Secrets of the Taliban's success -Syed Saleem Shahzad
In a interview with Asia Times Online, Mullah Abdul Jalil, a pioneer of the Taliban movement in Kandahar, elaborated. "There is a lot of rhetoric out of anger and frustration against the West because of the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] oppression of the Afghan people, but the Taliban leadership still strictly abides by its code of conduct for the resistance against foreign occupation forces in our country," said Jalil, who served as deputy foreign minister and foreign minister during the Taliban regime (1996-2001) . "Our code of conduct is documented in the Asasi Qanoon [Basic Law of Afghanistan]. Under article 103, it is mentioned that we don't want any disruptions in any country of the world. The Taliban are only a national resistance movement against foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan," said Jalil.
Afghanistan has always been a poor country and has never had the capacity to be aggressive against anybody, nor will it do so in the future. This is exactly what Mullah Omar told the Chinese ambassador during the last days of our government in Afghanistan. Even if we provided a place for the people of Eastern Turkistan [Xinjiang province in China] because they migrated to Afghanistan, we did not fuel their [separatist Uyghur] movement from Afghanistan," Jalil insisted.
Jalil's comments did not ring true. Several Taliban commanders, including the slain Mullah Dadullah and Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, besides scores of al-Qaeda members, have maintained that the only way to win the Afghan war against NATO is to attack Western targets in Europe and America. I cited some of their statements to Jalil and asked, "Are they lying, or are you?" "Nobody is lying. There are issues here to understand. First, there were people like Mullah Dadullah [a senior military commander killed by NATO in 2007] . He was emotional and often engaged in rhetoric - many times - different from Taliban policies, so much so that on several occasions he was warned by the Taliban leadership about his statements to the media. "Second, it is necessary to understand that there is a sea of difference between the people who call themselves the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban [led by Mehsud] and the Taliban. We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we oppose the policies they adhere to against the Pakistani security forces.
Afghanistan has always been a poor country and has never had the capacity to be aggressive against anybody, nor will it do so in the future. This is exactly what Mullah Omar told the Chinese ambassador during the last days of our government in Afghanistan. Even if we provided a place for the people of Eastern Turkistan [Xinjiang province in China] because they migrated to Afghanistan, we did not fuel their [separatist Uyghur] movement from Afghanistan," Jalil insisted.
Jalil's comments did not ring true. Several Taliban commanders, including the slain Mullah Dadullah and Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, besides scores of al-Qaeda members, have maintained that the only way to win the Afghan war against NATO is to attack Western targets in Europe and America. I cited some of their statements to Jalil and asked, "Are they lying, or are you?" "Nobody is lying. There are issues here to understand. First, there were people like Mullah Dadullah [a senior military commander killed by NATO in 2007] . He was emotional and often engaged in rhetoric - many times - different from Taliban policies, so much so that on several occasions he was warned by the Taliban leadership about his statements to the media. "Second, it is necessary to understand that there is a sea of difference between the people who call themselves the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban [led by Mehsud] and the Taliban. We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we oppose the policies they adhere to against the Pakistani security forces.
posted by temporal at 9/11/2008
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