Taliban Shadow Gov't Pervades Afghanistan

Resurgent Force Controls Much Of Countryside, Reaching Close To Kabul; U.S. To Boost Troop Numbers

(AP) 

"Three years ago the Taliban had no control in Afghanistan. They were spread too thin. Now they have power. They have soldiers. They have governors, district chiefs and judges. It is a very big difference from what you saw in 2003 or even 2005," said Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan.

The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, which provides safety information to aid organizations operating in the country, said that by a conservative estimate, anti-government militants operate in more than 35 percent of the country, and that the number is growing.

In 2007 militants attacked foreign troops only in small formations, worried that bombing runs by fighter aircraft would result in huge battlefield losses. But over the last year, that has changed.

Recently, some 300 militants massed for an attack in the Bala Murghab district of Badghis province. About 250 insurgents took part in an attack on a government center in Paktika province in late November. And earlier this year some 200 militants attacked a small U.S. outpost in the east and killed nine soldiers.

An hour's drive south of Kabul in Logar, the Taliban took over the district of Baraki Barak just before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in September. They rented shops and armed men wandered the streets, residents say.

They ordered barbers with TV sets to throw them away and kicked the satellite dishes on some houses to the ground.

After Friday prayers on the 25th day of Ramadan, Taliban fighters announced they were going to implement sharia law by their conservative and punitive reading of Islam. They warned that anyone working for the government would be considered a spy and killed.

"Everyone with links to the government fled the area," said a shopkeeper in Baraki Barak who spoke only on condition he wasn't identified for fear of the Taliban. "The people are very afraid of the Taliban, but if anyone shows any kind of reaction, the Taliban will mark that man and say, 'You are a spy of the foreigners and infidels."'

In Helmand province, perhaps Afghanistan's most militant-infested region, Mullah Mohammad Qassim was appointed as the Taliban police chief last spring. Qassim said each of Helmand's 14 districts has a Taliban government leader and police chief, and courts across the province implement strict Islamic or sharia law.

The Taliban in Helmand have no relations with Karzai's government, he said. "We are more powerful than them. Even most of the capital of Helmand is under our control."

Every week Taliban judges hold court after Friday prayers, said tribal elder Mohammad Aslam from the district of Sangin. In the Kajaki area of Helmand, the site of a large U.S.-funded dam project, militants tax houses with electricity, he said. Trucks using the highways are also taxed.

Aslam estimates that 90 percent of people in Helmand side with the Taliban. Echoing a common complaint of Afghans across the country, Mohammad Aslam labeled the Afghan government "corrupt."

"No one can trust them," he said of government officials. "Whenever we have a problem, we go to the Taliban and the Taliban court."

[toolmangler-2009]

Afghanistan is firmly in the 17th century. They do not want to come out because to do so means that they must acknowledge their Women as being human. The men of Afghanistan are too scared of the women to ever let that happen. They also do not want science taught because they think that science proves that there is no God. (that is because they worship ''Allah''). My GOD (Jehova) is proved over and over by science and his word proves that the scientists are learning more and more about him all the time. This conflict is about fear of losing control of their women. There is no logical reason to fear science.

[babooph]

With the rich having their decade long massive tax cut,what has this great victory over Islam cost me in dollar terms?Besides the Bush destruction of the bill of rights at home ,that is[with great help from the "lobbied" congress& silent supreme court].

[nincomp]

Taliban were a better government than the restaurant owner Karzai that the Bush regime brought from Boston and made him president of Afghanistan

[mljohns00]

Mission accomplished.