Mullah Dadullah: The Military Mastermind of the Taliban Insurgency By Omid Marzban [From: Terrorism Focus (The Jamestown Foundation, USA) Volume 3, Issue 11, 21 March 2006]
On March 12, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the former president of Afghanistan and the current chairman of the upper house of parliament, was wounded in a suicide car-bomb attack in Kabul (Dawn, March 12). Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah took responsibility for the suicide attack, warning that "attacks against American puppets will continue" (Dawn, March 12). In December 2005, Dadullah warned that "we have prepared 200 young men who are ready to sacrifice and carry out suicide bombings against the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan" (Pajhwak Afghan News, January 11). Mullah Dadullah is a primary spokesman for the current insurgency in Afghanistan. Dadullah is one of the most combative commanders of the Taliban and has, on at least three occasions, lived through serious injuries. For instance, in early February, Yusuf Stanezai-the spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry-stated in an interview with Kabul-based Tulu TV that Dadullah had been killed during fighting in Helmand province (Tulu TV, February 03). Once again, Dadullah somehow survived. Just 10 days after the rumor of his death, Dadullah appeared on al-Jazeera television announcing his link and support to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (al-Jazeera, February 13). Dadullah re-emerged on the Afghan scene two years after the Taliban regime was removed from power. The first time that Dadullah spoke on behalf of his ousted radical regime, his name was not unfamiliar to those who lived in Afghanistan during the five years in which the Taliban ruled the country. Most Afghanis knew Dadullah since he was the commander on the toughest battlefields against the Northern Alliance. Both Dadullah and Taliban leader Mullah Omar are Pashtun, and Dadullah is one of the most trusted followers of Omar. According to Mullah Abdul Salaam Raketi, a former Taliban commander and a current Afghan parliament member, who spoke with Terrorism Focus on March 4, Dadullah joined the Taliban in the very beginning of the regime's formation in 1994. He lost his left leg shortly after the formation of the Taliban movement. According to Waheed Mujda, a former high-ranking member of staff in the Taliban's Foreign Ministry, "When fighting against Ismail Khan [the current minister of water and energy supply] in the first months of the Taliban's formation, Dadullah stepped on a land mine near Herat city, which caused the loss of his leg." The loss of his leg, however, did not discourage Dadullah from war, but made him even more combative. Nevertheless, he was not, however, considered an important character during the first years of the regime's creation. After he was accused for a bloody genocide in the central Bamyan province, Dadullah was disarmed according to Mullah Omar's order in 2000. He was later re-armed since the Taliban needed his aggressive command against Northern Alliance troops. When the U.S.-led war to oust the Taliban regime began in 2001, Dadullah was under siege by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance soldiers in Balkh, a northern Afghan province. He disappeared from the siege, however, and it was unclear how Dadullah managed to escape. It is believed that certain Northern Alliance commanders who fought against Dadullah gave him an opportunity to escape. Waheed Mujda says that Dadullah, who comes form Arghandab district-some 15 km northwest of Kandahar city-was taken from Balkh to his native province by some senior commanders linked to the Jonbesh Melli Islami Afghanistan (National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) party, led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former communist officer who formed the party in support of the mujahideen. While Dostum and Dadullah are bitter enemies, Dadullah was apparently given the chance to escape by some of Dostum's followers, possibly without the commander's awareness. Indeed, in an exclusive interview on March 3, Waheed Mujda told Terrorism Focus, "When he [Dadullah] was in charge of the Taliban's frontlines in the north, he released several captives according to the friendship he had with some of the opposition commanders." In the 1990s, Dadullah and the Northern Alliance commanders were allies and their common war was the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was later that Dadullah and the Northern Alliance parted ways. >From Kandahar, Dadullah escaped to South Waziristan province of Pakistan, where he was given shelter by his Kakar tribesmen (Newsline, October 2003). The Karachi-based Newsline online publication reports that the tribesmen not only provided shelter to Dadullah, but also collected a sizeable sum of donations for him. In addition to that, they bought him a Land Cruiser vehicle. They did this because of his "bravery" and "fighting spirit," and also because he is their fellow tribesman (Newsline, October 2003). Later, Dadullah moved to Karachi where he reportedly visited madrassas to motivate religious fervor among the students and encourage them to join a holy war against foreign troops in Afghanistan, labeling these troops infidels. Since the fall of the Taliban regime, Dadullah has been blamed for many terrorist acts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In December of last year, a special anti-terrorism court in the Pakistani city of Quetta sentenced in absentia the Taliban commander to life in prison on charges of attempting to assassinate Maulana Shirani, a Pakistani parliament member (Pajhwak Afghan News, December 29, 2005). Currently, Mullah Dadullah is one of the most wanted men by the United States and, as announced by Mullah Omar, he is a member of the 10-man leading council of Taliban insurgents. He is able to evade capture because of his friendship with mujahideen commanders and due to the support he receives from his Kakar tribe in the southern provinces of Afghanistan and Pakistan. http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369933 -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
