Page 3 of
3 Taliban line up the heavy
artillery By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
the Pir Ali Zai tribe and people
of the area had serious reservations about him
using the title "Agha", which is usually reserved
for the descendants of the Holy Prophet in Afghan
society.
Agha was camera-shy, according to
a strict interpretation of Islam, although he
eventually allowed his turban-draped face to be
pictured. Other commanders were happy to be
pictured, although
they
also covered their faces, but for a different
reason. Should they be injured, they would have to
go to a hospital in one of the bigger cities in
Afghanistan or Pakistan, and they didn't want to
be recognized.
In the midst of our
meeting, Agha suddenly stood up and dialed a
number on his phone and handed it over to my
colleague, Qamar Yousufzai. A voice asked where we
were from and which publication we represented,
and then insisted that we needed to produce a
letter from Taliban quarters in Pakistan. Until we
could do that, the Taliban could not know whether
we were journalists or spies sent by the Afghan
government. The Taliban deal swiftly with spies -
after a brief "trial", their heads are cut off.
Now a new debate started between our host,
Lala, and Agha, with the latter insisting that he
would arrest us and Lala saying he would have to
go through him before doing so. This standoff was
to last 45 hours.
Lala was enraged by
Agha's actions and told his friend Hamidullah to
tell the Taliban that even if Mullah Omar sent
instructions to surrender his guests, he would
not, and would resist them with arms. The next day
we were sent to a hiding place and told we would
be provided with a vehicle to get us out of
Baghran. But the Taliban were on to this and
posted men all around with instructions to shoot
at any suspicious vehicles.
Ultimately it
was agreed by all that our case would be handed
over to the "court" on the Friday, so we were
presented in a local mosque.
An elderly
man with a white beard was the qazi (judge)
. When he saw us, he smiled at the British
aliens-turned-Pakistanis.
Lala made it
quite clear before the proceedings that "from one
corner to another corner of Baghran there is
nobody who would dare to block me, and it is only
because the elders asked us to present my guests
in court that I am here".
Agha then gave
his ever-changing version of events: "We have a
lot of respect for Haji Lala and his friends, but
we were informed by some anonymous sources that
they are spies of the Afghan government, and we
needed to investigate. If the elders of the area,
whom we respect a lot, intervene in our functions,
then what is the need of this administration? Will
they remove us and take the power in their own
hands?"
The judge noted that we were
Pakistanis and Muslims - not by any definition
British or alien - but since somebody had created
a doubt with information that we were spies, the
matter should be checked. In the meantime, we
could not leave Baghran and would stay as "guests"
for one night.
Agha immediately protested
and asked the qazi to give him as much time
as he required for his investigations. So the
qazi altered his decision, saying that we
would be guests until the investigations were over
and would surrender all our belongings to the
Taliban for the investigations.
Our
cameras, mobile telephones, books and dairies were
taken away, and even our toiletries examined. This
was too much for Qamar Yousufzai, who launched
into a tirade against the Taliban, accusing them
of being "savages". His intensity brought a smile
to their faces.
We were concerned that the
Taliban would now have a grudge against the
elders, whom they wanted to be subservient, and we
were caught in the middle.
Fortunately,
Lala allowed me to use his phone and, after a
series of calls between my contacts in Pakistan
and the Taliban, we were allowed to go free - they
finally accepted that we were journalists.
This experience can hardly be termed
pleasant, but it gave us the opportunity to see
first-hand how the tribal system really works when
it comes up against movements such as the Taliban
- and what life in a remote area is like.
The Taliban talk of a new kingdom on
Earth. There is a long way to go in villages where
people mix earth with their bread to make it go
further, don't have schools or hospitals, and have
no running water and only mud huts to protect
themselves from the numbing cold and stifling
heat. Add to this the threat of kidnapping or
worse from warlords, the harsh justice of the
Taliban, or bombs falling from the sky, and the
kingdom is a long way off.
But the battle
for the "kingdom" has already begun. Come spring,
and Baghran could emerge as the epicenter of a
defining struggle in yet another bloody chapter of
the country's tortuous history.
Note News of our run-in with
the Taliban spread instantly from the local
community to Kandahar. Unfortunately, there was a
bitter twist: some journalist told the Associated
Press of the US (whose report was then broadcast
on Afghan Radio) that we had been disowned by all
media organizations and therefore we were spies.
This appeared to be professional jealousy, in that
we - non-Pashtuns with no background in right-wing
Islamic ideology - had managed to reach the very
heart of Taliban country.
Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan
Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright
2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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