Book Review

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia

gw. After the terror attacks against the WTC towers in Manhattan Afghanistan has suddenly returned to the focus of the world’s interest. Western politicians assume that the hideaway of Osama Bin Laden, whom they hold responsible for these attacks, is in Afghanistan. US military forces have been moved closer to Afghanistan, presumably to compel the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden and if the Taliban fail to do so, to punish them by attacking and bombing targets in Afghanistan. To gain a deeper understanding of the American interests and to further investigate the background of the recent events it is necessary to delve into the history of Afghanistan and the Taliban movement. A compelling book with the title Taliban: Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia has been written by Ahmed Rashid, which was published in May 2000.

When the Taliban gained control of the Afghan capital Kabul in 1996, only few people knew anything about the movement. The Taliban had only emerged from the existing mujahedin groups in 1994. Thereafter they spread with breathtaking speed over nearly the whole of Afghanistan from its base in Kandahar. Or to use the words of Mullah Mohammed Omar: 'We took five months to capture one province, but then six provinces fell to us in only 10 days.'

The Taliban are, perhaps with the exception of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the most secretive movement in the world today. Because of the ban on photography and television nobody knows what its leaders look like. The Taliban’s one-eyed leader has never met with journalists or Western diplomats.

Yet the Taliban and its interpretation of the shariah law, which leads it to prevent girls from attending school and women from working, made it headlines all over the world. From Tehran to Luxembourg, feminists’ groups have taken up the cause of Afghan women. America’s former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when she visited Pakistan’s capital Islamabad in November 1997, called the Taliban and their treatment of women despicable. Also Hillary Clinton, anxious to secure feminist support for her future carreer weighed in with statement after statement condemning the Taliban. She denounced Taliban policy in 1999 as 'the destruction of the spirit of these women'.

But there have been few undertakings to perform an in-depth analysis of the movement which now rules 90 percent of Afghanistan. Amir Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and long-time Afghan expert, was the first to undertake this task by writing his book Taliban: Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, published in May 2000. The book is the result of more than 20 years of journalistic activities in Afghanistan and the neighboring countries, numerous journeys, and interviews with nearly all the warlords, Afghan warriors and the leaders of the Taliban.

The opening scene in Rashid’s book is the inauguration of the sweltering Kandahar football stadium in March 1997. A few weeks earlier, the Taliban had lifted its ban on soccer. Seizing the opportunity to encourage this apparent thawing of the Taliban’s ban on entertainment, the United Nations aid agencies rushed in to rebuild the stands and seats of the bombed-out stadium.

But the inaugural game never took place. There was an inaugural execution instead. It is events such as these, Rashid points out, that have made the Taliban as controversial in the Islamic world as in the West.

Rashid delineates the history of the Taliban, partly told through a long-time Taliban member, the governor of Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Hassan Rehmani, who has a Long John Silver-style wooden peg leg which is badly chipped as a result of negotiating the rocky terrain outside his office. (Through details like this Rashid’s book reads more like a thriller than a political affairs book.)

He tells about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Before this event the Islamics barely had a foothold in Afghan society. But with money and arms from the CIA they built one that gave them tremendous clout.

Meanwhile the 'traditionalists' (who were more secular and had largely supported the Soviets) and the Islamics fought so mercilessly that by 1994 there remained few leaders from either side, leaving the path clear for a new wave of even more extreme Islamics - the Taliban.

A 'talib' is a student of the Koran. As most of Mullah Omar’s supporters in 1994 were part-time or full-time students at madrassas, Islamic schools, and more were later to come from the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, the name 'Taliban' stuck.

But even when criticizing the Taliban movement Rashid goes some way in explaining its appeal. The warlords continued to rule their respective patches following the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, in some cases acting as they pleased. Indiscriminate murder, corruption and rape were widespread and common. The Taliban offered an end to all this. As Rashid writes: 'Omar emerged as a Robin Hood figure, helping the poor against the rapacious commanders. He asked for no reward or credit from those he helped, only demanding that they follow him to set up a just Islamic system.'

Rashid also gives us some notion of how this feared organization operates day-to-day. Its preferred mode of transport is Japanese two-door pick up trucks and its treasury consists of U.S. dollars stuffed into tin trunks which reside under the feet of Mullah Omar. While the 'religious police' are busy measuring beards on the streets (men must grow beards the length of a fist), ministers work without paper or computers.

But the Taliban, Rashid demonstrates, knows well how to handle pugnacious warlords. Depending on the situation bribery, treachery or direct attack are the means of choice. The Taliban movement has also received assistance from neighboring Pakistan and its secret service ISI (Inter Services Intelligence). The first joint military undertakings served to clear the roads from Pakistan to the central Asian countries to reopen the markets of these countries for Pakistan’s trade. Between 1997 and 1998, Pakistan provided the Taliban with an estimated $30 million, and since 1994 has given it invaluable political support.

Rashid describes the Taliban’s policy toward women as archaic. Women must 'refrain from hitting their shoes on the ground, which makes noises,' says one Taliban edict. They must wear the burkha, a cloak which covers every inch of the body (including the eyes). They cannot work or wear make-up or nail polish. Men must 'refrain from clapping' at sports events, and instead intone 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great).

The vast majority of Afghans feel repressed by these policies, according to Rashid.

He explains that their interpretation of the sharia owes more to pashtunwali - the code of honour of the pashtuns - and the fact that the young fighters of the Taliban have been fostered in the male society of the refugee camps. They have had a youth in which they never have known peace, a caring mother, or a loving relation to sisters. Instead they were trained in warfare for the jihad.

Rashid also examines the Taliban’s booming heroin trade. According to his estimates, more than 80 percent of the heroin in Europe comes from Afghanistan. But Afghan poppy production is having an impact closer to home. The Iranian government admits to having 1.2 million addicts. Pakistan had virtually no heroin addicts in 1979, but by 1999 had an estimated 5 million. The heroin trade is - beneath the money they get from Saudi Arabia, The Arabian Emirates and Pakistan - the major income of the Taliban.

There is also the issue of Osama bin Laden, the dissident Saudi Arabian who is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan, and the terrorist activity he is thought to have instigated. We learn from Rashid that between 1982 and 1992 more than 35,000 Muslim radicals (including Bin Laden) from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East traveled to Afghanistan to fight for the Mujaheddin against the Soviets. These religious warriors were trained, equipped and funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia through the ISI. It was the first time these ardent Muslims from such diverse nations had studied, trained and fought together.

'None of the intelligence agencies involved wanted to consider the consequences of bringing together thousands of Islamic radicals from all over the world,' Rashid writes. 'American citizens only woke up to the consequences when Afghanistan-trained Islamic militants blew up the World Trade Center in New York in 1993.'

The holding up of Bin Laden as the man behind many terrorist attacks worldwide, continues Rashid, 'was the Clinton administration desperately looking for a diversion as it wallowed through the mire of the Monica Lewinsky affair and needing an all-purpose, simple explanation for unexplained terrorist acts. Bin Laden became the center of what was promulgated by Washington as a global conspiracy against the U.S.' Rashid then makes the point that no one in the White House was prepared to admit that the CIA-funded Afghan Jihad had spawned dozens of fundamentalist movements across the Muslim world.

Rashid coined the phrase 'the New Great Game' in 1997 when he wrote a cover story for the Far Eastern Economic Review on the oil and gas pipeline battle emerging in the region since the republics of Central Asia achieved independence from Moscow in 1991. Successive U.S. oil companies have competed with an Argentine oil company, Bridas, for rights to build a pipeline through Afghanistan from Chardzhou in northern Turkmenistan to Gwadar in Pakistan. But none has succeeded. Bridas failed because they were kicked out by Unocal and Unocal because the fighting never ceased in Afghanistan and because of the rising pressure caused by the feminist NGOs at home.

'It was clear that no U.S. company could build an Afghan pipeline with issues such as the Taliban’s gender policy, Bin Laden and the continuing fighting,' Rashid writes. 'U.S. policy appeared to have come full circle, from unconditionally accepting the Taliban to unconditionally rejecting them.'

In conclusion, Rashid says, the new Great Game must be one where the aim is to stabilize and settle the region, not increase tensions. In its present form, the Taliban is unlikely to be recognized by the international community. However, the rise of the Taliban means Western popular perception is increasingly equating Islam with the Taliban and Bin Laden-style terrorism.

'Many Western commentators do not particularize the Taliban, but condemn Islam wholesale for being intolerant and anti-modern,' Rashid writes. Fundamentalism, drugs, weapons and social breakdown are spilling out of Afghanistan.

Taliban is a compelling read. Rashid certainly knows how to tell a good story. His discussion is peppered with entertaining detail and quotes, but at the same time he provides a thorough treatment of the subject. In the light of the recent events Rashid's book is a must read.

based on a book review by Lucy Jones
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, by Ahmed Rashid, Yale University Press, 2000