From: "mart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [pttp] Fw: [MESN] Bring back Taliban ?- NYT 12-28-01 Subject: [MESN] Bring back Taliban? - NYT 12-28-01 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/28/international/asia/28WARL.html NY Times, December 28, 2001 Afghan Warlords and Bandits Are Back in Business By NORIMITSU ONISHI KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Dec. 27 - Abdul Aziz found himself driving an 18-passenger bus one recent afternoon on southern Afghanistan's main highway, on a particular stretch that is the no man's land between the fiefs of two rival warlords. Suddenly, five men in a Toyota Landcruiser, armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, began chasing the bus and firing. One bullet fatally struck a passenger in the back of the head, as Mr. Aziz kept driving and eventually eluded the gunmen. In Dilaram, a town 150 miles west of here in the bailiwick of the Herat-based warlord Ismail Khan, Mr. Aziz reported the attack to the local authorities. "But they told me it was not their responsibility to secure the road and told me to go to Gul Agha," Mr. Aziz, 30, recalled, mentioning Gul Agha Shirzai, the warlord based here in Kandahar. As warlords have carved out chunks of Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, the lawlessness that gave rise to the strict Islamic movement in the mid-1990's has begun to spread, once again, across this country. The United States-led military campaign that began on Oct. 7 has succeeded in eradicating most of the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, but it has returned to power nearly all of the same warlords who had misruled the country in the days before the Taliban. The warlords have all pledged loyalty to the interim government in Kabul. But the government is dominated by ethnic Tajiks from one division of the Northern Alliance. It is headed by the one fresh face in an old roster, Hamid Karzai, a previously little- known figure nationally who controls no real army of his own and no territory, but was handpicked by the United States. As power has shifted back to the regional warlords away from Kabul, the absence of a strong central authority has brought back anarchy to southern Afghanistan. Bus drivers from Kandahar said soldiers at checkpoints, allied with bandits, were robbing and killing travelers. Many buses were still unaccounted for, they said. One particular stretch of road, into the southwestern province of Nimruz, has become so dangerous that bus drivers at the station were now refusing to go there. "The situation is worse than it was before the Taliban came to power," said Muhammad Zahir, 38, a ticket collector for the Kandahar-Herat line. "Before they were taking cars and money. But now they are also killing people." :----------------------------------------------- Middle East Socialists Network (MESN) Unless indicated otherwise, all statements published on this forum represent the views of their authors and not necessarily those of MESN. To join MESN, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view our website, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MESN _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
