If even a very small number of them had tried to fight us, we couldn’t have made it to Kabul for years, given its complexity and the weapons they had. Praise be to Allah, [the victory] was directly because of His help.

    One thing I don’t like about Kabul is that people have moved here from all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and among them, a large number of criminals from across Afghanistan have made their way here and turned the city into a hub for their illegal activities. We face a lot of difficulties in eliminating crime, particularly robbery.

    And the savageness of people against each other, in particular against women – dozens of women approach the hawza on a daily basis and register their complaints. They’re victims, subject to different forms of brutality. The head of the hawza and all other mujahedin pay special attention to solving their problems. During the first days when women approached us, many mujahedin, including myself, were hiding from them because never in our whole lives have we talked to strange women. In the days that followed, the head of the hawza instructed us that sharia does allow us to talk to them because we are now the authorities and the only people that can solve their problems.

    I prefer to live in Kabul. It has its good sides and its bad, in fact, not only Kabul but everywhere has positive and negative features. In Kabul, what’s good is that you have access to every facility. Most importantly, our jobs are here now, and it’s necessary to move our families here as well.

    What I don’t like about the city is that it’s like a closed society. People live cheek-by-jowl but don’t interact with each other. This is in part bad, as people don’t cooperate with each other, but also has a positive feature: unlike the village, no one bothers you about what you do, what you wear, who comes to your home and who leaves it. People don’t interfere in your life and don’t talk about you behind your back.

    There is another thing I dislike and that’s how restricted our lives are now, unlike anything we experienced before. The Taleban used to be free of restrictions, but now we sit in one place, behind a desk and a computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Life’s become so wearisome; you do the same things every day. Being away from the family has only doubled the problem.

    I’ve made friends with three guys who are from our province but have been living here [in Kabul] for more than 15 years. We sometimes go to Qargha, Bagh-e Wahsh [Kabul Zoo], Sarobi and Tapa-ye Wazir Akbar Khan. To be honest, every time I go with them, they pressure me to play and listen to music in the car. At first, I was resisting, but now I have given in, with the one condition that they turn it off when passing through security checkpoints because many other Taleban don’t like it, and it’s bad for a Taleb to be seen listening to it.

    Although my new friends are from good families and are good lads, there are a lot of bad circles of youths in Kabul who smoke, use drugs and do bad things, so it’s hard for us to become friends with them. Our nature and values differ, and therefore most of our friends don’t make many friends in Kabul because we don’t fit in with them. Despite this, some Taleban have now become friends with such youths and are inclined to do many bad things, such as going hookah cafes [qilun khana].

    Kamran, 27, Sayedabad district, Wardak Province, married, father of two, deputy group commander

    I graduated from a government school in Sayedabad and then abandoned any other studies for the sake of jihad at the age of 19. This has been my 8th year in the Emirate. Most of the time, the areas our group controlled were in the various districts of Wardak province. I participated in many battles. Sayedabad was a place in which the Americans left dozens of dead bodies. The intensity of Sayedabad battles is well-known throughout Afghanistan.

    In the last three years, I was deputy to the commander of our group, responsible for most of the day-to-day activities we dealt with since the head of our group was busy doing other non-military stuff.

    During the jihad, the fear of drones followed us like a shadow, and the area where we operated was geographically very small in the early years. When travelling along the road to Ghazni city, we frequently attacked the Americans with RPGs, dashakas [DShK, a type of heavy machine gun] and roadside bombs, inflicting dozens of casualties on them. They then came after us in retaliation. Their drones often bombarded our positions. Everywhere we went, went the fear of drones. Even though the situation changed in the last two or three years [of the fighting] – the Americans and government army [owrdu] completely disappeared from the scene – the danger of drones still affected our movement. In fact, excluding their bombardments, we never considered the Americans and their puppets superior to us, [certainly not] in face-to-face battles.

    Circumstances have now, Praise be to Allah, changed completely. We can go wherever we want. There is freedom and liberty in the entire country.

    I’d been twice to Kabul before the fatha, once for treatment to a doctor in Baharistan [a neighbourhood in Kabul’s PD2].[4] Both times, I was in fear of being arrested. At that time, Kabul was occupied, and the police were harassing men if they had a beard. During one of my visits, I was going from the Kampani area to Kot-e Sangi, and our bus was passing through a checkpoint near the Kampani bazaar. When they saw me, they immediately stopped the bus and started asking me questions. I was about to be captured but, Praise be to Allah, I deceived them. From that day, I started hating Kabul. However, you see, I’m now here in Kabul, but it is not the same Kabul I visited before. It’s now liberated and belongs to us, not the Americans.

    I was appointed to a job in the Ministry of Interior. I’m sort of happy with my job but often miss the time of jihad. During that time, every minute of our life was counted as worship.

    After the fatha, many of our friends abandoned the cause of jihad. Many others betrayed the blood of the martyrs on which foundation this nizam [the government] is built. Nowadays, people are fully busy gaining wealth and fame, more and more, in this worldly life. Previously, we were doing everything for the sake of Allah, but now it’s the opposite. The first priority of many is to fill their pockets and become famous.

    If you ask me why I’m unhappy in the aftermath of the fatha, it’s that we immediately forgot our past. Then, we had only a motorcycle, a mukhabira, [a type of Walkie-Talkie] and a mosque or madrasa. Now, when someone’s nominated for a government job, he first asks whether that position has a car or not.[5] We used to live among the people. Many of us have now caged ourselves in our offices and palaces, abandoning that simple life.

    I don’t interact with Kabulis much, given that here, the ministry is full of my fellow Taleban. Anyway, sometimes I sit with the employees of the former regime who still come to their jobs. They show themselves to be very good people and sincere to the Emirate, but I can tell you that, in reality, they hate us. I don’t exactly know why, but I’ve identified some possible reasons this past year. First, these employees were ‘doing business’ in the ministry, making illegal wealth through corrupt practices. Second, the Americans invested in them heavily, and they became so Westernised they now hate our real Afghan culture and Islam. When the Emirate came, their illegal business and corruption vanished entirely and they have nothing but their salaries. They are no longer able to make millions of afghanis. So, you tell me, why shouldn’t they hate us?

    I’m very concerned about our mujahedin. The real test and challenge was not during the jihad. Rather, it’s now. At that time, it was simple, but now things are much more complicated. We are tested by cars, positions, wealth and women. Many of our mujahedin, God forbid, have fallen into these seemingly sweet, but actually bitter traps. They forgot their old comrades on whose shoulders they secured victory and instead seek the praise and approval of sycophants. The old, the real mujahed doesn’t know the meaning of sycophancy. So they are sidelined, while their places are filled by people who, until the past year, were against us in so many ways.

    I’ve not considered living in Kabul [permanently with the family]. Of course, it’s beautiful from the outside, but it lacks tranquillity. In the village, people are with you in good times and bad, in life and death.[6] You have a community. You sit together with people, talk over problems and cooperate with them. In Kabul, it’s the opposite. People don’t have time to even give you directions, let alone help you, for example, with a wedding ceremony. People are hurrying and running after this worldly life. They feel like, if one day they don’t go to work, they would die of poverty. For me at least, I belong to the village, and I can hardly imagine surviving without it.

    Rest here

    https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org...life-in-kabul/
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    Like to share.

    Blurb

    For twenty years the United States fought an un winnable and ultimately a self-defeating war in Afghanistan – only to withdraw in a humiliating way in 2021. The conflict ended what many saw to be a colonial enterprise. We explore that war, where it leaves Afghanistan, the geopolitics of the region, Afghanistans relationship with Pakistan and the role of the Taliban. Many see the austere Islamic group as classic freedom fighters, defeating the worlds strongest and only superpower. But have they ultimately disappointed many in their time in government.? The country suffers from poverty and near famine. Who is to blame for this terrible situation.

    Ahmed-Waleed Kakar is no stranger to the country. Of Afghan descent, he is an analyst specialising in Afghan political history and the founder and editor in chief of The Afghan Eye @Afghan EYE : an independent media platform offering English language analysis of Afghan affairs.


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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    Another update. Brother Moazzam returns to Afghanistan.









    Images from my return trip to #Bagram #Afganistan

    I’m describing how prisoners were hooded and their hands shackled above their heads to the cage door and punched and kicked.

    I’m explaining how an Afghan taxi driver by the name of Dilawar was beaten to death after being tied up like this for days and that image has been engraved in my head ever since.

    I’m explaining how US soldiers would throw Qurans over cell doors when prisoners asked for them or drop kick the book like a football. When we first arrived soldiers ripped the Quran into pieces and threw them into buckets of excrement.

    An American Egyptian interrogator told the US soldiers not to allow us to call the athan, recite the Quran or pray in congregation because that allowed to communicate with one another. If anyone did, they’d be tied up - just like Dilawar.

    We had two small bottles of water per day. If we used them to wash or make wudhu we’d have nothing to drink. So most made tayammum. I did so for a year and forgot the correct sequence of wudhu by the time I arrived in #Guantanamo.

    Despite this, I’m also telling them how I managed to memorise Surah Al-Baqarah - the largest chapter of the Quran - in this very spot.

    Im explaining how they’d built tiny one square metre isolation cells and kept us there for days on end during interrogation periods.

    I’m telling them about the screams of the woman I used to hear I thought was my wife; and how news of the birth of my son reached me here.

    Im retelling them how I saw all of this in a vivid dreamI had 8 years before I came to Bagram.

    I’m describing how British intelligence agents - who’d questioned me in UK several years before - came here many times and interrogated me while prisoners were screaming and tortured to death.

    Other than Guantanamo, I lived in this place away from home longer than anywhere else, so I knew it very well.

    This place is now abandoned and very dark - both physically and metaphorically.

    Returning here was an indescribable experience. I couldn’t help but to breakdown when recounting my thoughts and memories.

    It’s no longer a torture facility but I did ask that IEA preserve some part of the place so that it’s never forgotten. They said they intend to do so but also they’d like to make it into a centre of learning, where young people can study for the future without forgetting the darkness of the past.

    *Deepest gratitude to #Afghan former Bagram and #Gitmo prisoners, families and very helpful #IEA officials for helping to make this happen. Images courtesy of
    @ShnizaiM

    The film should be out in a few months
    @AJEnglish
    #Witness in sha Allah.

    May Allah accept the efforts and sacrifices of all involved.

    الحمد لله حمدا كثيرا طيبًا مباركا

    AS they say a weeks a long time in politics. Watch the new narrative form.



    Comment.







    And of course.



    Hard reality

    Last edited by سيف الله; 07-18-2023 at 06:56 AM.
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Last edited by سيف الله; 07-21-2023 at 09:30 PM.
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    Re: '150,000 Americans couldn’t beat us': Taliban fighters defiant in Afghanistan

    Salaam

    Another update.

    Blurb

    More than 370,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan after the government there announced a crackdown on undocumented refugees. What’s going on? And what do deteriorating relations between Pakistan’s government and the Taliban government in Afghanistan have to do with it? #AJStartHere with Sandra Gathmann explains.


    Chapters

    00:52 - Why are there many Afghan refugees in Pakistan?
    01:15 - The difference between documented and undocumented refugees.
    01:38 - What’s behind the Pakistani government’s policy?
    02:37 - Why are Pakistani officials linking Afghan refugees to security?
    02:59 - Who are the Pakistani Taliban? (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP)
    04:44 - Why the TTP issue is straining relations between Pakistan’s government and the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
    05:42 - How is the TTP issue linked to Pakistan’s refugee crackdown?
    06:03 - Who is among Pakistan’s undocumented refugees?
    07:34 - How the deportation policy caused shock and panic among Afghans in Pakistan.
    08:17 - How Afghans have been threatened and harassed by Pakistani officials.
    09:43 - What happens once the refugees cross into Afghanistan?


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