This story is, in many respects, a first hand insight from the social, cultural and economic viewpoint of a talib in Qandahar, the birth place of Taliban; as well as refugee camps in Baluchistan, in Pakistan. These were the key areas where mujahedin (mujahideen), then specifically Taliban, entered Jihad and played a role in Afghanistan’s political life.
Zaeef was one who was brought up and socialized in conditions where one had little choice other than being a mujahid, but he also stood out from mainstream mujahedin after the Russian withdrawal and played a role in foundation of the Taliban movement. The story of Zaeef’s life is tragic and heartbreaking.
Zaeef never had a chance to stay for long in one place, and had little imagination of a birth place at all. Until he left for Pakistan, as a refugee, he had moved to 6 different villages in succession. Before Zaeef’s birth, because of tribal revenge, Zaeef’s family escaped to another village where his father earned a living as a Mullah of a mosque. This happened because his uncle, Mullah Nezam, was accused of killing 16 people in a tribal feud. Sometime later Mullah Nezam was killed in clashes with the government security forces.
Zaeef was born in 1968 in a small village, when his father was 53 years old. He was not even one year old when he lost his mother. Zaeef lived with his father and his two sisters. His older brother, who was just a few years older than him, was studying in a madrasa in another village.
Like most other villagers in that time, the family lived in poverty, suffering cold winters without running water and electricity, also in fear of wolves searching for food at the door steps of their mud brick small house. Zaeef was taught some basic Quranic lessons by his father. Zaeef wrote that once in a freezing winter, when they had no proper clothes and enough firewood to heat up their small room he had dropped the Al Qaeda Quranic textbook into the fire (p. 5).
When Zaeef was just 3 years old, a famine arrived and took life of his younger. A year later, this famine drove them out of the village to another one , where again his father continued to work as the village Mullah. His father could not marry again and when Abdul Salam Zaeef was almost 7 years old his father passed away. Soon after his father’s death, his older sister married and left the family. Zaeef was left with his cousin, who then took him to his maternal uncle. His uncle was a cruel man but had a kind wife. From there, he started to go to a madrasa.
During this time, through a coup d’état, Noor Mohammad Taraki came to power and started a land reform. Some senior madrasa instructors, such as Mawlawi Niaz Mohammad and Mawlawi Mirhatem, supported the land reform, but this programme could not gain the support of the rural tribes who were traditionally very cynical about the communists’ agenda. Many Mullahs considered the land reform un-Islamic, haram, and an act of infidelity. Zaeef was brought up in a social environment, which was saturated with talks against communism, sharing others properties, and strong desire for resistance against infidels; and waging Jihad against them.
Clashes broke out between the Government militia with Russian support, and mujahedin. As result of the jihadists’ attack, both Mawlawi Niaz Mohammad and Mawlawi Mirhatem were killed. Because of increasing magnitude of violence, when Zaeef was about 10 years old, he escaped to Pakistan with his other relatives. In Pakistan, they were taken to a refugee camp in Nushki, in Baluchistan.
The second stage of Zaeef’s life was shaped in Pakistan’s refugee camps, where, as a teenager, he also experienced a tough life. Camps lacked facilities and even water. For example, fetching water from some villages in Nushki led to tensions between the local Baluch and refugees; and as a result two Afghan refugees and four local people were killed. The government then took the refugees to another camp some miles away, and later to Panjpayi Camp, 75 kilometers west of Quetta.
This camp rapidly developed into a large gathering site for the Afghan refugees. It emerged as a main hub for mujahedin to recruit new members for Jihad in the area of Qandahar. The mosques, madrasas and mullahs in the site played significant roles in supporting jihad as an obligation of the Muslims and spreading values of paradise and martyrdom (p. 19).
Influenced by that environment of socialization, it was not unexpected that the young people found jihad very exciting, an opportunity to gain an identity in order to enter the world of adult males. So without informing his family, Zaeef joined mujahedin at the age of 15. He was involved in Jihad, as a junior commander, when the Russian withdrew their forces from Afhghanistan in 1989.
It was not unusual for mujahedin to join any leader, such as Sayyaf, who had control over massive resources, for organising and mobilising forces in the camp. This show that, at that time, Zaeef, like many other mujahedin had not a clear political approach to define his aims. Therefore, after the Russian’s withdrawal and returning to Afghanistan, he believed his mission had been completed and jihad had no meaning against Afghan Muslims anymore. He went to a village and started to work as a labourer; and later as a mullah, as his father had done.
He had not shown much resentment against Najibullah in his book, and it seems that he had some sympathy with the measures Najibullah undertook. However, in 1992, when conflicts over power spread and Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban, Najibullah was taken away and hanged by the Taliban. Najibullah had taken shelter at the UN compound prior to being captured.
During Najibullah’s rule, mujahedin were invited to work with the regime; and many mujahedin commanders began to gain power and control as much resources as it was possible. Immediately after Najibullah lost his power in 1992, mujahidin started to fight over power, not only in Kabul but also in the provinces. In Kandahar, both in the city and rural areas, the mujahedin commanders, accordance with their forces, conquered territories, offices, barracks and economic resources and set up their own checkpoints to defend and expand their territory of power.
The warlords ruled their areas violently, with oppression, robbery, chaos, beating up people. Taking away a big section of traders’ goods at the checkpoints was commonplace[1]. They even took away, wires, cables, any machine tools available, to sell for their own benefit. Many of these commanders brutally separated women from men and raped them, and they also kidnapped young boys for sexual slavery. Zaeef, who was in Kandahar, describes these events in detail.
The lack of financial support from the USA and the Arabic countries after the Russian withdrawal worsened this situation. Many low-ranked commanders and ordinary mujahedin, who had little or no resources, were left poor and desperate. As warriors, they had specialised knowledge and war skills; and also some dignity. However, they had neither organisation, nor resources including specific skills to escape from poverty and despair under such oppressive conditions. They severely suffered from this condition. Mullah Zaeef was one of the poor mujahedin who had little choice other than working as unskilled labourer and a mullah with a very low income. The main problems were insecurity and chaos and clashes between different factions of mujahedin commanders.
During severe poverty, when his baby son was ill, Zaeef was financially supported by an acquaintance, a haji, who was an Islamic student of his father. Zaeef decided to take his baby to a doctor in Kandahar city by bus. At that time, factions of Mujahidin warlords under control of Mullah Naqib and Ustaz Abdul Haleem were fighting and at their checkpoints they were stopping the passangers and forced them to dig trenches. At a checkpoint, Mullah Zaeef says:
A group of shaggy, dirty-looking men stopped us and told us and told everyone to get off the bus. They ordered us to start digging trenches, I told one of them that I had my six-month old son with me who was ill. “we are on the way to the doctor”, I explained, “ and his mother is not with me”. But the man just shouted at me, telling me to get to work and not talk about things I was not asking about. If I spoke one word more , he said, he would riddle my body with thirty bullets. He cursed me, and asked me why I didn’t want to help mujahideen. Shame on now this kind of mujahideen!. They brought a bad name and embarrassment to the whole jihad! (pp. 53-54).
Zaeef, who did not know anyone on the bus, had to give his baby to an old man and had asked him that in case that he could not come back, give the baby to the driver, who knew Zaeef’s house, to take him to his wife (pp. 53-54). But Zaeef was lucky this time, because a man, who recognized him, at the checkpoint released him (p. 54).
The situation was getting worse and worse, and according to Zaeef there was no law and security, the roads were controlled by criminal gangs and former mujahedin thieves, who were robbing travelers and raping their wives all over southern Afghanistan (p. 55).
Zaeef took his family, and for the second time, through the same smugglers’ routes that he had used during his first escape and then during jihad, he escaped to Pakistan. He frequently visited Kandahar and observed the worsening conditions. He again as imam of a mosque stayed in Qandahar area; where stealing, looting, robbery, raping of women and kidnapping of boys for sexual slavery were part of every day’s horrific stories. One day, whwn two of his ex-colleague mujahedin came to Zaeef and suggested to do something about that situation. Zaeef also felt hopeless and was wondering if it was a religious duty for him to do jihad against the Afghans who were oppressing people for sake of money and power or not (p. 61).
In contrast to his friends who wanted to ambush and assassinate Saleh, Zaeef was more cautious and instead argued for organising and mobilizing like-minded people to mount a more effective resistance. From there, they started communications with ex-colleagues and religious authorities. Through these communications and earlier consultations, they chose Mullah Omar as the leader and then set up their first checkpoint.
They grew rapidly and the Taliban was established. At first, they had no name, no constitution, only a clear agenda. According to Zaeef, after the successful establishment of the first checkpoint, the Taliban was a name given by the BBC Pashtu news. This name became popular among the group since then.
According to Zaeef, the Taliban initially had very little resources, for example, they had only two motorbikes, from which one belonged to Zaeef and was called the “tank of Islam” because it had no exhaust. But soon traders, and even big smugglers, supported the Taliban.
The Taliban originally was a local group and had no intention to move beyond supporting families and neighboring communities. But it rapidly became a provincial and then a national force engaged in struggle for national power,through further territorial expansion. As Zaeef himself reported, they moved into areas which were relatively peaceful and prosperous, like Herat under Ismail Khan..
Before his appointment as Ambassador to Pakistan in 2000, Zaeef had served as a bank director in Herat and a high ranked officer in few ministries in Kabul. Before starting his job at the Ministry of Defense. He was not promoted to a ministerial position or a member of the councils. Perhaps, these were some reasons behind his resigning from different posts on three occasions. Chen he was appointed and sent as Ambassador to Pakistan without his consent.
Zaeef has not openly criticised Taliban authorities in his book, but from the general picture and the way he has presented Mullah Omar and the system of governance, his points are quite skeptical. Mullah Omar is seen as a ruler with bags of cash in his place to reward, who appoints or dismisses officials even without their knowledge.
For example, when Zaeef wanted to resign, he had offered Zaeef 400000 rupees in cash, or appointed Zaeef as Ambassador without his consent; and Zaeef surprisingly heard this appointment from a radio news. Another time when Zaeef had refused to accept a job offered to him, Mullah Omar had threatened him to accept it or he would put him in prison.
These examples, together with Control of Kandahar and Kabul councils, and all ministerial positions by rural Mullahs, indicates that the system of governance had a very weak modern bureaucratic basis.
There are some contradictory points in Zaeef’s statements on ISI, particularly regarding the role of ISI in informing Mullah Omar and Taliban about the US attack after 9/11 2001. On one hand, he says that ISI people had informed Mullah Omar and even Zaeef about the attack. On the other hand, he says that ISI was seriously collaborating with the US to attack Taliban. Mullah Omar, according to Zaeef, did not believe that American wanted to attack and for him possibility of attack was not more than 10%.
After the collapse of Taliban, Zaeef applied for asylum from some foreign embassies such as the UK and France, but he did not receive any reply. When he was still in the embassy, he was arrested by Pakistani forces and sent to Afghanistan; and American authorities later sent him to Guantanamo Bay.
Zaeef strongly attacks the US for their policies of “humiliating” Muslims and violation of “human rights” and lack of clear policy in handling prisons affairs. At the same time he believes that the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were better treated than in Qandhar and Bagram in Afghanistan.
Missed points in the Book: There are some key areas in relation to Taliban’s rule, but Zaeef has either not talked about them or just briefly mentioned them. For example, he has nothing to say regarding the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. However, he regrets and regards the 9/11 attack as the start of a huge disaster for Afghanistan. He has not mention anything about the extent of foreign support that Taliban received, particularly from Arab countries and Pakistan. He has strongly criticised ISI but has not said much about ISI’s involvement in Jihad or their specific role in the emergence and spread of the Taliban.
Zaeef, has tried to create an identity for Taliban, even when Taliban was purely used as a term for madrasa students. It seemed that taliban was a derogatory remark by the higher ranked mujahed used to ridicule talibs as incompetent school boys. It is possible that mistreatment of talibs, and their exclusion from power by early jihadist commanders, became an important psychological factor in Taliban resentment against those jihadist commanders.
Zaeef also has hardly talked about Taliban attitude towards other ethnics and religions, such as hazara-Shias and Sikhs. He makes no remark about anti-schooling or harsh policies regarding women. There is nothing in Zaeef’s book about the role of Deobandi’s religious authorities in Pakistan in the development of Taliban’s religious outlook and political ideology.
Now that the USA and their allies are going to leave Afghanistan, the end of the occupation by foreigners may be an end to the motivation of many Taliban members to continue fighting against the Afghan Government. It happened for many jihadists such as Zaeef when the Russian left Afghanistan in 1989. Yet corruption, insecurity, oppression, lack of opportunities for many jihadist foot soldiers, as well as the end of US support created strong grounds for the emergence of Taliban.
Many jihadist commanders, who created the ground for the emergence of the Taliban, are still in power and corruption is still an alarming issue. This time, the United States and other countries along with international organisations, have decided to continue their support to Afghanistan, but can they guarantee political stability in this highly fragile country?
Reviewer: Doctor Hoshang Noraiee (Ayub Husseinbor) has taught political economy, sociology, organizational behaviour, at the Universities of Warwick, London, London Metropolitan and Westminster.
Now, in collaboration with other university colleagues, he works as an independent researcher on a number of projects on international political economy, particularly on the process of globalization, Islam and nationalism in the Middle East and South Asia.
Correspondence for this review can be sent to the email: hnoraiee@gmail.com
References
[1]
Rashid, A. (2001) Taliban: the Story of the Afghan Warlords. Basingstoke: Pan Books.
