Ismail Khan, a legendary commander of Herat during the Afghan Jihad days, is now ready to move on to the southern Afghan city, Kandahar, considered the spiritual capital of Taliban.Taking advantage of the panic and confusion of a "falling city," they intend to stage a "rebellion" against Mulla Omar, the self-declared Amirul Momineen (commander of the faithful). The News further has it from highly reliable sources that in case the attempt to topple Mulla Omar succeeds, the surfaced faction of "moderate Taliban" will "invite" Zahir Shah, the former king, to return and lead the process of "reconstructing his country" by setting up a "legitimate and broad-based government through holding of Loya Jirga (the grand assembly)," a traditional mechanism for evolving national consensus in Afghanistan.
Military movements to force the Taliban leadership surrender Osama and accept a national government in Kabul have begun with some major fighting forces already positioning themselves with the help of the US and other allied troops. Pushing by some intelligence operatives of a European country.
Unconfirmed reports even claim that some American commandos have already engaged "the Taliban outposts in South East of Afghanistan in a deadly way on Saturday night, to soften Ismail Khan's passage to Kandahar." At least two prominent ministers of the Taliban regime and the governor of an important province of "the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan" have promised to come out into the open in support of Ismail Khan, if he appears successfully getting close to Kandahar.
The US president, we are told, has approved the said plan at a meeting he had with national security advisers at Camp David Saturday morning. Herat and Ismail Khan are gaining importance, vis-a-vis the game plans of "war on terror," was also indicated through the photo officially released by the White House on this meeting. Bush and his aides were shown seated around a table on which a map of Afghanistan had been laid out. CIA Director George Tenet could be seen in the same picture, gesturing towards an area in the west of Afghanistan, near its border with Iran.
The White House also leaked a document to media on Sunday. It outlined the US policy towards Taliban. In part, it reads: "The Taliban do not represent the Afghan people, who never elected or chose the Taliban faction...We do not want to choose who rules Afghanistan, but we will assist those who seek a peaceful, economically developing Afghanistan, free of terrorism...We will support the Afghan people in the future. They deserve peace and stability, freedom from foreign terrorists and a government that represents all Afghans. We call on others to join us so we can help Afghans to recover and rebuild."
On the face of it, the leaked document can be read as if saying yes to the forces of Northern Alliance, who are dying to take over Kabul with fresh supplies of Russian weapons and the provision of intelligence and air cover by the Americans. But the fine print of this documents is actually addressed to Ismail Khan and his potential collaborators from within the Taliban movement. Reliable sources told The News in Quetta 10 days ago, that Washington had fully realised the "limits" of the Northern Alliance. With help from the Americans and their allies, they can take over Kabul anytime. But their reaching there does not promise a stable government for Afghanistan. There were rather strong apprehensions that the "foreign-sponsored" victory of Northern Alliance could compel the Pushtoons of Afghanistan to stick around Taliban with a bitter vengeance.
"It's from Kandahar," insisted a European ambassador while talking to this correspondent, "that we should begin moving to a lasting and broad-based government in Afghanistan. Surfacing of a moderate faction of Taliban is the first step to this direction." Many Quetta-based Afghan refugees were found thinking on the same lines while talking to The News last week. At an expansive house in Satellite Town of the same city lives a very active chief of Alokozai tribe of the Kandahar province of Afghanistan. He was fully involved in launching of the Taliban movement in 1994. But later got disappointed with them.
After many months of a dormant living, he has now resurfaced on the Afghan political scene. A crowd of Afghan refugees, mostly from Kandahar and the villages around, stays at his home these days. Our sources claimed that it was this tribal chief, who got "Ismail Khan connected with the potential dissidents from within Taliban." After escaping from a Taliban jail, which was just not possible without "winning or purchasing some friends," Ismail Khan had fled to Iran some months ago. But then he discreetly slipped to an inaccessible area of Badghis in South East of Afghanistan.
Often, the trading vehicles plying between Kandahar and Herat have to "negotiate protection with his boys," who keep blocking the flow of traffic on this route with surprise attacks, launched from Ismail Khan's base in Badghis.
Our sources also revealed that Ismail Khan could "easily get Herat back," since the Americans' putting the heat on Taliban after the suicide-hijack attacks on New York and Washington. "Not more than 50 Taliban commanders" were reported present in Herat these days, where the mass of residents hates Taliban. They do so despite the fact that Taliban rulers are not very strict in enforcing their interpretation of the Islamic codes in Herat.
Men with short beards are tolerated. Though veiled, women are seen roaming the bazaars of Herat. Some also frequent "beauty parlours" and can wear designers' jeans under their Burqas. Yet, the veteran strategist in Ismail Khan preferred to wait. "He instinctively realised that the time had come where instead of cutting Herat out of Afghanistan as a fief, all opponents of Taliban must get together for the big game," reported a Chaman-based transporter who claimed to have had a "lengthy talk with him on September 16."
Where and how? He wouldn't tell. But the transporter didn't mind "revealing" that "He (Ismail) has established contacts with some Taliban commanders with the objective of toppling Omar. And, they can surely succeed, if the Americans promise to help." While prodding all the anti-Taliban factions, to engage Mulla Omar's loyalists in deadly battles on multiple fronts, the Americans and their allied forces are exclusively concentrating on get-Osama part of the war plan. Some Pakistan-based friends of Taliban still believe that Mulla Omar can be persuaded to let Osama "surrender before an international court of justice, on which some credible and well-reputed scholars of Islamic jurisprudence should also sit to evaluate the evidence against him."
But the USA and its allies don't share this thinking. They are convinced that Omar can't deliver Osama to them, "even if he sincerely wants to." Small wonder, some British newspapers claimed Sunday: "Devastating attacks on bases controlled by Osama bin Laden are set to be launched in the next 48 hours as part of a tightly focused military operation approved by US President George Bush and backed by Britain." The strategy, we are told, "is designed to kill bin Laden and his forces, and will be launched in tandem with strikes against air and ground forces of the Taliban regime supporting him."
Iqbal Latif
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