The post mortem of a disgraceful but a very welcome fall.. While the US was carefully planning military action during the four weeks after 11 September, Mullah Omar pooh poohed what he considered inaction on the part of Washington. The Americans, he claimed, lacked the will to attack his country. This too proved to be fallacious. When the Security Council demanded the surrender of Osama bin Laden and allowed military action against the militia if it failed to comply, the Taliban supporters claimed the UN body will not endorse any US attack on Afghanistan. They were confidant that the Muslim countries would never allow this and China would veto any such move. They were also sure of the Quranic verses that will help them the verse where ‘Ababil will bring stones in their mouth to stave off the enemy.’ According to Quranic God saved verses Mecca from a invasion of’ Abraha’ when thousands of Nightingales carrying small stones in their beaks pulverised the invading army. Now jokes aside, that would Muttawakil told the BBC, when he was asked how do you expect to fight the US forces!! can you imagine this archaic and antiquated thinking that had taken over the Taliban so solidly. The angle of religion that blinded them completely, some on this thread took my exception of analysis where old practices become precursors of major disasters as an attempt by me to trivialize religion or its contribution, some time when I was writing I had some knowledge that I could not share, that did result in osme confusion. .
Azizudin Ahmad highlights it even further, he writes that even when the US finally launched the air attacks, pro-Taliban experts all over the world and for me I will emphasise on Pakistan predicted that these would be ineffective. Those spreading the illusion included two retired Generals and a number of right wing columnists. Totally misreading the US war strategy, they declared that Washington was losing in the face of the Taliban resistance. On November 3, Gen.(Retd) Mirza Aslam Beg observed in an Urdu daily, "The situation on ground indicates that the US has committed a blunder by attacking Afghanistan. It is a miscalculation on its part to believe that the Taliban command and control system would collapse within days of bombardment and then its military units will fan out in search of Osama."
On November 9, writing in an Urdu daily, Gen(Retd) Hamid Gul, another Taliban fan, observed, "The signs of American failure on both political and military front have gradually started to emerge. The latest situation underlines the fact that all the US hypotheses regarding the defeat of the Taliban have turned out to be false". Then he put the rhetorical question, "Why should we be boarding a sinking ship?", meaning thereby the US led coalition. These profound observations came from the ex-ISI Chief just one day before the Taliban were made to beat a hasty retreat from Mazar-i-Sharif.
This brings us to the latest illusion harboured by the Taliban and their supporters, i.e. recapturing the lost territory through guerilla war. Commenting on the subject, Maulana Akram Awan, who is another cleric specializing in military strategy says, "The Taliban are like the People's Liberation Army of China. Gen Mao (sic) did not possess any army as such. Common citizens followed him". (The Urdu daily Pakistan, November 4).
Unfortunately, both Maulana Akram Awan and the Taliban are as ignorant of the principles of guerilla war as of regular warfare.
In a column entitled "Air attacks fail to harm the Taliban", a well-known pro-Taliban columnist writing in the same Urdu daily on 21 October observed "Nobody has an answer to questions like what has the US gained from two weeks of bombardment and how does it propose to proceed now. The Taliban continue to occupy 90 percent of Afghanistan and they possess cards which ensure their victory in the game".
Again, in his column in the same paper entitled "Start of the ground war", he wrote, "Even if the Americans succeed in occupying a city or two ,the Taliban will retreat to the nearby mountains. They will then give hell to the foreign troops". In the present case, the Taliban have made a race for not the mountains in the area but to the South, which is a few hundred miles from Mazar-i-Sharif. And that city is right now surrounded by anti-Taliban Pushtuns ready to take them on. The whole idea of warfare and continuous struggle was so much out of the line.
Iqbal Latif
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