Related articles and links |  1 of 2

Tell that to the 24 relief workers detained there since August 5 for allegedly teaching Christianity. Or even to the citizens of Afghanistan—a country ravaged by 23 years of war, plagued by disease, drought, and famine, and ruled with an iron fist by its self-declared leaders, the Taliban.

On August 5, Taliban authorities closed down the Kabul office of Shelter Now, a Germany-based aid group, and arrested eight foreigners and sixteen Afghan employees. All will remain in captivity until the Taliban conducts a full investigation into the extent of what they allege is a conspiracy by aid groups (including the U.N.'s World Food Program) to convert Muslims.

A continuous battlefield
The nation's population of 25 million is vastly diverse ethnically, and 34 different languages are spoken. But Islam unites Afghans: 84 percent of the nation is Sunni Muslim, and 15 percent is Shi'ite. Nevertheless, most of Afghanistan's past is marked by power struggles, war, and radical ideological shifts in governance.

For many years, conservative and liberal Islamic groups battled for control, culminating in the bloody 1978 coup by the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). According to Human Rights Watch, tens of thousands were arrested and executed while countless others—especially elites—faced repression. Uprisings against the PDPA became common.

The Soviet invasion
This unrest set the scene for the second phase of Afghanistan's recent violent history: 1979's Soviet invasion. Possibly both to protect its disintegrating southern border and to stabilize trade routes, the Soviet Union dropped thousands of troops into the capital city of Kabul.

But the Soviet answers to Afghanistan's ills weren't much more effective. The Soviets "sought to crush uprisings with mass arrests, torture, and executions of dissidents, and aerial bombardments, and executions in the countryside," according to Human Rights Watch.

Seeing the conflict as a Cold War battleground, the United States provided massive support to build an Islamic resistance against the Soviets. Adding to money and weapons donated by China, France, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, funding from the U.S. established religious schools (madrasas) on Afghan borders in Pakistan.

Mujahedin warlords
These Pakistani schools taught Afghan refugees fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law and trained them to be Islamic soldiers (or mujahedin). These "freedom fighters" flooded Afghanistan and eventually drove the Soviets out in 1989.

This solution only created the next problem. The fighting did not stop. After the Communists left, the mujahedin warlords roamed the country, killings and looting. Poverty, and unrest continued.

Against this backdrop, the Taliban arose. In Persian, Talib means "religious student." The Taliban, then, is one group of Afghans trained in the Pakistani madrasas.

According to the BBC, the Taliban militia emerged as bodyguards hired by the Pakistani government to protect a trade route between Pakistan and Central Asia from looters. But they had bigger aspirations than driving off other mujahedin groups: they wanted to establish the world's purest Islamic state.

In 1994, the student group took the southern city of Kandahar and began a sweep through the country, unseating local warlords along the way. The Taliban stormed Kabul in 1996 and declared itself ruler.

next page... |  1 of 2

August (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45