The Taliban - Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group - Podcast

Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security.
An Agreement Grows in Bonn
            Food started to flow to hungry Afghans in November, if in limited supply. In December, more than 115,000 tons of food, enough to feed 6 million refugees for 2 months, arrived in Afghanistan.  This was the largest amount of food delivered to any country since the 1980s and one of the largest since the Berlin Airlift.  The pounding poverty and tribal feuding continued. But by late January, the Afghans were no longer starving, as aircraft delivered food, dry clothing, medicine, and other supplies. President Bush declared that feeding the displaced people of Afghanistan would be his top priority in Afghanistan. It was.
            The victors in the Afghan war inherited a thoroughly failed state, which they determined rebuild to keep the Taliban at bay. The most important of the early, post-Taliban, international documents was the Bonn Agreement, which created and legitimized the Afghan government; the basic legal structure, particularly the constitution; the Supreme Court; and the economy.  Agreements were hammered out in Bonn in November 2001 among four main Afghan factions. Signed in December 2001, it created the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) whose chairman, Hamid Karzai, took office on December 22, 2001.
            It also pledged to hold elections, reorganize the armed forces and security and intelligence organizations, and legitimize the role of the United Nations and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as administrators of security, humanitarian, and reconstruction aid in Afghanistan. An Interim Authority would rule for 6 months, after which a Loya Jirga, a deliberative body of elders would convene to elect national-level representatives.
            The Bonn delegates chose Hamid Karzai because he was trusted by Americans, was a Pashtun, and had political and administrative experience as a clan chief for the Polpolzai-Durrani clan, which produced Afghan kings for 200 years. Karzai had strong family connections to the U.S. He was studying political science in India when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. His family fled to major U.S. cities and opened Afghan restaurants. During the anti-Soviet war, Karzai soon moved to Pakistan to support the mujahedeen. 
            In Bonn, Karzai’s main rival, the veteran statesman Burhanuddin Rabbani, was not found suitable by the American and German governments.  The Bonn Agreement did not satisfy all signatories or resolve all the nettling issues. But it did provide a basic peace agreement and a blueprint for building the then-tenuous peace into an enduring one. The donors would craft a blueprint for development in general sectors- generating economic growth; building an army, civil service, police services, communication, education, and health systems. The Taliban could challenge all these goals.
To Build an Economy
      Economists at the World Bank determined that merely balancing the economy was insufficient for Afghanistan’s long-term prospects. That approach would keep the country at relatively primitive levels of human development. An impoverished Afghanistan would be hostage to the Taliban’s resurgence. But developing Afghanistan would create stakeholders and stability. There would be a trickle-down effect across other sectors: the quality of civil service would improve if civil servants were paid higher wages and better trained; security would grow as the number of stakeholders in economic stability increased; and there would be greater capacity for health care and secular-oriented education. This reasoning is the foundation of contemporary human development theory and counterintelligence doctrine.
      Bringing young men into the workforce would give them status and provide enough income to afford to marry. A married man would be less likely to join an insurgency because he would have family obligations. In the 1960s and 1970s, Afghanistan’s economic growth spurred other human development sectors. It could happen again in an Afghanistan rid of the Taliban.
      Some economists were guardedly optimistic, provided sufficient seed money was allocated to begin reconstruction and development projects in earnest. Afghanistan had, by Third World standards, pre-war success in developing key infrastructure projects, such as electric power and gas pipelines. The new government needed to repatriate the educated and talented who had fled the country during the Taliban period. The return of human capital in the post-Taliban era, particularly engineers, businessmen, and computer technicians, was seen as essential for sustained economic development. But they needed to be protected against the Taliban.  
Building in the Villages and in the Provinces
In 2001 and 2002, pro-government donors to Afghanistan’s future were overwhelmed with the reconstruction and development demands. They determined to move quickly to outflank the incipient Taliban threat through building sustained, broad-sector economic growth. Beginning with handfuls of developmental specialists with a formidable military bodyguard, the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) became the engine of local economic growth and village stability.
 
PRTs were natural instruments for maintaining a light military “footprint" to guard against the Taliban while protecting developmental experts. The first phases of the conflict removed the Taliban and al Qaeda from power; the next phase focused on stabilizing the Karzai Regime and developing the country. By early 2002, the U.S. Army deployed the PRT’s precursor, the Coalition Humanitarian Liaison Cells, as small outposts to assess reconstruction and developmental needs. They were soon nicknamed “Chiclets,” a creative, if not precise, acronym, and comprised 10-15 soldiers, generally with civil affairs backgrounds. Soldiers worked with NGOs in the field.
Local Afghans had been contemptuous of many civilian aid workers in the early post-Taliban period, whom they saw as mollycoddled, excessively bureaucratic, and often lackadaisical. Many also stayed cloistered in safe compounds. In contrast, many Afghans in the Bamiyan Province respected the risk-taking Chiclet-5, whose members were actively and personally engaged with Afghans and could deliver on promises to protect them from the Taliban. The title of these teams was changed again in November 2002.
 
The first of the newly named PRTs was deployed to Gardez in November 2002. The province was considered a permissive environment for development. The team included staff from several U.S. agencies with interests in developing Afghanistan and in securing peace there. The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) was a major player. Its development specialists served on the front lines of Afghanistan’s development efforts. A dean at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) underscored the need to serve in dangerous, contested territory in Afghanistan. “That (the developmental danger zone) is where the reality is. The Ronald Reagan Building (the headquarters of the AID) is Brigadoon.” 
PRTs were also intended as temporary tools to provide stability and economic optimism. After the developmental and stabilization fundamentals were achieved, the PRT would be dismantled to allow traditional, indigenous development efforts. According to the plan, PRTs would coordinate the reconstruction process, identify and prioritize local projects, conduct village assessments, and coordinate with regional commanders. The Taliban grew to hate the PRTs, which signaled to Kabul that the PRTs were winning.

Winter Sets In
            Though many Afghans were euphoric, yesterday’s Taliban were tremulous and dispossessed. The Taliban and their supporters had every reason to fear swift vengeance from the armed ethnicities, including the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and, particularly, the Hazaras, whom they had harangued and demeaned for 5 years; from the Americans whom they had outraged; and from the myriad villagers whose lives they had made miserable and mundane. Armed with few skills and having made themselves pariahs in their home villages, many Taliban left for Pakistan. Most had no clear agenda, employment prospects, or precise destination. But they needed to leave Afghanistan immediately. 
            Some former Taliban trimmed their beards and bought Western-style clothes because they felt free to sever their Taliban ties. But others, still true believers, did so to disguise their Taliban connections. Taliban who couldn’t slither back into their tribe or among the masses of refugees needed to wear Western dress to evade detection as former Taliban. Some secretly remained loyal to the Taliban’s cause, but many seethed with resentment toward the Arabs and al Qaeda. Many were confused and began making their way to Quetta, Pakistan.
            The vacuum left in the wake of the Taliban’s ever-present moral watchfulness gave rise to vice, by Salafist standards, and some social license. Dogfighting was back. Afghans would bet on muscular dogs that, with savage barks and bites, chewed each other, sometimes to the death. One of the best dogfighting arenas also offered panoramic beauty atop a local hill. Dogs battled in the long-drained Bib Mahru swimming pool, overlooking Kabul. When the Taliban were in power, they would use the diving platforms as execution planks for their victims.
            In Kabul, sex-starved young men could access prostitutes, many of whom were war widows. Desperate and abandoned, these women were homeless and desperate to feed their children. Gambling dens, forbidden during Taliban rule, reopened in the cities. But, like prostitution, the ready availability of alcohol posed moral dilemmas for more conservative Afghans, who feared a growing national prurience.
            Afghan villages were free of the Taliban, but many villagers were uncertain about their families’ future. The situation was often far worse for those Afghans living in remote villages. For some, life became subsistence. The end of the Taliban did nothing to bring them food immediately. The United States delivered food to many villages, but not everyone was eating. Many Afghans were still hungry and cold, and the oncoming winter brought panic and desperation.
            Western aid organizations made determined and unorthodox efforts to provide relief. PETA, which in October remonstrated against the military action, implored Americans to surrender their fur coats, particularly mink coats, to the freezing Afghans in January 2001. PETA partnered with the American Friends Committee, which helped pay for shipping the furs. Soon, a load of worn minks and ermines was mailed to drape Afghans who were shivering in the midwinter frost.
            Before food could be sent, some of the hungry and cold Afghans in remote areas began to starve. In a village near Mazar-e Sharif, people began eating bread made from grass. Symptoms of starvation developed, accompanied by the lethargy it produces. As one villager said, “We are waiting to die. If food does not come, we will eat dirt. We will die.” 
            Still-imprisoned Taliban and al Qaeda were also concerned about their future. The United States was not freeing all of the captives. Arabs, Pakistanis, and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden were caged in camps until the U.S.-led coalition amnestied, locally imprisoned, or transported them to U.S. facilities, such as the Guantanamo military prison, for interrogation and incarceration. The United States insisted that suspected al Qaeda members not be allowed to go free.   Some were taken directly to U.S. military prisons.
            The killing was over, and the United States and other nations were determined to meet and coordinate on stabilization operations in Afghanistan.  A new Afghan dawn was made brighter by the return from Europe of the respected, if geriatric, 87-year-old former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Washington saw Shah as a force to unite the many Afghan ethnicities.  Charities, large and small, were reinvigorating their efforts. Some became creative, such as the mountain-climbing Greg Mortenson, who built schools in the region and would write about his accounts, if embellished, in “Three Cups of Tea.” As for heads of state, the victors agreed to unite their efforts and meet in Bonn to begin rebuilding Afghanistan.
 

Winter Sets In
            Though many Afghans were euphoric, yesterday’s Taliban were tremulous and dispossessed. The Taliban and their supporters had every reason to fear swift vengeance from the armed ethnicities, including the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and, particularly, the Hazaras, whom they had harangued and demeaned for 5 years; from the Americans whom they had outraged; and from the myriad villagers whose lives they had made miserable and mundane. Armed with few skills and having made themselves pariahs in their home villages, many Taliban left for Pakistan. Most had no clear agenda, employment prospects, or precise destination. But they needed to leave Afghanistan immediately. 
            Some former Taliban trimmed their beards and bought Western-style clothes because they felt free to sever their Taliban ties. But others, still true believers, did so to disguise their Taliban connections. Taliban who couldn’t slither back into their tribe or among the masses of refugees needed to wear Western dress to evade detection as former Taliban. Some secretly remained loyal to the Taliban’s cause, but many seethed with resentment toward the Arabs and al Qaeda. Many were confused and began making their way to Quetta, Pakistan.
            The vacuum left in the wake of the Taliban’s ever-present moral watchfulness gave rise to vice, by Salafist standards, and some social license. Dogfighting was back. Afghans would bet on muscular dogs that, with savage barks and bites, chewed each other, sometimes to the death. One of the best dogfighting arenas also offered panoramic beauty atop a local hill. Dogs battled in the long-drained Bib Mahru swimming pool, overlooking Kabul. When the Taliban were in power, they would use the diving platforms as execution planks for their victims.
            In Kabul, sex-starved young men could access prostitutes, many of whom were war widows. Desperate and abandoned, these women were homeless and desperate to feed their children. Gambling dens, forbidden during Taliban rule, reopened in the cities. But, like prostitution, the ready availability of alcohol posed moral dilemmas for more conservative Afghans, who feared a growing national prurience.
            Afghan villages were free of the Taliban, but many villagers were uncertain about their families’ future. The situation was often far worse for those Afghans living in remote villages. For some, life became subsistence. The end of the Taliban did nothing to bring them food immediately. The United States delivered food to many villages, but not everyone was eating. Many Afghans were still hungry and cold, and the oncoming winter brought panic and desperation.
            Western aid organizations made determined and unorthodox efforts to provide relief. PETA, which in October remonstrated against the military action, implored Americans to surrender their fur coats, particularly mink coats, to the freezing Afghans in January 2001. PETA partnered with the American Friends Committee, which helped pay for shipping the furs. Soon, a load of worn minks and ermines was mailed to drape Afghans who were shivering in the midwinter frost.
            Before food could be sent, some of the hungry and cold Afghans in remote areas began to starve. In a village near Mazar-e Sharif, people began eating bread made from grass. Symptoms of starvation developed, accompanied by the lethargy it produces. As one villager said, “We are waiting to die. If food does not come, we will eat dirt. We will die.” 
            Still-imprisoned Taliban and al Qaeda were also concerned about their future. The United States was not freeing all of the captives. Arabs, Pakistanis, and other foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden were caged in camps until the U.S.-led coalition amnestied, locally imprisoned, or transported them to U.S. facilities, such as the Guantanamo military prison, for interrogation and incarceration. The United States insisted that suspected al Qaeda members not be allowed to go free.   Some were taken directly to U.S. military prisons.
            The killing was over, and the United States and other nations were determined to meet and coordinate on stabilization operations in Afghanistan.  A new Afghan dawn was made brighter by the return from Europe of the respected, if geriatric, 87-year-old former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Washington saw Shah as a force to unite the many Afghan ethnicities.  Charities, large and small, were reinvigorating their efforts. Some became creative, such as the mountain-climbing Greg Mortenson, who built schools in the region and would write about his accounts, if embellished, in “Three Cups of Tea.” As for heads of state, the victors agreed to unite their efforts and meet in Bonn to begin rebuilding Afghanistan.
 

Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. 
Humor was back in style.  Laughing was officially reviled by the Taliban’s mullahs as silly, superfluous, and girlish. But an underground stock of Afghan jokes continued to circulate, of varying quality and cleanliness. Some of the jokes made a public comeback when comedy, including political jokes, was legalized again.
             Often, the jokes had a universal quality with a parochial twist. For example, a standard American yarn might begin, “So, a New Yorker, a Texan, and a Californian go into a bar and …” In the same comedic spirit, an Afghan gagman began his routine, “There are five brothers, a Hazara, a Charikari, a Panshiri, a Shiberghani, and a Kandahari,” and then indulged in regional and ethnic stereotypes that sent his audience into side-splitting laughter. Other routines included a popular male comic impersonating a belly dancer.
            Yesterday’s woolly-minded mullahs and their martinets were today’s fair game for parody. The now-crushed Taliban became a favored target of acidic humor, and the master of caricature was Mubariz Bidar. Dressed in a long black turban and toting a toy AK-47, the Mubariz Show parodied mullahs howling at boys to shave their Titanic haircuts. In restaurants, on the radio and television, and in shops and homes, Afghans were laughing. Some of it was sweet revenge.
            Buzkashi, a game often chaotic, naturally brutal, and always popular in Afghanistan, surged in popularity again after the Taliban retreated. Two horse-mounted, whip-clutching teams vie for possession of a headless goat carcass, which they carry around a flagpole to earn one point. Players thrash their opponents' horses. One enthusiast explained, "We haven't seen this game played in more than 5 years. It's part of our culture, and we're very happy to have it back again." An Englishman described buzkashi as a game “quite like rugby on four legs.”
            Beyond laughter, songs, and games, there was time for Afghans to reflect on the religious state of their country and to recall an Islam practiced earlier and differently. Islam rested at the very soul of Afghanistan. Islam had withstood a surge of Buddhist enthusiasm in the 900s, the animism and paganism of the Mongols, and the atheism of the Soviets. Most Afghans were still strongly connected to their religion. Islam was in Afghanistan to stay. But many had become cynical, and in the early post-Taliban months, many mosques were often vacant.
            A lachrymose mullah, who served in Kabul for 32 years, opined, “When the Taliban came, they defamed the name of Islam. They beat everyone; they forced people to pray. People became disillusioned with  Islam because of the Taliban.” The more optimistic Afghans looked forward to greater religious freedom. As one mullah said, “At the time of the Taliban, most people’s prayers weren’t heartfelt because people were forced to pray. Now, I think people pray for real, because God released them from the Taliban.”
Profile 11: Rapping Sosan - “We Were Kings and Queen in our Own Land”  
“Listen to my story! Listen to my pain and suffering!” Rap lyrics of Sosan Firooz_
            Perhaps it’s the Taliban’s abhorrence of popular singing, as well as their scorn for free-spirited women, that explains the popularity of Afghanistan’s first notable female rapper, Sosan Firooz. Anyone so detested by Taliban mullahs would draw an audience among Afghan youth. It might be the artistic genre itself, rap music, which is heard in clubs and on city streets around the world. Perhaps her songs’ cross-cultural lyrics bridge Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, and myriad other ethnic and clan lines. Finally, it might be the 23-year-old, pretty, and plucky singer herself who explains her appeal. Young men and adolescent boys think she is sexy, and girls want to look and sing like her.   
            Like many Afghans, Sosan is a child of poverty, and her lyrics echo the despair of her early youth. She lived in exile in Iran, where her family had fled to escape the Taliban in 1996, and she hated it there. As paupers, her family washed dishes in restaurants and swept streets, scrounging for food and, according to her songs, enduring the taunts and snickers of Iranians. These are the lyrics of her song "Our Neighbors:"
 “In the country of strange our child was abusedOur educated ones became street workers…We were kings and queens in our own landBut here, we are waiters and dish washers.”
            Some of Sosan’s works have a patriotic appeal, which also explains her popularity. Like other rappers, Sosan is angry, and her art laments the despair of the Afghan diaspora. But many of her verses shine with hope for Afghanistan’s tomorrow.
Sosan has her internet video fans, but she also has detractors, including family members. Her uncle no longer speaks to her family because he considers Sosan flirty and frisky. But her father is her biggest fan and left his civil service job to serve as her bodyguard, chauffeur, and secretary.
            There are those in the West who admire her sassy creativity, even if they cannot understand the lyrics, which are in Dari. Sosan’s words plead for Afghan girls and women to be treated with equality and dignity. She also condemns narcotics as a national tragedy. Accompanying her songs on a website are pictures of the young ingénue in rap poses and Western grabs. Blog commentary on popular Western sites, such as the Huffington Post, wishes her the best but fears the worst. One comment from Ramshackle, a blogger, anticipates, “There will be a sad and predictable update to this story.”
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.

Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. We explore the funny side of the Taliban. Humor was back in style.  Laughing was officially reviled by the Taliban’s mullahs as silly, superfluous, and girlish. But an underground stock of Afghan jokes continued to circulate, of varying quality and cleanliness. Some of the jokes made a public comeback when comedy, including political jokes, was legalized again.
             Often, the jokes had a universal quality with a parochial twist. For example, a standard American yarn might begin, “So, a New Yorker, a Texan, and a Californian go into a bar and …” In the same comedic spirit, an Afghan gagman began his routine, “There are five brothers, a Hazara, a Charikari, a Panshiri, a Shiberghani, and a Kandahari,” and then indulged in regional and ethnic stereotypes that sent his audience into side-splitting laughter. Other routines included a popular male comic impersonating a belly dancer.
            Yesterday’s woolly-minded mullahs and their martinets were today’s fair game for parody. The now-crushed Taliban became a favored target of acidic humor, and the master of caricature was Mubariz Bidar. Dressed in a long black turban and toting a toy AK-47, the Mubariz Show parodied mullahs howling at boys to shave their Titanic haircuts. In restaurants, on the radio and television, and in shops and homes, Afghans were laughing. Some of it was sweet revenge.
            Buzkashi, a game often chaotic, naturally brutal, and always popular in Afghanistan, surged in popularity again after the Taliban retreated. Two horse-mounted, whip-clutching teams vie for possession of a headless goat carcass, which they carry around a flagpole to earn one point. Players thrash their opponents' horses. One enthusiast explained, "We haven't seen this game played in more than 5 years. It's part of our culture, and we're very happy to have it back again." An Englishman described buzkashi as a game “quite like rugby on four legs.”
            Beyond laughter, songs, and games, there was time for Afghans to reflect on the religious state of their country and to recall an Islam practiced earlier and differently. Islam rested at the very soul of Afghanistan. Islam had withstood a surge of Buddhist enthusiasm in the 900s, the animism and paganism of the Mongols, and the atheism of the Soviets. Most Afghans were still strongly connected to their religion. Islam was in Afghanistan to stay. But many had become cynical, and in the early post-Taliban months, many mosques were often vacant.
            A lachrymose mullah, who served in Kabul for 32 years, opined, “When the Taliban came, they defamed the name of Islam. They beat everyone; they forced people to pray. People became disillusioned with  Islam because of the Taliban.” The more optimistic Afghans looked forward to greater religious freedom. As one mullah said, “At the time of the Taliban, most people’s prayers weren’t heartfelt because people were forced to pray. Now, I think people pray for real, because God released them from the Taliban.”
Profile 11: Rapping Sosan - “We Were Kings and Queen in our Own Land”  
“Listen to my story! Listen to my pain and suffering!” Rap lyrics of Sosan Firooz_
            Perhaps it’s the Taliban’s abhorrence of popular singing, as well as their scorn for free-spirited women, that explains the popularity of Afghanistan’s first notable female rapper, Sosan Firooz. Anyone so detested by Taliban mullahs would draw an audience among Afghan youth. It might be the artistic genre itself, rap music, which is heard in clubs and on city streets around the world. Perhaps her songs’ cross-cultural lyrics bridge Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, and myriad other ethnic and clan lines. Finally, it might be the 23-year-old, pretty, and plucky singer herself who explains her appeal. Young men and adolescent boys think she is sexy, and girls want to look and sing like her.   
            Like many Afghans, Sosan is a child of poverty, and her lyrics echo the despair of her early youth. She lived in exile in Iran, where her family had fled to escape the Taliban in 1996, and she hated it there. As paupers, her family washed dishes in restaurants and swept streets, scrounging for food and, according to her songs, enduring the taunts and snickers of Iranians. These are the lyrics of her song "Our Neighbors:"
 “In the country of strange our child was abusedOur educated ones became street workers…We were kings and queens in our own landBut here, we are waiters and dish washers.”
            Some of Sosan’s works have a patriotic appeal, which also explains her popularity. Like other rappers, Sosan is angry, and her art laments the despair of the Afghan diaspora. But many of her verses shine with hope for Afghanistan’s tomorrow.
Sosan has her internet video fans, but she also has detractors, including family members. Her uncle no longer speaks to her family because he considers Sosan flirty and frisky. But her father is her biggest fan and left his civil service job to serve as her bodyguard, chauffeur, and secretary.
            There are those in the West who admire her sassy creativity, even if they cannot understand the lyrics, which are in Dari. Sosan’s words plead for Afghan girls and women to be treated with equality and dignity. She also condemns narcotics as a national tragedy. Accompanying her songs on a website are pictures of the young ingénue in rap poses and Western grabs. Blog commentary on popular Western sites, such as the Huffington Post, wishes her the best but fears the worst. One comment from Ramshackle, a blogger, anticipates, “There will be a sad and predictable update to this story.”
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.

Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. This reading shares the jubilation of the short-lived freedom Afghans enjoyed.
Dancing in the Streets
            When the Taliban fled the Northern Alliance’s march on Kabul in mid-November 2001, uncontained joy poured into the streets. Young men, who had been forbidden under the Taliban from laughing, dancing, or talking to unrelated girls and women, kicked in the doors of the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue and trashed it. Routed in defeat, the rapacious Taliban plundered shops and absconded with whatever they could, fleeing into exile. Some of those who couldn’t escape lay dead in the streets, as their once-cowering countrymen spat on their corpses.
            Quickly, entrepreneurs tried to meet the demand for once-forbidden items. TVs, cassettes, and videotapes poured in from Iran and India, and those secreted during the Taliban era were restocked for rental. One shopkeeper had hidden over 500 video cassettes. After half a decade, the boarded-up cinemas of Kabul sprang to life again, as lines formed around blocks. Guards searched moviegoers for weapons. Young men admitted to the theater were compelled to hand over “brass knuckles, switchblades, radios,” and leave their AK-47s at the door.
            Then there was Titanic. No movie approached the status of this long-banned, nationally revered film. Titanic became a subculture. Creative vendors, long shackled by mullahs in the marketplace, sold a wide variety of Titanic-themed products. Titanic insect repellents and perfumes to attract lovers were piled on merchants’ tables in Kabul’s central market for all to buy. The lethality of “Titanic Mosquito Killer” could not be verified, nor could the alluring power of “Titanic Making Love Ecstasy Perfume Body Spray,” which would certainly have roiled the mullahs.
            In Kandahar, merchants could, once again, offer song birds for sale. Earlier, their caged chirpings were declared un-Islamic by the Taliban.  Turbans, one of the many despised emblems of the Taliban rule, were discarded into the trash. In an interview, Diane Sawyer revealed to Kate Winslet that her portrayal of the movie’s heroine, Kate, helped Afghan women endure the darkest hours of Taliban times.  A young Afghan said, “Films were banned under the Taliban. But now we can watch brilliant films like this whenever we want.”
            Post-adolescent men shorn their beards and rejoiced and, like the younger generation, sang long-forbidden songs. Women and girls could walk the streets of the nation’s capital without fear of being pummeled with leather whips. Some women continued to wear the burka, just as many men kept their full, if trimmed, beards. But for the first time in 5 years, they had a choice.  Sufi Muslims, despised by the Taliban, emerged from the shadows and celebrated their Islamic sect through song and dance and laughter.
            When Northern Alliance forces poured into the city, they were greeted with roses, and cheery children climbed onto the armored vehicles. Gone were the Taliban’s rubber truncheons and their yawn-inducing, puritanical sermons. Songs once deemed outré by the Taliban now blast from cars and stores in Kandahar. Lyrics sang, “I’m waiting for you here, alone. Please come to me. Let’s run away and get married.” Women could indulge their femininity. An American woman, Debbie Rodriguez, established a beauty school in Kabul. A young Afghan woman said, “I can come here regularly now to make myself beautiful. Before, it was illegal.”
            Men played chess again, a game they had long cherished. The threat of arrest had passed, but many of the old chess sets were gone, some buried as hidden treasure and lost forever in the soil. Though it was winter, kites still soared across the skies of Afghanistan. In late fall 2001 and early 2002, the pall of national depression had lifted, and many Afghans once again had hope.
            The full extent of Afghanistan’s Generation X’s cultural isolation from the West became clear in December 2001, when an MTV-affiliated journalist posed “man-in-the-street” questions to Afghan youth. Most questions focused on popular culture, and few of the still-shell-shocked Afghan tweens, teens, and twenty-somethings could identify any of the Spice Girls or Backstreet Boys. Nonetheless, one teenage girl, wearing a Titanic head scarf, plaintively asked the roaming former MTV video jockey whether it was true that Leonardo DiCaprio died on September 11, 2001. When assured that he was very much alive, the girl was visibly relieved.
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.

Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening. The reading looks at efforts to build the Afghan police force.
 
 
An al Qaeda Strategist Analyzes the Early fight
 
            Soon after the initial American victories and the Taliban defeats, al Qaeda leaders began to write lessons from the war.  One student and practitioner of war was Said al-Adel (see profile 22), a former Egyptian special forces officer and later an al-Qaeda military operations commander. Al-Adel wrote a series of articles on lessons learned in Afghanistan for his Islamist compatriots in Iraq.  Through these articles, he evaluated the war in Afghanistan and offered suggestions about how Muslims could defeat Americans.
 
            According to al-Adel, the Taliban were very inventive in provisioning and billeting soldiers and their families. Hot meals were provided to fighting men, often during long battles. Administrative affairs were decentralized, and each staging ground for battle had a mobile kitchen. Al-Adel and others were impressed by the ability to keep Taliban fighters clothed, fed, and sometimes upbeat during battle.
 
            In Kandahar, the Taliban used a zone defense to fend off American attacks. They reformulated the pre-September 2001 defensive tactics to concentrate on protecting sectors. They created three sectors:  Airport and Camp Operations Sector, City Operations Sector, and Emergency Force Sector. The Emergency Force, unlike the Airport and Camp units, was mobile. It was well equipped with modern trucks to deploy rapidly in the greater Kandahar area. It had anti-armor, anti-aircraft, and howitzers, and contained the best fighters.  These zone defenses delayed but could not possibly prevent the conquest by the fortified Northern Alliance fighters, who were supported by US air power.
 
            For offensive operations, the Taliban would divide into groups of 10, which would work independently during the day and more closely coordinate in night operations. They preferred operating in units of 10 men to avoid concentrating forces en mass, which would give the Coalition Forces opportunity to attack with air forces.
 
            Veteran Taliban would lead these groups of 10 men and engage Coalition Forces in ambushes and direct fire fights. Less-experienced Taliban forces would serve in secondary positions to gain experience and ready themselves as a reserve force. Taliban used sewers as avenues of approach.  The Taliban could also quickly evacuate women and children from parts of a city to nearby villages in anticipation of hostilities. Non-combatants could be sheltered or removed from the combat zone when fighting began. When Taliban soldiers were injured, they were often transported to hospitals or field units in Pakistan. Casualties were generally not left in Afghan hospitals. This impressed non-Taliban military observers.
 
            Maintaining effective communications was a constant challenge for the Taliban because of the advanced U.S. electronic capabilities and the Taliban’s relatively primitive systems. Even here, the Taliban showed inventiveness by sending multiple couriers and using different routes during battle. These lessons would impact future operations.
 
The Fighting Finishes- Temporarily
            Unlike other wars, there were few named battles in the Coalition’s destruction of the Taliban in 2001. There were several quasi-suicidal attacks similar to Japanese banzai attacks of the dying days of the War in the Pacific. Fighters, presumed to be Chechens, became suicide bombers, strapping explosives to their bodies and pretending to surrender before blowing themselves up when captured by Northern Alliance soldiers.[1]  By most accounts, the Taliban and their allies fought bravely. In Kunduz, a key city that straddles the only main road to Kabul and the south, American B-52 and F-18 bombers were called in to support the Northern Alliance after the Northern Alliance pleaded for air support. North of Kunduz, Chechen and Arab fighters staged a last stand in the village of Dasht-e-Archi, near Afghanistan's border with Tajikistan. The Taliban lost the engagements but impressed their opponents with their steady determination. The Taliban were not through fighting.
            For the first time in 5 years, the warlords of the Afghan north celebrated strategic victory.  General Mohammed Qasim Fahim, the middle-aged leader of the Northern Alliance, succeeded the recently murdered and still-treasured Ahmed Shah Masood. Like Masood, Fahim was a Tajik and built his reputation battling the Soviets.
            General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an eccentric, often garrulous, and large man, had vast experience as a soldier and politician. An Uzbek Muslim, not at all wedded to the puritanical demands of Sharia, Dostum enjoyed whiskey. He left school at 14 and developed political acumen and street cunning during his rise to power among Uzbeks and other northern Afghans. In the civil war of the 1990s, he remained holed up in a stronghold, called the Fort of War, and ran territory in Northern Afghanistan as a personal fiefdom. The former communist became a capitalist when it became clear the Soviet-leaning government in Kabul was moribund.
            By Afghan standards, Dostum has a liberal outlook, which is partially explained by his street-wise pragmatism and bargaining with secular leaders in the pre-Taliban, relatively progressive circles. Under Dostum’s quasi-dictatorial, if idiosyncratic, rule in the north, girls and women attended school and worked.  However, Dostum was hardly a gentle heart. He would be accused of imprisoning Taliban in shipping containers, in which they slowly died of suffocation and heat exhaustion in 2001.
            General Ismail Khan, the "Lion of Herat," a Tajik, was supported by the Iranians. Though known for his corruption, he, like Dostum, was far less misogynistic than the Taliban and gave women some opportunities, though limited. He developed administrative experience as governor in Herat after the Russians left.   Khan’s relations with the United States were troubling for many years because of his often- opaque connections to Iran. The Bush administration accused him of allowing Iran to infiltrate weapons, supplies, and operatives into Herat Province. Administration spokesmen claimed that Iranian intelligence and military advisors were active in Herat, to which Khan responded in 2002, “I've got plenty of military experience. I don't need foreign advisers.” There were other Northern Alliance leaders who would assume different positions of influence.
Profile 7: Zardad and Shah: The Pashtun Master and his Human Dog
            Non-Taliban warlords could be every bit as bestial as the Taliban. One such case was that of small-time warlord and his prisoner-accomplice. Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, who was motivated by greed and viciousness, not religion or ethnicity, maintained his private house of horrors in a small area outside of Kabul, called Sarobi.  Between 1992 and 1996, Zardad controlled a small militia who patrolled roads near Sarobi, on which travelers would pass to visit Kabul or other areas. Zardad would arrest travelers, including international aid workers, and imprison them in his self-made prison. He would beat them until they yielded their money and valuables. Even then, he would often shoot or mutilate some.
            As a boy, Zardad gained skill killing and torturing victims. He joined the Mujahedeen when he was 17 and rose to command 2,000 men against the Soviets. He explained his involvement in the anti-Soviet Jihad, “Of course we killed many people, but we never harmed the civilian population.”
            But civilians who trespassed in Zardad’s zone of operations in the mid-1990s could certainly be harmed in unimaginably monstrous ways. Zardad liked to hurt people. Among his many tortures was his use of a captive “man-dog,” Abdullah Shah, who attacked prisoners like a wild dog, biting off and swallowing their testicles and chewing and gnawing their flesh.  There are different accounts about the relationship between Zardad and Shah. Some witnesses said that Zardad kept Shah, literally, in chains, which Zardad would remove in front of a captive. He would then sick Shah on the hapless and certainly confused prey and watch the spirited performance. Shah was then, once again, enchained and returned to his living pit through a hole in the floor. Others observed a more collegial relationship.  It was less of a master-dog relationship than one of a morbid partnership.
            Zardad escaped the Taliban’s advance toward Kabul in 1998 and fled to London, where he worked delivering pizza. There are no reports that he tried to harm or bite anyone. But the 41-year-old Pashtun was arrested and tried in the Old Bailey under international war crimes laws in 2005 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.  His old partner, Mr. Shah, did not fare as well. In Kabul, he was the first person to receive a death sentence since the fall of the Taliban. Shah’s trial was secretly filmed by Afghan documentarians who made the movie, “Zardad’s Dog.”  In 2002, for the enormity of his crimes of killing 20 people including his wife, whom he burnt alive, he was shot in the back of the head in Kabul’s Pul-e-Charkhi prison, with the approval of Hamid Karzai.
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.
 
 
 
 

Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening. The reading looks at efforts to build the Afghan police force.
 
To Build a Police Force
 
“I “Need 20 good police officers and could use 100. Good people, not any hashish smokers. And I need sleeping bags, mattresses, and a generator for power.” Lt. Col. Amanuddin, Afghan police supervisor, early 2008
 
Many conferees in Bonn understood the importance of a strong national police. So did counterinsurgency strategists. In the early 20th century, General John Pershing built a constabulary force in the Philippines, and British Major General Richard L. Clutterbuck, a senior member of the Malayan government from 1956–58, noted that police put communists at a strategic disadvantage. Strong policing helped establish zones of security. As the French counterinsurgency theoretician David Galula pointed out, police helped identify insurgents and their supporters. Today’s US Army counterinsurgency field manual states that the police, not the military, are the front-line soldiers in a counterinsurgency.
 
This applies to Afghanistan, where the police are often the only government representatives present. In these cases, the police are not only responsible for security but also address community grievances and facilitate dispute resolution. They interact with the population daily, forging ongoing relationships with key members of the community. Through these daily interactions and relationships, police develop intimate knowledge of the physical and human terrain.
 
In February of 2002, Coalition representatives met in Berlin to discuss details of the ANP support mission. This was based on a German fact-finding mission in January 2002, which calculated that an initial ANP force of 62,000 was needed to provide basic security.  In August 2002, the Germans officially instituted a three-year training plan for officers and a one-year plan for non-commissioned officers. As the largest donor for ANP training, the United States assisted the German-led efforts.  In 2003, the United States increased its police to replace the German effort.
            The Department of Defense provided equipment and infrastructure assistance through the Office of Military Cooperation Afghanistan (OMC-A).  OMC-A funded the construction of the Central Training Center for Police in Kabul in May of 2003, followed by the construction of seven Regional Training Centers (RTCs) across the country. By January 2005, Germany and State/INL had trained 35,000 police forces; however, corruption, desertion, and drug abuse remained serious problems, and larger reform efforts were needed.  In July 2005, CSTC-A took general responsibility for training the ANP.
            The new units will help counter the Taliban's new, more aggressive tactics, Bouchard said. "They are a rapid-response group that would help put down a national crisis or insurgent activity," he said. The units will be more heavily armed and armored than traditional police units. "A lot of the equipment is going to look similar to what our Marines are currently using in Iraq, if the plan goes through," Bouchard said. "Those are on order, and we're expecting that equipment to arrive by the end of the calendar year."
            Officials are looking to supply the Afghans with mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles that Marines are using in Iraq. The heavily armored wheeled vehicles have a V-shaped bottom to deflect explosions. The first three civil order battalions have stood up, Bouchard said. However, most of the units' members have completed their basic training only in the last two months, so it will take time before the units are effective against the Taliban…
            There were some successes by 2011, particularly by those trained by the British. In a series of raids in Helmand, Afghan police apprehended suspected explosive manufacturers, uncovered and destroyed large hauls of Soviet-made munitions, and raided a significant bomb-making facility. This showed some improvement in professionalism over earlier years and suggested improved civil-police relations. The police operated on the tips from local villagers.
            US training efforts for police have also produced some accomplishments. Coalition Forces are hopeful that village defense forces, in many ways a vast and militarized neighborhood watch program, will fill the security vacuum left when US forces begin to leave in earnest. Americans have credited local police units and Interior Ministry Forces with more effective patrolling.
            However, there is overwhelming consensus that the overall ANP training program was largely a failure.  The poor quality of the police was, and remains, a large problem for the public administration and security sectors of human development.  The police force was rampant with tribalism and favoritism.   
            First, the shortage of police mentors has been a key impediment to U.S. efforts to conduct training and evaluation and verify that police are on duty. Second, the ANP continues to face difficulties with equipment shortages and quality issues. Third, the ANP faces a difficult working environment, including a weak Afghan judicial sector and consistent problems with police pay, corruption, and attacks by insurgents.
 
To Build a Civil Service
 
            The quality of the civil service is central to Afghanistan's development. In 2001, the victors in Bonn quickly discovered many problems in the hollow civil service, including a lack of capacity, weak communications between Kabul and outlying provinces, and an ineffective police force. Under the Taliban, public administrators were poorly and infrequently paid; unprofessional, in that they were directed by theocrats; and marginally trained in public administration skills. They were also cowed by the mullahs who controlled important decision-making and could end their careers and even their lives very quickly. It was not surprising that post-Taliban donors to Afghanistan remarked on the lack of experience, talent, ambition, and general competence in the civil service. 
 
            In April 2002, the World Bank extended its first loan since 1979 to create the Transitional Support Strategy (TSS) and to fund its first operation, the Emergency Public Administration Project. It sought to make the civil service more attractive by combating corruption and nepotism and rewarding merit.
 
            Coalition Forces need Afghans to perform administrative and managerial work. Long a recipient of relatively modest levels of foreign aid, Afghanistan had not developed the capacity to process billions of dollars in aid. Nonetheless, after the Taliban were scattered, the country became awash in developmental funding, which was managed by NGOs and the burgeoning Afghan civil service. The vacuum of competent public administration and the lack of effective safeguards in the distribution of aid money led to vast, sometimes wild, unaccounted-for spending. This gave the Taliban rhetorical ammunition to discredit the new government.  For this reason, foreign donors determined to develop a pool of competent administrators as a top priority in their development schemes.
 
            An effective Afghan civil service would spur all other development sectors and increase stability. In larger cities, civil servants would issue construction permits; maintain basic infrastructure, including roads, power stations, water facilities, sanitation, and communications; and perform other civil service duties. This, in turn, would improve health, education, communications, the rule of law, and security. According to the plan, the government's credibility would be boosted if vital services improved, and citizens would become greater stakeholders in reconstruction and development issues. This would weaken the Taliban's attractiveness.
            A strong local civil service is also very important in Afghanistan because the central government often has very little control outside of Kabul. The lack of properly maintained roads and weak communications gave village and regional administrators autonomy that still continues.
 
            To Build Communications
            Economists in Bonn concluded that improvements in communication would spur growth across all development sectors. Economies can grow when costs, expenses, and demand levels are communicated broadly. Civil servants in Kabul need to communicate with counterparts in the provinces for administrative purposes, and the education and health sectors depend on harnessing the internet to modernize. Increased security requires soldiers to communicate at all levels, particularly for close-support combat operations and the rule of law.
            The security sector, the bedrock of counterinsurgency efforts, will improve only if soldiers can communicate at all levels, particularly in close-support combat operations. Strong communications allow villagers to contact the ANA, police forces, or ISAF operators. For this reason, the insurgents have placed a high premium on destroying radio towers and have stepped up their use of radio technology to communicate their political agenda.
 
In a country that is isolated, illiterate, and unstable, the side that can better communicate its agenda and coordinate civil and military operations has a distinct advantage. Radio communications are particularly important because of the extraordinarily high level of illiteracy. In some areas, the female illiteracy rate rises to 99%. Radio is the only way the government can communicate its democratization programs, advise farmers on agricultural issues, advise families on health issues, and warn of security threats. There are approximately 40 radio stations broadcasting that reach 37% of the population.
 
            Counterinsurgency develops the communications infrastructure – transmission towers, radio stations, expertise in operation and repair, buildings, and service centers. Counterinsurgency communications specialists provide training to local and national-level broadcasters and telecommunications personnel.
            Communication ability is a prerequisite for effective anti-Taliban information operations.   For example, the US Army participates in radio broadcasts. At one station in Paktika Province, a radio broadcasts programs for 13 hours a day to local villages.  The show includes human development: agriculture and personal finance, health, education, security-related issues, and religious issues.  Other examples are.  Peace Message Radio, which is USAID-funded and is listened to by 80% of radio listeners in the province of Khost.  These secular shows provide an alternative to the Taliban’s unwavering drumbeat of Islamic programming.  
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.

Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. This reading turns to chapter four and the early American victories
In the United States, some Americans, still smarting from the September attacks on the homeland, could now lampoon those who hosted their Afghanistan-based enemy. Not all the jokes were clever, and many smacked of a conqueror’s hubris.  Jokes such as, “That’s as fast as a Taliban switching sides,” showed a sardonic delight in the crumbling status of the Taliban. Despite the Christmas holiday warmth, the American public was not spared gelid humor.  “What is the difference between Osama Bin Laden and the cave dwellers of Mesa Verde in Colorado?  The cave dwellers survived.” But many al-Qaeda members survived, and US forces were determined to hunt them down and kill them.
            Some snags, disappointments, and reverses were expected, given the sturdiness of the Taliban enemy. Many U.S. special operators found exactly what they anticipated in Taliban and al Qaeda fighters -men and boys fanatically dedicated to their cause and comrades. In early December, an American major said, “I thought Kandahar would fall in about a week, and it hasn't. I lost a lot of beers on that." But the momentum was irreversibly with the United States and its allies. One U.S. gunship pilot and part-time graphic artist, Captain Alex "Sketch" Fulford, conceded that the Taliban “still had teeth” but retorted that Americans “have pliers."
            U.S. troops were particularly eager to capture or kill bin Laden, who slipped from their grip into Pakistan. But they did find his computers, hard drives, and diaries, as well as myriad documents confirming the Omar bin Laden relationship.  Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Tommy Franks vowed prophetically, "The world is not a large enough place for him to hide."
            There were other reasons for American confidence.  When it became clear that the Taliban were being thrashed, many Afghans switched allegiance to the victorious Americans and Northern Alliance leaders. General Franks took delight in the village elders’ keenness to lead their tribal councils, or shuras, towards peaceful terms with U.S. forces. More than a few Taliban leaders flipped sides by late 2001.  Often, there is no shame among Afghans in switching sides, as long as it doesn’t happen too frequently. In other countries, what would be considered treasonous is, in Afghanistan, seen as political chess. One Taliban commander stated in January 2002, “This is a normal thing in Afghanistan, because everyone loves their lives and wants to stay alive. We switch sides all the time.”  This is hamsaya.
            Profile 6 Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi: God and Taliban at Yale
                The late 2001 sudden diaspora of the Taliban forced its leadership into distant places. Most sought refuge in Pakistan; some straggled to Iran; others were cuffed and crated to Guantanamo. One enrolled at Yale.  Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Taliban spokesman and ambassador at large, though with only 4 years of standardized education, was given special student status at Yale. At 27, he was much older than the average Yale freshman.   This special student was special indeed.
            Hashemi grew up in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  He attended school until he was 13, and most of his English instruction came from an American charity group. In the wake of the Soviet defeat, he hitched his star to the Taliban in 1995.  And, his fortunes soared. He became a spokesman and general diplomat for the Taliban government at an age when Ivy League men are usually chasing coeds. But like his meteoric ascent, his failing fortunes mirrored those of other Taliban leaders. In 2002 he was broke and unemployed with few prospects.
            But he knew something of the United States, which he had visited a year earlier. As a roving ambassador, in March 2001, he spoke to students at the University of Southern California.   In the shadow of Tommy Trojan, Hashemi cast Afghanistan as a victim and denied the destruction of the Buddhas.  They had been worn by rain. Also, Afghanistan was tolerant of other religions.  The Taliban didn’t hate or harm women. The only thing the Taliban hated was the old king of Afghanistan, whom he deprecated as “a rotten old, knucklehead.”  Afghans were hungry and poor, and it was largely the fault of Western policy and the current sanctions.
            But not all in the audience were charmed.  A woman approached him slowly, tore off her burka, and shouted solidarity with Afghan women and scorn for the Taliban. Bridling himself, the diplomat responded, "I'm really sorry for your husband. He might have a very difficult time with you."
            Hashemi made important connections as an ambassador. One proved to be his booster and got him into Yale after the Taliban were crushed. A famous political science professor, John Gaddis, wrote, "I think it's great. It seems to me that's exactly what we ought to be doing. I'm happy he is here." Even some ardent Yale feminists offered support, though cautiously and convolutedly. A co-ed explained, "As a white American feminist, I do not feel comfortable making statements or judgments about other cultures, especially statements that suggest one culture is more sexist and repressive than another. American feminism is often linked to and manipulated by the state in order to further its own imperialist ends." 
            But many Yale alumni were not so supportive. A gay Yalie was not keen on bunking with a dorm mate who “not only discriminated against gays, but actually stoned them to death.”  U.S. Army Captain Flagg Youngblood protested, “That my alma mater would embrace an ambassador from one of America’s declared and defeated enemies and in the same breath keep ROTC and military recruiters off campus shows where Yale’s allegiance falls. Yale’s actions show that they consider the U.S. military more evil than the Taliban.
            David Bookstabber added to the brouhaha by instigating a campaign to mail plastic fingernails to Yale’s administration. The fingernails were symbolic of the Taliban’s practice of yanking out the fingernails of women who wore nail polish in the time of the Taliban.  An administrator in the law school's development office barked incredulously at Mr. Bookstabber, "What is wrong with you? Are you retarded?" In response to the “Nail Yale” hullabaloo, the dean of admissions at explained that if Yale didn’t admit the Taliban, he would have “enrolled at Harvard.” 
            Hashemi did not make the final cut for regular admissions.  Whether or not the plastic-nail, mail-in protests were effective, or if Hashemi didn’t pass the Ivy League academic muster, the candidate was not accepted to George Bush’s alma mater.  Some chuckled that he was “Talibanned.”
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.
 

Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. We begin with Chapter One: The Landscape, The People, and Islamism.
Two weeks after the attack on the US heartland, the United States deployed a small team, called Jawbreaker, under the direction of Gary Schroen, to rebuild the capabilities of the Northern Alliance. They succeeded. Schroen, a seasoned operative with vast experience in South Asia and who knew many of the leading Alliance personalities, bypassed the Pakistanis and established bases for American special operations forces. From these bases, he and his men guided the Alliance with advanced technology.  In 2012, Schroen would claim, "CIA station chief Cofer Black told me, 'find Bin Laden, kill him and cut off his head, put it on dry ice and ship it back to me, and I'm going to take it down to show the President'.  
            The celebrated U.S. Green Berets, lauded in military folklore and popular culture, were deployed to Afghanistan.  Some had trained in Pakistan and knew the languages, culture, and terrain. They studied the mujahedeen’s tactics on the Soviets in detail. They were ready.
            Opposing U.S. forces were the Taliban, whose precise numbers and military capabilities were not clearly known. Many estimates were about 50,000 troops and foreign volunteers. Many Taliban were armed with AK assault rifles, some of which were locally fabricated, and some heavier individual weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
             The basic Taliban fighting unit consisted of 8-10 men who were transported in the back of pickup trucks.  Of the estimated 50,000 Taliban force, about 8,000-12,000 were foreign. In September and October 2001, most units were ad hoc and poorly organized.  However, they were augmented by elements from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Pakistan’s Islamist organizations. The Taliban had about 650 armored vehicles, mostly Soviet-era scout cars and armored personnel carriers. Their air force consisted of a few old Soviet fighters, used almost exclusively as bombers. There were about 10 transport planes of dubious reliability and quality.
            The Fighting Starts
            When Mullah Omar would not surrender bin Laden, the United States initiated hostilities.  Initially, elite teams of U.S. and British soldiers were deployed to target key Taliban command and control centers.  Small teams of 4-to-12 men were infiltrated to pinpoint command posts, supply depots, training headquarters for air- and sea-launched munitions that began to devastate Taliban positions in early October 2001.  Targets included air defenses, military communications sites, and training camps inside Afghanistan. 
            American and British military and political leaders debated which set of tactics would be more suitable to ferret-out and destroy Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They determined that American and British forces should have a light ground presence and should support indigenous anti-Taliban forces, particularly from the Northern Alliance. These Afghan soldiers were rugged, eager, and well positioned to kill Taliban. Uzbekistan became a main forward based for allied forces. Tajikistan and Kazakhstan were supportive. In addition to ground fighting, U.S. bombers pulverized Taliban targets from the air.
The devastating effects became cinematic, as thermo-baric plasma bombs ignited the air in tunnels and cave complexes.  The Taliban had shown ingenuity building quarters in caves with brick or cement floors and steel doors. Some of these quarters were powered by generators and had a perimeter of anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers. Many were equipped with computers and modern communications. But this offered little protection against the blast power of U.S. advanced munitions, such as the 5,000-pound ``bunker-buster” or “big blue” the 15,000 pound relic of the Vietnam era. Also called the “daisy cutter,” the BLU-82 killed anything within a radius of 600 yards.
.           In what was described as a “blowtorch effect,” many Taliban who, like their Afghan forbearers, took refuge in tunnels and caves, were cremated alive.  When channeled to underground tunnels, blast pressure and heat crushed and incinerated almost anything inside. From a distance, video coverage captured small mountains collapsing under the blast of these and other U.S. munitions. The vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said, “As you would expect, they make a heck of a bang when they go off, and their intent is to kill people.”
            It was hard for Taliban and al Qaeda to escape the allied juggernaut, though bin Laden and some of his compatriots famously and sometimes inexplicably did so.  U.S. aerial surveillance craft prevented large deployments of Taliban from taking effective shelter, which was often a death sentence. Some of the munitions were guided, and others were unguided. This war initiated the widespread use of Global Hawk unmanned spy planes and Predator-launched drone warfare. Another advantage for the United States was the ability to deploy and resupply hundreds of assault troops by helicopter onto a mountain target.
            Not all the warfare was gory, and there were moments for the human touch in battle. After U.S. Army Rangers stormed the compounds of the in-flight Taliban, they left American mementos.  In mid-October, soldiers left the famous photograph of American firefighters hoisting the U.S. flag in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The Rangers also left some American graffiti on the walls of a Kandahar building, which read, “Freedom Endures.”  
            Across Asia, Europeans were largely sympathetic to Washington’s efforts. Britain and the Netherlands ranked as the European countries with the highest levels of support.  Queen Elizabeth II expressed "disbelief and total shock" at the September attacks at St Paul's Cathedral. Polls revealed that half of all Europeans championed what President Bush called the “War on Terrorism.” Parisians, often very reluctant to praise American foreign policy, were very responsive to President Bush’s decision to fight. About two-thirds of the French backed the American war on the Taliban in October 2001.  Many European intellectuals recognized the attacks as a threat to the core tenets of international order and law. For there to be peace in the world, there needs to be war on the Taliban. 
            As the Taliban became a global news story, European journalists sought new angles to cover the war. Over the course of the insurgency, several would be abducted, and some would be killed. British journalist, Yvonne Ridley, infiltrated herself in the Taliban’s lair in late September 2001 and was caught immediately.  In Taliban captivity, she became a sensation on Fleet Street and, after she was released 10 days later, took a new job for Al Jazeera.  She then became a Muslim.
            But others saw her, as well as some other headline-grabbing journalists, as narcissistic and irresponsible.  During the ordeal, her 9-year-old daughter, Daisy, begged for her mother’s life on television.  After the mother was released, a pouting Daisy confided on an open microphone, “I wish you were a normal mummy…No one else's mummy has been caught by the Taliban.”
Thank you for listening to this reading from “The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group.” If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing and liking it. Nothing in this book represents the official position of any person or agency of the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.