The Dominion - Chris Sands

Les Talibans regagne la faveur des Afghans

hillarybain — Sun, 13 May 2007 11:30:13 +0000

À Kandahar, où l’insécurité règne, les américains perdent peu à peu le soutien de la population

Quiconque tient à la vie évite de sortir le soir à Kandahar. Dans cette ville, véritable coupe-gorge, les chances de survie diminuent au coucher du soleil.

Subissant quotidiennement cette situation d’insécurité, la population s’exaspère et désigne les coupables. Plus de cinq ans après les promesses de paix, de prospérité et de liberté, nombreux sont ceux qui souhaitent le retour des Talibans.

« Les États-unis se disent démocratiques, modernes et possesseur du savoir, mais ils nous mystifient de tant de manières. Comment pouvons-nous leur pardonner ? », s’indigne Faiz Mohammed Karigar, un résident de Kandahar.

« Si je m’assois à une table avec un Américain et il me dit qu’il nous a apporté la liberté, je vais lui répondre qu’il nous a trompé : “ Tu ne nous a pas apporté la liberté “. »

Alors que le monde commence à prendre la pleine mesure de l’horreur en Irak, l’Afghanistan sombre dans le même bourbier infernal. Chaque semaine, la liste des morts s’allonge dans une guerre que le Premier ministre du Canada, Stephen Harper, considère sur le point d’être remportée.

« Quand les Talibans étaient ici, je me suis enfui jusqu’à la frontière iranienne, mais je n’ai jamais été inquiet pour ma famille », assure M. Karigar. « Chaque minute durant les trois dernières années, j’ai été très inquiet. Peut-être les Américains vont venir chez moi ce soir, toucher ma femme, toucher mes enfants et m’arrêter. »

« J’ai déjà décidé de me tenir debout, de les affronter. Je vais me dresser contre eux même si je les vois dans la rue. Je vais me battre contre eux avec ma langue, avec mes mains, avec des fusils. Je vais me battre contre eux de toutes les manières possibles. »

C’est au sud, dans la province de Kandahar, que le mouvement Taliban est né, et c’est là qu’il est revenu à la vie, régénéré par la colère des Afghans envers les troupes étrangères.

Quand le Mollah Mohammed Omar était au pouvoir, les Afghans pouvaient marcher en sécurité dans la rue, tant qu’ils souscrivaient à l’interprétation stricte de la Loi islamique. Maintenant, une simple sortie au marché est risquée.

« C’est exact, [le président Hamid] Karzai en appelle toujours à la démocratie et assure que tout va bien, mais ce ne sont que des mots », proteste Maria Farah, une mère de cinq enfants. « Si vous rencontrez des femmes, leurs visages sont très tristes. Je ne dis pas seulement deux ou trois femmes. Tous nos visages sont très tristes. Si vous allez dans les maisons, vous verrez la même expression sur le visage des maris car ils n’arrivent pas à trouver d’emploi et s’inquiètent pour la sécurité et l’avenir des enfants. »

« Je ne peux seulement parler de la ville de Kandahar. Je crois que la vie sous les Talibans était très bonne. Si nous n’avions pas le ventre plein, nous pouvions au moins obtenir un peu de nourriture et puis aller dormir. Si nous sortions quelque part, il n’y avait aucun problème », ajoute-t-elle.

« Qu’en est-il maintenant ? Si nous sortons, nous ne savons pas si nous rentrerons à la maison sain et sauf. S’il y a une explosion et que les Américains passent par là, ils vont ouvrir le feu sur tout le monde. Les problèmes de sécurité sont considérables ici. Si une personne roule sur l’autoroute, elle sera arrêtée et décapitée. Si les femmes sortent de la maison la nuit tombée, les gens les regardent avec de la haine dans les yeux. »

La femme de 33 ans termine notre conversation par une simple requête : « Demandez à [George W.] Bush de venir ici une seule fois pour rencontrer des femmes qui veulent lui arracher la peau ».

Peu de temps après leur arrivée à Kandahar, au milieu des années 1990, les Talibans ont apporté la paix à une région jusque là dirigée par des seigneurs de guerre rivaux.

Aujourd’hui, c’est une des régions les plus dangereuses du pays ; les violences politique et criminelle y répandent la peur à travers la population. Dans cette province du sud, les quelques 2 500 soldats canadiens font face aux attaques-suicides, aux échanges de coups de feu et aux bombardements routiers de plus en plus fréquents. Les pertes en vies humaines augmentent dans les deux camps armés.

Mais quelle que soit la cause réelle des effusions de sang, les Afghans blâment presque toujours les soldats étrangers et les forces de sécurité locales. Un grand nombre d’entre eux considèrent la présence des États-Unis dans leur pays comme une occupation militaire, ne faisant souvent peu ou pas de distinction entre les différentes nations engagées dans la mission dirigée par l’OTAN.

« Peu importe si une route a été construite », commente Haji Abdul Rahman, un aîné tribal. « Si vous construisez une route et tuez en même temps, quel est le bénéfice ? »

« Tout le monde est voleur. Je te garantis que si tu t’assois dans ma voiture et que je t’emmène faire un tour, aucun Taliban ne va te prendre. Mais je ne peux rien te garantir de la police. Si on t’arrête, on va te voler ton argent et ta caméra. »

Son ami, Abdul Hamid, partage ses inquiétudes. Ses six fils sont sans emploi et il croit que le jihad est la seule possibilité d’avenir pour l’Afghanistan.

« La situation est bien pire que la période d’occupation russe », dit l’homme de 71 ans. « À cette époque, peut-être étions-nous inquiets qu’un missile s’écrase sur notre maison, mais nous n’avions pas peur qu’ils viennent eux-mêmes dans notre maison. »

« Un de mes fils voulait se joindre aux militaires. L’idée ne me plaisait pas. Je lui ai dit que notre pays est détraqué, que tout le monde est voleur et qu’il faut se tenir debout et se battre pour la vérité. »

Panjwayi est une place forte des Talibans dans l’ouest de la province de Kandahar. En mai dernier, les forces menées par les États-Unis ont attaqué par voie aérienne les présumés insurgés du district.

Les officiels américains ont annoncé la mort de 80 militants, mais les villageois présents sur les lieux affirment que nombre de victimes étaient des civils.

Mawlawi Abdul Hadid, un homme de 45 ans, affirme que dix-huit membres de sa famille ont péri lors du raid. Selon lui, une petite fille de deux ans figurait sur la liste de la trentaine de victimes innocentes.

« Au début, vous n’aviez qu’un ennemi. Puis vous vous en êtes fait deux, puis trois, et maintenant moi aussi je me lève contre vous », déclare-t-il. « Vous avez fait de moi votre ennemi et je vais me lever contre vous. »

« Les Talibans sont les fils de ce pays : mon fils est un Talib et ton fils est un Talib », ajoute M. Hadid en faisant des gestes vers un autre homme.

« Les Talibans se battent pour nos droits, l’humanité et la vérité. Jour après jour les Américains perdent des appuis et beaucoup de gens soutiennent désormais les Talibans. »

Quand on lui demande combien de temps va prendre la défaite les soldats étrangers, M. Hadid donne une réponse qu’on entend de plus en plus à travers l’Afghanistan.

« Dans l’Islam, nous ne savons pas ce qui va arriver demain », dit-il. « Mais nous savons une chose : Dieu les a amenés ici, et Dieu les fera partir. »

Traduit par Loca Noregreb

Afghanistan

Kandahar Faces Daily Misery

dru — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:46:44 +0000

"You did not bring us freedom," say residents of Afghanistan's southern province

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN --Anyone who values their life tries to avoid going out after dark in Kandahar. This place is a death trap at the best of times and the odds of survival plummet with the sun.

Security is almost non-existent here. More than five years after they were promised peace, prosperity and liberty, many now want the Taliban to come back.

“The Americans say they are democratic, modern and know everything, but they fuck us in so many different ways,” Faiz Mohammed Karigar, a local resident said. “How can we forgive them? How can we forgive the Americans?

“If I sit at a table with an American and he says he has brought us freedom, I will tell him he has fucked us. 'You did not bring us freedom.'”

As the world starts to acknowledge the full horror of the present state of Iraq, Afghanistan slips towards the same state. With each passing week the list of the dead grows in a war Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper insists is being won.

“When the Taliban were here I escaped to the border of Iran, but I was never worried about my family,” Karigar told me. “Every single minute of the last three years I have been very worried. Maybe tonight the Americans will come to my house, touch my wife, touch my children and arrest me.

“I have already decided to stand against them. I will stand against them even when I see them on the road. I will fight them with my tongue, my hands, with guns – I will fight them in any way I can.”

The southern province of Kandahar is where the Taliban movement was born and it is here that it has come back to life, resuscitated by the widespread anger Afghans feel towards the foreign troops in their midst.

When Mullah Mohammed Omar was in power people could walk the streets safely as long as they complied with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Now a simple outing to the market is a risk.

“That’s right, [President Hamid] Karzai is always shouting about democracy and saying everything is fine, but it’s just words,” Maria Farah, mother of five, said. “If you meet women their faces are very sad. I don’t just mean two or three women; all our faces are very sad. And if you go to houses you will see the same faces on husbands as well because they cannot get jobs, they worry about security and they worry about their children.

“I can only talk about Kandahar city. I think life under the Taliban was very good. If we did not have a full stomach we could at least get some food and go to sleep. If we went out somewhere there were no problems,” she continued.

“How about now? If we go out we don’t know if we will arrive home or not. If there is an explosion and the Americans are passing they will just open fire on everyone. The security problems are too much here. If someone is driving on the highway they will be stopped and beheaded. If women leave the house when it is getting dark people look at them with a hatred in their eyes.”

The 33-year-old finished our conversation with a simple request.

“Ask [George W.] Bush to come here once and meet with women who want to tear his skin off,” she said.

Soon after the Taliban first surfaced in Kandahar during the mid 1990s they brought peace to an area previously ruled by rival warlords.

Today this is one of the most dangerous places in the country, with political and criminal violence spreading fear among the population. There are approximately 2,500 Canadian troops based here and casualties on all sides are mounting, with suicide attacks, firefights and roadside bombings increasingly common in the southern province.

But whatever the real cause of the bloodshed, Afghans almost always blame the foreign soldiers and local security forces. Many of them simply regard this as a US occupation, often seeing little or no difference between the various countries that make up the NATO-led mission.

“Forget that a road has been built,” Haji Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder, said. “If a road has been built and you are killed, what good is it?

“Everyone is a robber. I guarantee if you sit in my car and we go for a drive no Taliban will take you away. But I cannot guarantee you [the same] about the police. If they stop you they will steal your money and your camera.”

His friend, Abdul Hamid, shared similar concerns. All of his six sons are unemployed and he believes jihad is he only way forward for Afghanistan.

“It’s much, much worse than when the Russians were here,” the 71-year-old said. “At that time maybe we were scared a rocket would land on our house, but we were not scared of them coming into our house.

“One of my sons wanted to join the military. I was not happy about that. I told him this country is fucked up, everyone is a robber and you have to make a stand and fight for the truth.”

Panjwayi is a Taliban stronghold in the west of Kandahar province. Last May US-led forces conducted an air strike on alleged insurgents in the district.

American officials claimed as many as 80 militants might have been killed, but villagers at the scene said a number of the casualties were civilians.

Mawlawi Abdul Hadid told me 18 members of his family died in the raid. He said 30 innocent people were killed in all, the youngest of them a two-year-old girl.

“In the beginning you had only one enemy. Then you made two, then three and now I also stand against you,” he declared. “You made me your enemy as well and I will stand against you.

“The Taliban are the sons of this country: my son is a Talib and your son is a Talib,” the 45-year-old added, gesturing towards another man in the room.

“The Taliban are fighting for our rights, they are fighting for humanity and they are fighting for the truth. Day by day the Americans are losing support, but lots of people support the Taliban.”

Asked how long it would take to defeat the foreign soldiers, Hadid gave the kind of response increasingly heard across Afghanistan.

“In Islam we don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” he said. “But one thing we do know is that God brought them here and God will take them away.”

Abdul Hamid and Haji Abdul Rahman

The Taliban's Past and Future

dru — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:11:51 +0000

An interview with Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, former Taliban foreign minister

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--There was a time in recent memory when the people here had nothing but God and an AK-47 to keep them safe from harm. In the early 1990s, Afghanistan was imploding and few in the West seemed to care. Those with power abused it; those with wealth flaunted it; and everyone else lived with the knowledge that each morning could be their last.

Back then, Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil was just another young man whose father had been killed during the Soviet occupation. He needed a reason to hope and one day he found it. By his mid-20s he was at the forefront of a movement that first stabilised the country, then helped bring war to America and ultimately changed the way Islam was perceived across the world.

"At the time I started with the Taliban, every village had its own government and very dangerous issues threatened Afghanistan," he said. "Every government was making a new currency, every government had its own ministry of defence, everyone had their own private airports.

"For the purpose of stopping the division of the country and solving the problems inside the country -- improving the transportation system and saving innocent people from warlords and their rockets -- the Taliban movement was set up. And a thousand people like me joined it. We had no other purpose, it was just to give the country freedom. We did not represent any other government and we did not stand for anyone else."

These kind of impoverished, deeply religious young men still found across Afghanistan formed the Taliban. They were initially welcomed as saviours by a population tired of having old Mujahideen commanders kill and kidnap at will.

"We wanted a peaceful Afghanistan and good relations with other countries," Mutawakil said. "Now people think the Taliban wanted to make a country full of terrorists, but we didn’t want that."

Less than two years after capturing Kandahar, they rolled into Kabul, bringing a fragile peace to the devastated city and imposing their strict interpretation of the Qur’an on its people.

With Mutawakil working as spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and later as foreign minister, the new government banned music and kite flying, sanctioned capital punishment and forced all men to grow beards.

"We hoped our laws would bring freedom to everyone in every part of their life, but we did not have lots of facilities," Mutawakil said. "Nowadays lots of countries are giving donations to Afghanistan, but at that time they were only wagging their fingers at us and complaining."

The most notorious edicts were aimed at the female population. Women were not allowed out alone and when they were in public, they had to cover their entire bodies. Girls were stopped from going to school.

"We are against co-education, but we are happy with separate education," Mutawakil insisted. "For example, in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, people are studying separately, which is according to Islamic law. If women wear the hijab, they can go to school."

After capturing the south and Kabul, the Taliban pushed onwards in an effort to establish control over the whole country. A movement of rival warlords known as the Northern Alliance put up fierce resistance and appealed for outside support in its struggle against the new government. Untold numbers of people were maimed and killed by both sides, many of them civilians.

But the West only really began to take notice of what was happening when Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, a country he had helped liberate from Soviet occupation while fighting alongside other CIA-sponsored jihadis.

The Saudi was now regarded as a terrorist by Washington and he soon became a close ally of the Taliban, encouraging more foreign militants to come and join those who had remained in the country since the 1980s.

"We did not hate them, we had a sort of love in our hearts for them. But it was not worth the price for us -- it was not worth putting our lives in danger, which is what happened," Mutawakil said.

"The only solution was for the Arabs to live here quietly, safely, as immigrants. They should have lived here as immigrants, not as fighters."

Mutawakil denied the Taliban had any prior knowledge of 9/11 and he believes the US may already have been planning to overthrow the regime before New York and Washington were hit.

Four months after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan started, the foreign minister handed himself over to the local authorities. He was held for a night and then transferred to American custody, where he remained for most of the next two years.

It is not easy to meet Mutawakil now. Private security guards stand watch outside his home and he claims the government keeps track of his every move.

On a freezing cold January morning, he agreed to this exclusive interview. A friendly, bespectacled man, he talked in Pashto for almost two hours about his life and the difficulties Afghanistan faces.

"All of our problems were not solved under the Taliban," he said. "But the interesting thing from that time, and lots of people are remembering this now, is the tight security there was in the country.

"When the new regime came, people had lots of hope, but one day they found out nothing was happening and they had even lost the tight security they had under the Taliban."

About 4,000 people are estimated to have died in the insurgency last year, a body count roughly four times higher than in 2005 and the worst since the invasion. Indiscriminate suicide attacks are common now, as are reports of NATO-led forces killing civilians in airstrikes and shootings. The Taliban already control areas close to Kabul city and further violence is expected following the winter.

Mutawakil believes the only way to stop the situation escalating into a nationwide jihad is for the Karzai administration and its allies to open high-level talks with the insurgents.

"Now the foreigners think all the Taliban are terrorists," he said. "I think inside the Afghan government, there are people who are far worse criminals than the Taliban; they have committed many crimes.

"So the best way is to forgive everyone. It’s better to start negotiations. Of course there will be problems, as the foreigners don’t like the Taliban and call them terrorists and the Taliban don’t like the foreigners, but the best way is to start negotiations. By negotiations we can move forward step by step.

"The biggest problem now faced by the world is that it does not know the exact definition of terrorism: who is a terrorist; where are the terrorists. I think that terrorism can be in every society, it’s not unique to any tribe, to any religion, to any person -- you can have it everywhere."

But with NATO determined to defeat the insurgency by force, corrupt warlords still holding the reins of power in the government and more heavy fighting due in the spring, it looks like the kind of anger that first launched the Taliban will explode into the open once again.

"There is no hope for the people -- their hearts are broken," Mutawakil said.

Canadian Solider in Kandahar City

Corruption, Impunity Pervade Afghan Government

dru — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:15:42 +0000

Police part of insecurity problem: victims, human rights groups

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--Zohra Madadi represented everything the new Afghanistan should have been about. She was a young, intelligent woman who believed in democracy and dreamed of becoming a politician.

Then someone kidnapped the 16-year-old, stuck a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Her dead body was dumped in the wilderness.

“She was a very open-minded girl and she studied very hard. She didn’t care about TV, she just listened to the news and then kept busy with her studies until 11 o’clock at night,” said her father, Abdul Hussain.

“She kept telling me: ‘Dad, don’t worry about the current situation in Afghanistan. One day it will be good here.’”

Hussain is not expecting justice because he knows that is not the way things work, not when the chief suspect is a leading member of the intelligence services.

“They blame the Taliban, but it’s actually the police doing these things,” he said. “I am not frightened. Because I have lost my daughter, life and death mean nothing to me.”

Zohra lived in the southern province of Ghazni and her corpse was dumped there last summer, on the road to Kandahar. She might have been murdered because her older sister is involved in local politics, or perhaps it was just because she caught the eye of the wrong man.

Whatever the reason, no one should be surprised that an official meant to enforce the law is accused of violating it in the cruellest of ways.

Sayed Hussain was arrested in Kabul for allegedly bringing teenage girls back to his house for sex. Rather than go through the legal system, the police simply beat him to death. Ten months after the event, his elderly-looking wife, Bibi Gul, cried as she remembered what happened.

“They said, ‘Let me tell you the bad news. Just go to the hospital and you will see the dead body of your husband.’ When I complained that he was alive when he was taken, they said I had signed a document that said he had a heart attack,” she recalled.

The Dominion has seen photographs of Sayed Hussain’s blackened corpse, along with other pictures showing the results of police abuse on a number of prisoners.

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) recorded 290 cases of torture by the security forces between June 2005 and June 2006.

That is 200 less than the year before, but it is still more than enough to stoke the widespread public anger now fuelling the Taliban-led insurgency. Talk to people on the street and they will tell you they do not trust the police. They will tell you uniforms stand for violence, bribery and corruption.

“There is not a very strong rule of law and the government is not keen to follow the law. Also, in the criminal court there is not a very strong and clear code for prosecuting police action,” said Ahmad Zia Langari, a commissioner at AIHRC.

“The main problem in Afghanistan is the culture of impunity. The government is not powerful. When a governor, for example, has committed violence or he has been very corrupt, he is not prosecuted. The president just changes his position.”

A joint report released last month by the Pentagon and the US State Department was hugely critical of the American-trained Afghan police. It said the force was ‘far from adequate’ at carrying out even conventional responsibilities, with illiterate recruits and pervasive corruption cited as some of the key problems. The report also revealed that it is unclear how many officers are actually on duty.

Mohammed Yahya’s lower right leg looks like it has been ripped off by an animal, with bone sticking out from the bloody flesh above his severed foot. The photograph showing this wound was taken in 2005, soon after he refused to pay the police in Kabul a bribe.

“They came to me and said, ‘Stop working. We will go away and come back and if you want to work, give us some money.’ Then when they came back, they started beating four old people who were working with us,” the 19-year-old said.

“I told them if I had money I would not be working here, then they opened fire. I can’t remember anything from that moment on.”

An entire magazine from a Kalashnikov was emptied into Mohammed, with one bullet shot into his left leg and the rest blowing away the bottom half of his right leg. Although the policemen who attacked him have been jailed, his family still regret giving up their lives as refugees in Iran.

“Everyone in the government is proud of themselves, but who cares about the poor people?” lamented his mother, Zahra Azimi.

When The Dominion contacted the Ministry of Interior, it was referred to Colonel Haq Nawaz Haqyar. He acknowledged some police officers were still under the control of warlords and happy to commit human rights abuses. But he insisted he would never sanction torture.

“Whatever the chief of police says and does, his staff will do the same. Everything depends on him. The Taliban tortured me and it had a very bad effect on my mind,” he said.

“Once a week I talk to my staff about human rights and respecting the people. I tell them, ‘If you care about human rights, the people will co-operate because you will have left them with good memories. But if you torture them, they will never join you; they will join outsiders like the Taliban.’”

Last summer, the police in Ghazni beat Rahullah Amiri’s 22-year-old brother with their guns and some kind of cable.

“Two or three of his teeth were missing, his nose was broken and his back was as black as your coat,” said Rahullah.

“I can’t describe my feeling; it’s very hard. But let’s say at that time I hated the Karzai government and I decided to join the Taliban. When the Taliban were here everything was okay. At least when they arrested people, they had allegations against them. They were not arresting people without any reason. Now all the countries of the world are here -- the Americans are here, the UK is here -- how can this happen?

“Even now I don’t know why they beat him. The only thing I can think of is that it was because of our low culture and the culture of war. For three decades we have been at war.”

With the words flowing from him, he continued: “Please pass my voice, my words, onto your officials, your newspapers. Tell the world you are coming here, you are losing your young people [soldiers] in the fighting and it’s a waste because the government is nothing. Karzai has failed, everything has been lost. Five years have passed, there is no security here; there are a lot of explosions, a lot of suicide attacks.

“So what can the people do? My brother was beaten so I want to give up my life here, I want to sell my factory and leave this country because there is no security.

I am not a jihadi and that means I can’t get a high position in the government, so I want to leave the country. I want to tell the world Karzai has failed, it’s a waste of time.

“There is only one way for us now: leave the country or join the Taliban. I really feel like joining the Taliban and fighting the government.”

Mohammed Yahya

Shia in Kabul Preparing for War

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 05:18:22 +0000

Residents warn sectarian violence is just around the corner

This trash-strewn Kabul suburb is dotted with giant furnaces used for baking bricks. Yet not so long ago the smoke coming from these chimneys carried the stench of charred human flesh. People were cooked alive here in the 1990s simply because they belonged to the wrong ethnic group or fought for the wrong commander.

The men who murdered them are not the insurgents NATO-led forces have been struggling against. This is a Shiite neighbourhood and its residents are staunch opponents of the Taliban. But after five years of trying to eke out an honest living from Afghanistan’s shattered economy, they have had enough and are once again waiting for war.

"Yes, soon the jihad will start. I will fight against the Taliban and the infidels, the foreigners. If your stomach is empty, of course you will do something and what we will do is fight," said Yahya, a local labourer.

"I will kill [foreign] civilians and not soldiers. There won't be any soldiers on the ground; they will all have disappeared and you will just see them in the sky in their planes. But I will kill civilians because they have stolen all our money. All the money that's been given to Afghanistan goes in their pockets.

"Of course I will kill you if you come back to see me when the jihad starts. That happens when there is fighting. I have seen men kill their own brothers."

Strip away all the NATO talk of winning hearts and minds and it becomes clear the nation is approaching meltdown.

As the insurgency grows stronger, so does the fear and anger among the Shiite Hazara community. Following a civil war in the early to mid 1990s, they faced a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing under the Sunni-extremist Taliban regime. They are not about to let that happen again.

Qurban Hussain told The Dominion that the arrival of international troops had helped save his people from further bloodshed. But he also claimed a new wave of internecine violence lies just around the corner.

"At first, the four per cent of Hazaras who are rich will leave the country. But the others will stay here and the Taliban will start killing and arresting them. Those people who have got small houses will then have to sell them to get their relatives released," he said.

The 32-year-old was speaking in what was once a notorious jail run by Shiites. Men from Afghanistan's two largest ethnic groups, the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, were frequently imprisoned, tortured and murdered between these walls.

"The next civil war will be twice as bad," said Hussain.

The building is now a warehouse and few signs of the horrors remain. One room still lies in ruins from a rocket attack and on a nearby door there is a child-like drawing of an obese man carrying a gun and a knife.

"The last civil war was horrible," said Khoda Dad Attay, as he sat beside Hussain. "Even if we were at home or at work the rockets were raining down and killing us."

He is now preparing for the next round of carnage.

"It's 100 per cent certain we will fight the Taliban. We will fight them to the best of our ability," he said.

Afghanistan's Shiites are found mainly among the Hazara, an ethnic group believed to have descended from Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes. Their heartland is in the province of Bamiyan, where they were massacred by the Taliban regime.

Haji Mehdawi, a former militia commander, said most of them had surrendered their weapons after the 2001 invasion. Now they want them back.

"We just want peace because we are hoping the government will build schools, will build hospitals, will improve our economic situation. But to be honest, nothing has been done," he told The Dominion.

"Many times I have met the Americans in Bagram, and I have met the Canadians. I have said, 'Give us guns and we will fight against the Taliban. If anything happens we will defend our tribes and families. Make us an army, give us guns and a salary, then we can defend our tribes and families.'

"We will fight against the Taliban, but we need the foreigners to give us guns. We believe that the foreigners are the water of life for us."

When asked why he did not enlist in the Afghan National Army (ANA), Mehdawi's response spoke volumes about the deep hatred that exists between the country's different ethnic groups.

"If you join the ANA you have to sign a contract. We want to do it as a community, so if someone has a problem they can leave. Our standards are different to theirs," he said.

"Most of our people believe if we join the ANA the Pashtuns will ask us to go to the front line, then from behind they will shoot us in the back."

Qurban Hussain

Yahya

Afghan MPs Predict "Very Big War"

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:43:50 +0000

Civilian deaths, corruption, occupying troops leading to "jihad" against foreigners, say leaders

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--As a former senior Taliban commander and associate of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Abdul Salaam Rocketi was a shining example of the warlords who seemed to be rejecting violence and embracing Afghanistan's new democracy.

But the MP for the southern province of Zabul now typifies the anger and despair raging through this blood-soaked country.

In a series of interviews with The Dominion, a number of Afghan politicians said a mass uprising against NATO-led forces will soon begin, driving out the foreign troops and igniting a civil war.

"When the Taliban came along, I gave everything to them because I wanted the country to improve and the people to be safe," said Rocketi. "Then when the current government came along, I gave everything to them because I thought they would make the country better. But I regret that.

"Everything is gone now, we have nothing. I regret it not because I am no longer with the Taliban, but because this government does not have the power to improve our country.

"It's getting worse and worse and worse. I don't have any hope. But whatever is happening now, the people can't complain. If they make a noise the local governor will say they are Taliban or Al-Qaeda and get them sent to Bagram."

Rocketi -- whose name derives from his famed ability with a Rocket-Propelled Grenade launcher -- said pressure is building as his country slips backwards.

"I know, I am sure, that soon a very big war will start between the foreigners and the population," he explained.

The parliamentary elections of September 18, 2005, were hailed as a key event in Afghanistan's transition from a war-torn nation ruled by Islamic extremists to a peaceful and moderate democracy.

However, the Taliban-led insurgency has grown rapidly during the last year and MPs believe the rebellion is an accurate reflection of public anger.

While all militants are usually portrayed as isolated radicals, the reality is not so simple. Fierce anti-American and anti-NATO rhetoric can be heard almost everywhere in this country now. Even moderates who support the presence of foreign troops are predicting catastrophe.

With his well pressed suit and smart tie, Mohammad Hashem Watanwall, MP for the southern province of Uruzgan, would look perfectly at home in the House of Commons. But his vision of the future is bleak.

"When the current government came along I gave everything to them because I thought they would make the country better. But I regret that." -- Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, MP for Zabul. © 2006 Chris Sands

"There is a big fire under the earth. It's like a volcano and soon it will explode," he warned. "It will explode if everything continues like now; the corruption, the bad security, the bombing of civilians by coalition forces. Soon it will explode and people will stand up in the name of jihad and martyrdom if there are no big changes.

"Now in parliament the MPs are saying 'Forget about Pakistan and the Taliban; why are the foreigners here?'

"They are saying a thousand-headed dragon is here and it's the foreign armies. Just imagine, if the MPs are saying that in an official place, what will a simple person in a village be saying?"

He added: "Now in parliament they say if you kill a foreigner, a non-Muslim, and then you yourself are killed, you will become a martyr and go straight to paradise. They see no difference between the military or civilians."

The insurgency that overpowered Soviet troops and Kabul's puppet communist regime began with small rebel movements. It developed into a nationwide struggle during which Mujahideen battled against the Russians, local government forces and each other.

That occupation ended in 1989, but peace remained elusive and between 1992 and 1996, a brutal civil war raged between Afghanistan's different ethnic groups and political factions.

Watanwall predicted any new full-scale jihad would have the same result. "Of course some tribes will fight each other," he said. "They will say: you are Pashtun, I am Tajik; I am Tajik, you are Hazara; you are Shia, I am Pashtun. The civil war will start because of differences of skin, differences of language, differences of religion."

"Hazaras say they don't have enough positions in the government; Uzbeks say that, Tajiks say that, even Pashtuns say that and they have Karzai as President. Now it's ideological and with words, but soon it will turn to violence.

"I believe if the international forces and the government don't take any strong steps then soon it will start and it could get as bad as Iraq."

Ahmad Shah Khan Achekzai is MP for Kandahar, where Canadian troops are based. He joined Rocketi in demanding that Pashtuns -- the ethnic group from which the Taliban draw their core support -- be given more positions in government. He also launched into a tirade against the foreign troops.

"The population hates the government, hates the Americans and hates their friends because they are all liars," he said.

"Soon the jihad will start, that's right. The Americans and the coalition came to Afghanistan by way of the United Nations, but when they go into people's houses and search them, it's unacceptable. They are acting against Islam and they are attacking innocent people.

"There will be jihad, I am 100 per cent sure. It's against our culture, it's against Islam -- if they want to come to our houses, they need permission."

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: "If the jihad starts, of course I will join it -- it's natural."

Afghanistan correspondent Chris Sands interviews Afghan MPs, and hears predictions of a "very big war" and jihad against foreign troops.