From Anarchy to Repression

...The mayhem resulted in a fresh wave of refugees pouring into neighboring Pakistan...

...Nevertheless, he argues forcefully that isolating groups like the Taliban is counterproductive...

...Three years later, after shelling much of Kabul, the capital city, to rubble, the mujahedin took it over...

...Many fought against the Soviets, but the majority came of age in refugee camps and were educated there...

...When Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989, they left behind a shaky Communist government facing battle-hardened mujahedin...

...The country shortly deteriorated into a patchwork of fiefdoms, most of them ruled by commanders who had fought the Soviets in the '80s under the umbrella of a seven-party alliance, although in the North a former Communist militia leader held sway...

...In mid-August the standoff with the aid organizations ended in their departure, except for the Red Cross and the United Nations High Command for Refugees...

...Both the United States and the United Nations insist the Taliban must change their behavior before they can be considered for recognition...

...Several recent events have made the publication of Marsden's book especially timely...

...Soon they announced their mission to free Afghanistan from its corrupt leaders and to establish a society based on Islamic principles...

...On October 20, the United Nations voted once again to defer a decision on whether to give a Taliban representative Afghanistan's UN seat...

...Funding supplied by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia has at times also made it possible to purchase the allegiance of local commanders...

...Ensuing successes have depended to a considerable extent on popular support and on strategic alliances with rival forces...

...And in a surprise move on August 20, the United States fired at least 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles against targets in southeastern Afghanistan, where terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the U.S...

...Subsequent bitter fighting among them for Kabul set off a vicious civil war, however, causing some 300,000 residents to flee...

...Using scrounged weapons, they detained those running the city and disarmed the population with surprising ease...

...Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi denounced them as a "disgrace to Islam...

...Marsden's main theme is the need for multicultural understanding, and he can get a bit preachy...

...Still, only three countries—Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—have so far recognized them as the rightful government of Afghanistan...

...In this scenario, though, first the matter of lending national legitimacy to a group that has provoked such wide condemnation has to be resolved...

...Reviewed by Masood Farivar Contributor, "Wall Street Journal" In the light of the Western media's negative reports about the Taliban, this new book by Peter Marsden, Information Coordinator of the British Agencies Afghanistan Group and a research associate of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, may well come across as sympathetic...

...Relief organizations unsuccesfully urged a relaxation of the rigid rules...

...Following their takeover of Kabul in September 1996, they established the controversial Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, their religious police...

...Some of the leaders attended Pakistani madrasahs...

...The warlords managed to bring a measure of order to their territories and attracted some international humanitarian aid...

...Even the culturally liberal city of Herat proved a remarkably easy target...

...Other top posts are held by men still in their 20s...

...While aid organizations must grapple most immediately with this issue, Marsden observes that more often than not they are faced with human rights and safety dilemmas...

...Girls were banned from schools, women were barred from working, men were required to grow beards and pray in mosques, and confiscated television sets were hung from frees in public squares...

...In early August the Taliban captured the strategic northern city of Mazari-Sharif, thereby expanding their dominance to more than 90 per cent of the country—but in the process they killed eight diplomats at the Iranian Consulate, prompting Teheran to mass 200,000 of its troops on the border...

...Most of them are young...

...embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, has found sanctuary...

...their head...

...At first the Taliban were repulsed, but then the city's wellliked Governor, Ismail Khan, fled to Iran, allowing them to take over in September 1995...

...Farther south, Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, faced its own horror...

...The Taliban initially vowed to put an end to the anarchy in Kandahar, and the black-turbaned religious students were greeted there with open arms...

...Actually, it offers a balanced examination of the radical Sunni Muslim movement and its vision of a purist Islamic society in the context of contemporary Afghan history...

...Mullah Muhammad Omar, is said to be in his mid- to late-30s...

...Marsden's call for dialogue and "understanding" is not wrong...

...Unlike the Pushtu-speaking rural areas of southwestern Afghanistan, Herat's educated, Persian-speaking population resisted the Taliban's social strictures...

...Marsden feels this should not be a problem: By the standards that the U.S...

...When the aid outfits threatened to leave, the Taliban hardened their position...

...At that point the impoverished Afghans will demand basic necessities, such as food, access to health care and education...

...uses to recognize governments, and that the United Nations Credentials Committee applies in awarding states member status, the Taliban easily pass muster...

...But so long as the tactics and policies of the Taliban continue to play poorly on the world stage, it is likely to fall on deaf ears...

...It was after the fall of Herat, where they set about forcing compliance with their strict social policies, that the Taliban came to the notice of the outside world...

...It was from the chaos in Kandahar that the Taliban, who now control almost the entire country, emerged in mid-1994...

...After being carved up into zones by rival factions, the city sustained more destruction than it had suffered under Soviet occupation...

...Their origins remain murky, but their name provides a clue: A talib is a student at an Islamic school or madrasah...

...The Taliban appear to have arisen spontaneously from the southeastern Afghan religious students who grew up as refugees in Pakistan...

...The real challenge for the Taliban, the author contends, will come after they complete their conquest...

...Realizing they cannot deliver these services, let alone rebuild the country, without substantial foreign aid, says Marsden, the Taliban will finally come around to making compromises...

...In his view, their assistance cannot be construed as condoning repressive policies and should not be halted...

...They have nearly total control over their country and enjoy broad popular support...

...Many professionals fled to neighboring Iran...

...Their seemingly effortless capture of Kandahar lent the Taliban an almost supernatural mystique and won them enormous esteem...

...The central question for the international community, he notes, is how to deal with a movement that has brought order to an otherwise chaotic land by taking measures that clearly violate accepted norms of behavior...

...As the Taliban penetrated northwestern Afghanistan, which has close ties with Shi'ite Iran, they won the enmity of what has long been considered the main bastion of Muslim fundamentalism...