INTERNATIONAL
the mountains.
Taliban and opium wars
In 2000 the Taliban banned opium production, a first
in Afghan history. At that time Afghanistan’s opium
production accounted for 75% of the world’s supply.
On July 27, 2000, the Taliban again issued a decree
banning opium poppy cultivation. By February 2001,
production had been reduced from 12,600 acres (51
km²) to only 17 acres. When the Taliban entered north
Waziristan in 2003 they immediately banned poppy
cultivation and punished those who sold it.
The official verdict of the Taliban however was
otherwise. Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the
Taliban’s top drug official in Nangarhar, said the
ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban
received aid or international recognition. “It is our
decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is
banned forever in this country,” he said. “Whether we
get assistance or not, poppy growing will never be al-
lowed again in our country.’
However, with the 2001 US/Northern Alliance
expulsion of the Taliban, opium cultivation has in-
creased in the southern provinces liberated from the
Taliban control, and by 2005 production was 87% of
the world’s opium supply, rising to 90% in 2006.
believe the government is not behind the Taliban, they will
fight.”
The Taliban’s authority had become so firm in the last two
months, it was too dangerous for legislators from the tribal
areas to return to their constituencies, Orekzei said.
Only the capital of Mohmand, the small town of Ghala-
nai, remains unequivocally in government hands. There, the
political agent, the representative of the governor of North-
West Frontier Province, keeps a house and offices. But his
power barely extends beyond the town’s limits, and he is un-
able to offer government services to ease the region’s poverty,
local people say.
Next door to his compound, a public hospital remains un-
derused because doctors, put off by poor salaries and insecu-
rity, refuse to work there. Health conditions are appalling.
The weakness of the government has left people help-
less before the Taliban threat, Orekzei and other local officials
said. Most families had given a man to the Taliban cause, often
c.2008 New York Times News Service
as a measure of protection against the militants.
The territory has become a magnet for other militants
from farther afield as well. More and more of them are coming
from abroad, U.S. officials say. But Taliban fighters encoun-
tered in Mohmand said they had come from all over Pakistan,
revealing the Taliban’s reach into the heart of the country.
Some Taliban fighters said that they had come for the
summer from cities like Karachi and Rawalpindi, where they
run food stalls or work in hotels, and that they would return
home at the start of winter when freezing weather envelops
26 August 08
OPINION
The government security force, a paramilitary group
called the Frontier Corps, which serves under the command
of the Pakistani army, does little to challenge the Taliban in
Bonanza Offer for
the tribal areas, despite occasional skirmishes. On the road
north of Ghalanai, there were no Frontier Corps patrols, and
25 miles from Ghalanai the Taliban were in firm control.
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With the government so weak, the Taliban are accepted
as the ruling power in many places in the tribal areas, local
officials say. They wield an unflinching hand, to the point of
conducting public executions, against the lawlessness that pre-
vails in the region. 5 Years subscrip- 3 Years subscription
In Mohmand, they have imposed extra restrictions on
women in the already conservative society, forbidding them to
tion get Eric Martin get a TNT wall
(Mr. Big) CD worth clock worth Rs 300
venture into fields and ordering their heads shaved if they flout
the edict, according to the handful of legislators who represent Rs 499 absolutely absolutely FREE
the tribal areas in the national parliament.
In a place called Chinarai, a two-hour drive from the Af-
FREE
ghan border, the Taliban maintain a prison, where the reporter
and photographer were held. On a recent day, there were about
a dozen people in the compound, all of them manacled and
kept in dark small rooms.
In a sign that the internal workings of the Taliban were not
entirely smooth, several of the detainees were Taliban, and one
of the prisoners was a relative of top Taliban commanders.
Life for the prisoners was spare at best. They were denied
cell phones, the most valued possession among the Taliban.
Prison food consisted of poorly cooked rice and vegetables.
Soap appeared to be used only for body washing, not for
cleaning of cooking pots and utensils.
Taliban officials reviewing the prisoners’ cases spent
much time debating how they should be punished under the
Shariah, or Islamic law, imposed by the Taliban. One of the
prisoners was suspected of working with the Afghan army;
another was accused of tearing down a Taliban notice. Limited Offer. Hurry!
One man accused of kidnapping was taken out of the pris-
on and beaten into confessing.
Recently, Mohmand has become a center of kidnapping The Northeast Today
for ransom, a new activity that appears to be another important What the world reads tomorrow
source of revenue for the Taliban. But the Ziarat quarry will be Tick one Term (Year) No. of issues Cover Price You Pay You Save
far more profitable, many people here say.
5 60 600 500 100
Even in its current rough condition, the quarry is such a
good deal for the Taliban that one tribesman, known as Ba- 3 36 360 310 50
hadar, who works there, predicted, “If this continues for two 1 12 120 108 12
more years, they will take on America itself.”
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