12 December 2001
The End of the Taliban Reign of Terror in Afghanistan
(Overview by the Office of International Information Programs) (1800)
(Note: This overview of conditions in Afghanistan by the State
Department's Office of International Information Programs is drawn
from Coalition Information Center briefing materials and from media
reports.)
"The Taliban rule is finished. As of today, they are no longer part of
Afghanistan." -- Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister,
December 7, 2001
A New Day for Afghans
Taliban rule in Afghanistan is finished. But the vanquished Taliban,
even in defeat, continue to commit atrocities on the civilian
population that has rejected them. The Taliban's foreign al Qaeda
protectors hide in caves, trying desperately to escape the
consequences of their crimes. Their atrocities are the actions of
fanatics who tried -- and failed -- to subjugate the Afghan people.
The war against terrorism is not finished in Afghanistan, but already
the contrast between Afghanistan now and Afghanistan under the Taliban
is evident everywhere. The Afghan people are reclaiming their lives
and their future.
This perspective is based on Coalition Information Center briefing
materials, and on news reports.
Afghans Free of the Taliban
-- The Taliban have fled from areas they used to control, and Afghans
-- men, women and children -- are rejecting what the Taliban stood
for.
-- Afghans are retaking control of their lives. After the Taliban fled
Kandahar on December 7, witnesses reported that joyous residents
poured into the streets to celebrate and tore down the Taliban white
flag. (As reported in the Associated Press, December 7)
-- Soccer stadiums, used by the Taliban for public executions,
floggings and amputations, are once again being used for soccer
matches. Kabul soccer coach Zaidmahsiam Masari told CNN that, under
the Taliban, "One morning I came out here and there was a big barrel
on the field. It was filled with amputated hands and feet. The teenage
players out for morning practice were so upset they could not continue
playing." (As reported on CNN, December 7)
-- Children are once again free to fly kites.
-- Men are free to play chess.
-- Women are able to go to the market without a male escort without
fear of being beaten.
-- Men are no longer required to wear regulation beards; authorities
do not require that women wear the burqa, the traditional veil that
covers them from head to foot.
-- Girls are flocking back to schools, after being deprived of
education for five years by the Taliban. "I cannot express my
happiness to you. I can remember the day the Taliban came, and we went
home in great sadness. But we are quite happy to return to school." --
Lida, a 15-year old girl in Jalalabad, as reported in the Christian
Science Monitor, December 3.
Afghan Women Are Regaining Their Place in Public Life
-- Afghan women participated in the Bonn meetings to form a
multi-ethnic, broad-based post-Taliban political structure, and will
participate in the interim government, and in the eventual Loya Jirga,
the traditional decision-making council.
-- Women have returned to their work in hospitals, in broadcasting
studios, and in schools and other places they used to work before the
Taliban prevented them from working.
-- Thousands of women, many of them widows, are once again working
with the World Food Program -- running bakeries, and distributing food
-- to feed their families, and help their communities. Under the
Taliban, women were barred from most work outside the home.
-- As Jamili Awhari sat down for her first broadcast on Radio
Afghanistan in November, she took off the burqa required by the
Taliban, and put on a scarf instead. "Congratulations," she said to
her listeners. "Through the walls and doors of Kabul we hear the
sounds of happiness." (As reported on ABC World News Tonight, November
15)
Defeated Taliban Continue Their Atrocities
-- The Taliban and al Qaeda have fled to their caves, but the war
against terrorism is not over. Taliban remnants and al Qaeda
terrorists are still a threat to Afghans, and to the world.
-- Afghan refugees, fleeing across the Pakistan border in the wake of
Taliban defeats, have recounted Taliban atrocities, committed as the
Taliban fled in the face of coalition military action.
-- News reports filed on December 5 recount the mutilations of Afghan
civilians by pro-Taliban bandits, who hacked off the noses and the
ears of six men in eastern Afghanistan, because the men were
clean-shaven. (As reported in The Daily Mirror, December 5)
-- According to refugees arriving from embattled Kunduz, northern
Afghanistan, in mid-November, Taliban troops shot dead eight boys who
had dared to laugh at them. (As reported in The Sun, November 19)
-- At least 300 frightened Taliban who wanted to surrender were killed
by other Taliban. (As reported in The Sun, November 19)
-- A newly arrived Afghan refugee told how the Taliban had burned an
entire family, including children, to death in their own house in
revenge for American bombing. (As reported in The Independent,
November 9)
-- The Times of London reported that the Taliban's occupation of
Taloqan included the torture of children. According to the news
report, children were savagely beaten for the supposed crimes of their
parents. (As reported in The Times, November 13)
Taliban Betrayal of Jihadis Who Supported Them
-- When the Taliban realized they were facing defeat, in city after
city, wealthy al Qaeda members fled in their trucks to well-appointed
cave hideouts. In contrast, poor, newly arrived jihadis from Pakistan
were treated as cannon fodder, abandoned to be killed or taken
prisoner when the Taliban fled one city after another. (As reported in
the New York Times, December 10)
-- Militant Islamic preachers in Pakistan, whom the New York Times
described as "elderly men grown rich and pampered from their
preachings, men who saw to it that their own sons and grandsons stayed
out of the war," encouraged thousands of others to go to Afghanistan
to fight jihad. Those they sent were seen as "cannon fodder" by the
Taliban, and when the Taliban pulled out of Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif
under cover of darkness, the Pakistani jihadis were left to their
fate. (As reported in the New York Times, December 10)
Al Qaeda, Taliban, Mullah Omar: Dishonoring Islam
-- Despite their claims to religious authority, neither the Taliban
nor al Qaeda are a source of Islamic authority. They are terrorist
organizations. Many Islamic scholars have accused al Qaeda and the
Taliban of "hijacking" Islam.
-- Sohib Bencheikh, the Mufti of Marseilles, France, and an Islamic
theologian, said, "Usamah Bin-Ladin himself is no Islamic authority;
he's a bloodthirsty murderer, guilty of tens of thousands of crimes.
(As reported by BBC, October 9)
-- "The Taliban left behind only violence and fear. We are real
Muslims. We pray and recite Koran, but we also have a humanitarian
sense. The Taliban were not real Muslims." (Statement by Noor Ahmed, a
former Afghan government employee, as reported in the Washington Post,
December 10)
-- "The Taliban tried to re-spread Islam in a country that had been
Muslim for hundreds of years. Nobody wanted to pray by force, but you
can see there are several thousand people in this mosque today. Now we
are free, and we come here to pray of our own will." (Statement by
Javed Ahmed, an engineer in Kabul, as reported by the Washington Post,
December 10)
-- In 1996, according to Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid, Mullah Omar
wrapped himself in the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed and claimed
religious authority as the "Leader of the Faithful" for all Muslims.
(As reported by Ahmed Rashid in his book "Taliban: Islam, Oil, and the
Great Game in Central Asia," page 42.)
-- Mullah Omar is not a source of Islamic authority; he is terrorist
who lives a comfortable life while urging others to sacrifice
themselves.
-- In Kabul on December 7, Mullah Abdul Rauf, in his Friday sermon at
a Kabul mosque, said Taliban rule was repressive, and humiliated
people. Of the Taliban's Mullah Omar he said: "In the Taliban days,
there was a leader of the faithful who sat in Kandahar, not having the
faintest idea about the people who were in poverty, who were killed,
whose houses were burned, whose children died of hunger. And still he
claimed to be a leader of Islam and a leader of his country." (As
reported in the Washington Post, December 10)
-- According to Afghan Foreign Ministry worker Zahir Faqiri, "[Mullah]
Omar told his gunmen to fight to the death, yet he has surrendered
rather than risk his own life. He was prepared to sacrifice others,
but not prepared to do battle himself." (As reported in The Daily
Mirror, December 7)
-- Mullah Omar, who invoked the name of God to demand ever greater
sacrifices from the Afghan people, sacrificed nothing himself. He
lived in luxury. (As reported by CNN, December 12)
-- Mullah Omar's abandoned compound in Kandahar paints a very
different picture from the image he promoted of himself as a humble
cleric living in a mud-brick house: he lived in an opulent marble
house with crystal chandeliers, plush carpets, and mirrored walls.
Even the cow sheds had running water and air conditioning, in a
country where the majority of Afghans do not have access to clean
drinking water. (As reported by CNN, December 11)
-- "They built all this for the cows, while our people never had these
things. This was built with Osama's money, with the blood of the
Afghan people," said an anti-Taliban soldier viewing Mullah Omar's
compound. (As reported by CNN, December 12)
-- Now, al Qaeda members are hiding in mountain caves, desperate to
escape the consequences of the horrors they have perpetrated on
Afghans, and on victims of their terrorist attacks worldwide.
Rejecting darkness, embracing the future
-- Al Qaeda and Taliban criminals may continue to believe that they
can get away with their crimes. They may try to continue their murder
and torture, and they may continue to cower in caves. They may even
seek to leave the country they tried to destroy. But their time is up.
They will be brought to justice.
-- As Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister, said of
Mullah Omar: "I have given him every chance to denounce terrorism, and
now the time has run out. He is an absconder, a fugitive from
justice." (As reported by BBC, December 7)
-- While Al Qaeda and the Taliban burrow into the darkness of mountain
caves, the people of Afghanistan are looking to light the way to a new
Afghanistan. They are busy reclaiming what was denied to them during
the Taliban-al Qaeda occupation of their country: education and
opportunities for their children, a tolerant and peaceful society,
secure communities, and hope for a new Afghan future.
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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