When the US declared its intention to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, there were knowing smiles among those familiar with the US oil industry’s long interest in the region. Two years later, a great deal has changed.
Even two years after the Taliban’s removal from power, the hapless Afghans continue to suffer under a reign of terror; the perpetrators are none other than the US-backed warlords ensconced as ministers or wearing pompous titles such as commander. Rape, robbery, and murder and the bloody-mindedness of the US occupation forces have turned almost every Afghan into an anti-American fighter.
Two years after the US’s invasion of Afghanistan, there are increasing signs that the US may be looking for potential partners among the Taliban leaders for a possible peace agreement. At a time when its proxy regime under Hamid Karzai lacks all legitimacy, and anti-American forces representing both the Taliban and other mujahideen groups increasing their pressure on the US forces in the country, it is hardly surprising that the US should be looking for a way out of Afghanistan’s quagmire.
I have followed Crescent since I was a child and have even had the occasion to meet and talk with Zafar Bangash a couple of times. Today the Islamic Movement is facing its worse crisis in over a generation. Yet I am very disappointed with the way Crescent has dealt with 2 issues: the Taliban and al-Qa`idah. The lack of ideological and Islamic clarity on these two threatens to seriously devalue Crescent in future.
The international community that installed Hamid Karzai as ruler of Afghanistan, after the Americans’ toppling of the Taliban in 2000, celebrated the first anniversary of his appointment as ‘interim leader’ on December 22 with a conference of regional leaders in Kabul.
Events in Afghanistan are not going according to America’s script, despite tall claims of having routed the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. It is not just attacks on American and other so-called coalition forces, which are now becoming more frequent, but also the continuing factional fighting, especially between forces loyal to defence minister Mohammed Fahim and forces loyal to president Hamid Karzai...
A month after 54 Afghani civilians were killed when American planes bombed a wedding party, the Times (London)newspaper published details of a report written by UN officials who visited the village two days after the bombing.
Despite making tall claims about wiping out Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the Shahi Kot mountains, reports from the area reveal a very different picture. Figures given out by the US for its latest operation, codenamed Operation Anaconda, after the snake that squeezes its prey to death, mention an estimated 1,000 Taliban...
The sudden collapse of the Taliban under the attack of the US surprised and disappointed many Muslims. Dr Perwez Shafi, of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought in Karachi, discusses the reasons of the Taliban’s failure in Afghanistan
In the two-month period from October 7 to December 7, the Taliban’s world has been turned upside down; from controlling more than 90 percent of Afghanistan’s territory they were forced to surrender their last stronghold of Qandahar to tribal elders on December 7.
Immediately after the September 11 attacks, Turkey offered its airspace and military bases for use by the US and its allies in their ‘war’ on Afghanistan, reaping ample praise for its “loyalty to the West”.
Propaganda is an important tool of war but, like everything else the Americans do, it is one which they wield crudely. On October 22 the Taliban reported that a hospital in Herat had been bombed, killing more than 100 people, including many children.
The US-British assault on the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin in Afghanistan does not appear to be going well, despite the use of ground troops on October 20 after two weeks of aerial attacks.
The Taliban authorities in Afghanistan arrested 24 staff members of a German charity working in Kabul on August 5, setting off yet another international outcry about their alleged inhumanity.
A 24-year-old roving ambassador of the Taliban, making his rounds of the US, has made quite a stir among Muslims even if his pleas have fallen on deaf ears in the US government.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan has reacted angrily to Russian plans to establish a permanent military base in Tajikistan. The Taliban foreign minister, Mohammed Hasan Akhond, complained about the plans in a letter to UN secretary general Kofi Annan on April 11.
One of the tragedies of the Muslim situation today is the extent to which we have to rely on non-Muslim sources of information to understand our own world and movements...
In a pointed snub to their efforts to gain international recognition, the Taliban were frozen out of a high-powered meeting in New York called by the United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan on September 21 to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
The Taliban in Afghanistan reflect the danger of Muslims playing pawns in the hands of others, especially anti-Muslim forces. The product of British and American intrigue, the Taliban have now assumed a life of their own but are still susceptible to manipulation by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two regimes beholden to the US.
The August 20 US missile strikes on a Pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and alleged camps of Islamic activists in Afghanistan have underscored one point clearly: Washington is an international outlaw.
