arsenal_gooner
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2009
- Messages
- 158
- Reaction score
- 0
Taliban turn Afghans against ruling class
Taliban insurgents who have infiltrated Kabul are nailing night letters to the doors of policemen, soldiers and government workers, warning them to leave their jobs or face punishment.
The militants are being welcomed in the Afghan capitals poorer areas among inhabitants who are disaffected with corruption, and who supply them with food, cash and weapons.
Safe houses and bomb-making workshops have begun to appear in run-down districts close to the city centre as the militants increase their presence and plot attacks on prominent local targets.
They know who we are, where we live and what we do, said Dr Ehsan Anwari, who used to work as an Afghan army medic and now runs a clinic in Company district, where Highway One, the main road from Kandahar to the south, enters the capital. Whenever we hear shooting we think that the Taliban are taking over the district by force. We are afraid.
Described by one police officer as a den of vice, Company district is a warren of tightly packed, single- storey houses and mud-caked, narrow streets. Last month, the Taliban tried to blow up the house of Anwaris brother, a police officer, by pouring petrol through his front gate. The policeman grabbed his gun and opened fire. His attackers fled but he found mortar rounds, explosives and ammunition by the gate.
We reported it but the police are too afraid to come into these streets at night because of the Taliban here, Anwari said.
Earlier this year, the Taliban had assassinated two army colonels as they walked through the Company district to work. The killings forced several government officials to leave the area in fear of their lives.
Local inhabitants said last week that they supported the Taliban because the police had failed to crack down on criminal gangs smuggling drugs, running prostitution rackets and kidnapping businessmen.
Last month in Wardak, a Taliban-controlled province just south of Kabul, the insurgents captured four men accused of kidnapping the son of a wealthy Kabul tea merchant.
The mounting collaboration between Kabuls disaffected residents and the Taliban mirrors the hardline Islamic regimes rise to power in the mid-1990s, when warlordism, corruption, violence and crime gripped the country during the civil war.
Taliban insurgents who have infiltrated Kabul are nailing night letters to the doors of policemen, soldiers and government workers, warning them to leave their jobs or face punishment.
The militants are being welcomed in the Afghan capitals poorer areas among inhabitants who are disaffected with corruption, and who supply them with food, cash and weapons.
Safe houses and bomb-making workshops have begun to appear in run-down districts close to the city centre as the militants increase their presence and plot attacks on prominent local targets.
They know who we are, where we live and what we do, said Dr Ehsan Anwari, who used to work as an Afghan army medic and now runs a clinic in Company district, where Highway One, the main road from Kandahar to the south, enters the capital. Whenever we hear shooting we think that the Taliban are taking over the district by force. We are afraid.
Described by one police officer as a den of vice, Company district is a warren of tightly packed, single- storey houses and mud-caked, narrow streets. Last month, the Taliban tried to blow up the house of Anwaris brother, a police officer, by pouring petrol through his front gate. The policeman grabbed his gun and opened fire. His attackers fled but he found mortar rounds, explosives and ammunition by the gate.
We reported it but the police are too afraid to come into these streets at night because of the Taliban here, Anwari said.
Earlier this year, the Taliban had assassinated two army colonels as they walked through the Company district to work. The killings forced several government officials to leave the area in fear of their lives.
Local inhabitants said last week that they supported the Taliban because the police had failed to crack down on criminal gangs smuggling drugs, running prostitution rackets and kidnapping businessmen.
Last month in Wardak, a Taliban-controlled province just south of Kabul, the insurgents captured four men accused of kidnapping the son of a wealthy Kabul tea merchant.
The mounting collaboration between Kabuls disaffected residents and the Taliban mirrors the hardline Islamic regimes rise to power in the mid-1990s, when warlordism, corruption, violence and crime gripped the country during the civil war.
