*EPF304 12/12/2001
The End of the Taliban Reign of Terror in Afghanistan
(Overview by the Office of International Information Programs) (1800)

(Note: This overview of conditions in Afghanistan by the State Department's Office of International Information Programs is drawn from Coalition Information Center briefing materials and from media reports.)

"The Taliban rule is finished. As of today, they are no longer part of Afghanistan." -- Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister, December 7, 2001

A New Day for Afghans

Taliban rule in Afghanistan is finished. But the vanquished Taliban, even in defeat, continue to commit atrocities on the civilian population that has rejected them. The Taliban's foreign al Qaeda protectors hide in caves, trying desperately to escape the consequences of their crimes. Their atrocities are the actions of fanatics who tried -- and failed -- to subjugate the Afghan people.

The war against terrorism is not finished in Afghanistan, but already the contrast between Afghanistan now and Afghanistan under the Taliban is evident everywhere. The Afghan people are reclaiming their lives and their future.

This perspective is based on Coalition Information Center briefing materials, and on news reports.

Afghans Free of the Taliban

-- The Taliban have fled from areas they used to control, and Afghans -- men, women and children -- are rejecting what the Taliban stood for.

-- Afghans are retaking control of their lives. After the Taliban fled Kandahar on December 7, witnesses reported that joyous residents poured into the streets to celebrate and tore down the Taliban white flag. (As reported in the Associated Press, December 7)

-- Soccer stadiums, used by the Taliban for public executions, floggings and amputations, are once again being used for soccer matches. Kabul soccer coach Zaidmahsiam Masari told CNN that, under the Taliban, "One morning I came out here and there was a big barrel on the field. It was filled with amputated hands and feet. The teenage players out for morning practice were so upset they could not continue playing." (As reported on CNN, December 7)

-- Children are once again free to fly kites.

-- Men are free to play chess.

-- Women are able to go to the market without a male escort without fear of being beaten.

-- Men are no longer required to wear regulation beards; authorities do not require that women wear the burqa, the traditional veil that covers them from head to foot.

-- Girls are flocking back to schools, after being deprived of education for five years by the Taliban. "I cannot express my happiness to you. I can remember the day the Taliban came, and we went home in great sadness. But we are quite happy to return to school." -- Lida, a 15-year old girl in Jalalabad, as reported in the Christian Science Monitor, December 3.

Afghan Women Are Regaining Their Place in Public Life

-- Afghan women participated in the Bonn meetings to form a multi-ethnic, broad-based post-Taliban political structure, and will participate in the interim government, and in the eventual Loya Jirga, the traditional decision-making council.

-- Women have returned to their work in hospitals, in broadcasting studios, and in schools and other places they used to work before the Taliban prevented them from working.

-- Thousands of women, many of them widows, are once again working with the World Food Program -- running bakeries, and distributing food -- to feed their families, and help their communities. Under the Taliban, women were barred from most work outside the home.

-- As Jamili Awhari sat down for her first broadcast on Radio Afghanistan in November, she took off the burqa required by the Taliban, and put on a scarf instead. "Congratulations," she said to her listeners. "Through the walls and doors of Kabul we hear the sounds of happiness." (As reported on ABC World News Tonight, November 15)

Defeated Taliban Continue Their Atrocities

-- The Taliban and al Qaeda have fled to their caves, but the war against terrorism is not over. Taliban remnants and al Qaeda terrorists are still a threat to Afghans, and to the world.

-- Afghan refugees, fleeing across the Pakistan border in the wake of Taliban defeats, have recounted Taliban atrocities, committed as the Taliban fled in the face of coalition military action.

-- News reports filed on December 5 recount the mutilations of Afghan civilians by pro-Taliban bandits, who hacked off the noses and the ears of six men in eastern Afghanistan, because the men were clean-shaven. (As reported in The Daily Mirror, December 5)

-- According to refugees arriving from embattled Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, in mid-November, Taliban troops shot dead eight boys who had dared to laugh at them. (As reported in The Sun, November 19)

-- At least 300 frightened Taliban who wanted to surrender were killed by other Taliban. (As reported in The Sun, November 19)

-- A newly arrived Afghan refugee told how the Taliban had burned an entire family, including children, to death in their own house in revenge for American bombing. (As reported in The Independent, November 9)

-- The Times of London reported that the Taliban's occupation of Taloqan included the torture of children. According to the news report, children were savagely beaten for the supposed crimes of their parents. (As reported in The Times, November 13)

Taliban Betrayal of Jihadis Who Supported Them

-- When the Taliban realized they were facing defeat, in city after city, wealthy al Qaeda members fled in their trucks to well-appointed cave hideouts. In contrast, poor, newly arrived jihadis from Pakistan were treated as cannon fodder, abandoned to be killed or taken prisoner when the Taliban fled one city after another. (As reported in the New York Times, December 10)

-- Militant Islamic preachers in Pakistan, whom the New York Times described as "elderly men grown rich and pampered from their preachings, men who saw to it that their own sons and grandsons stayed out of the war," encouraged thousands of others to go to Afghanistan to fight jihad. Those they sent were seen as "cannon fodder" by the Taliban, and when the Taliban pulled out of Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif under cover of darkness, the Pakistani jihadis were left to their fate. (As reported in the New York Times, December 10)


Al Qaeda, Taliban, Mullah Omar: Dishonoring Islam

-- Despite their claims to religious authority, neither the Taliban nor al Qaeda are a source of Islamic authority. They are terrorist organizations. Many Islamic scholars have accused al Qaeda and the Taliban of "hijacking" Islam.

-- Sohib Bencheikh, the Mufti of Marseilles, France, and an Islamic theologian, said, "Usamah Bin-Ladin himself is no Islamic authority; he's a bloodthirsty murderer, guilty of tens of thousands of crimes. (As reported by BBC, October 9)

-- "The Taliban left behind only violence and fear. We are real Muslims. We pray and recite Koran, but we also have a humanitarian sense. The Taliban were not real Muslims." (Statement by Noor Ahmed, a former Afghan government employee, as reported in the Washington Post, December 10)

-- "The Taliban tried to re-spread Islam in a country that had been Muslim for hundreds of years. Nobody wanted to pray by force, but you can see there are several thousand people in this mosque today. Now we are free, and we come here to pray of our own will." (Statement by Javed Ahmed, an engineer in Kabul, as reported by the Washington Post, December 10)

-- In 1996, according to Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid, Mullah Omar wrapped himself in the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed and claimed religious authority as the "Leader of the Faithful" for all Muslims. (As reported by Ahmed Rashid in his book "Taliban: Islam, Oil, and the Great Game in Central Asia," page 42.)

-- Mullah Omar is not a source of Islamic authority; he is terrorist who lives a comfortable life while urging others to sacrifice themselves.

-- In Kabul on December 7, Mullah Abdul Rauf, in his Friday sermon at a Kabul mosque, said Taliban rule was repressive, and humiliated people. Of the Taliban's Mullah Omar he said: "In the Taliban days, there was a leader of the faithful who sat in Kandahar, not having the faintest idea about the people who were in poverty, who were killed, whose houses were burned, whose children died of hunger. And still he claimed to be a leader of Islam and a leader of his country." (As reported in the Washington Post, December 10)

-- According to Afghan Foreign Ministry worker Zahir Faqiri, "[Mullah] Omar told his gunmen to fight to the death, yet he has surrendered rather than risk his own life. He was prepared to sacrifice others, but not prepared to do battle himself." (As reported in The Daily Mirror, December 7)

-- Mullah Omar, who invoked the name of God to demand ever greater sacrifices from the Afghan people, sacrificed nothing himself. He lived in luxury. (As reported by CNN, December 12)

-- Mullah Omar's abandoned compound in Kandahar paints a very different picture from the image he promoted of himself as a humble cleric living in a mud-brick house: he lived in an opulent marble house with crystal chandeliers, plush carpets, and mirrored walls. Even the cow sheds had running water and air conditioning, in a country where the majority of Afghans do not have access to clean drinking water. (As reported by CNN, December 11)

-- "They built all this for the cows, while our people never had these things. This was built with Osama's money, with the blood of the Afghan people," said an anti-Taliban soldier viewing Mullah Omar's compound. (As reported by CNN, December 12)

-- Now, al Qaeda members are hiding in mountain caves, desperate to escape the consequences of the horrors they have perpetrated on Afghans, and on victims of their terrorist attacks worldwide.


Rejecting darkness, embracing the future

-- Al Qaeda and Taliban criminals may continue to believe that they can get away with their crimes. They may try to continue their murder and torture, and they may continue to cower in caves. They may even seek to leave the country they tried to destroy. But their time is up. They will be brought to justice.

-- As Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim Prime Minister, said of Mullah Omar: "I have given him every chance to denounce terrorism, and now the time has run out. He is an absconder, a fugitive from justice." (As reported by BBC, December 7)

-- While Al Qaeda and the Taliban burrow into the darkness of mountain caves, the people of Afghanistan are looking to light the way to a new Afghanistan. They are busy reclaiming what was denied to them during the Taliban-al Qaeda occupation of their country: education and opportunities for their children, a tolerant and peaceful society, secure communities, and hope for a new Afghan future.


(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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