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Max Forte's List: Mujahidin--Taliban

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    • Mullah Mohammad Umar, a cleric who fought as a  Mujahedeen
  • Aug 17, 09

    Zbigniew Brzezinski:
    How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen

    Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*

    • What is most important to the history  of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire?  Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and  the end of the cold war?
  • Aug 17, 09

    The Taliban were a faction of the fundamentalist mujahadeen

    • The US did not utter a single word of criticism when the Taliban occupied the city of Herat and expelled thousands of girls from the schools. At the time, the Clinton administration looked favorably on the Taliban because they hoped to build oil pipelines through Afghanistan. As recently as May of this year, the US gave the Taliban $43 million, supposedly to combat the opium trade.
    • Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Pashtun warlord, former Afghan prime minister, fundamentalist religious fanatic, and homicidal thug, has been much in the news of late
    • the Hezb-i Islami movement, which is Hekmatyar's military arm

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  • Aug 17, 09

    "a handful of Taliban had fought the Soviet Red Army"

  • Aug 17, 09

    TALIBAN: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
    by Ahmed Rashid

    • Taliban Governor of Kandahar
    • Mullah Mohammed Hassan Rehmani

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    • The Taliban was formed primarily among displaced Afghans, particularly those who had enrolled as Pakistani seminary students. Indeed, almost every Afghan movement drew upon refugees living in Pakistan, Iran, or other neighboring states
    • The Taliban has its roots in the Afghan jihad fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s

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    • Anand Gopal is a reporter based in Kabul who has reported from all parts of Afghanistan
    • I have some well-placed Taliban contacts and I was offered a chance to come out and see how the insurgents really operate. Since there is so little about this in public domain, it seemed like an excellent opportunity.

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    • the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
    • the increased Taliban threat to U.S. and NATO vehicles comes not from any new technology from Iran but from Italian-made mines left over from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's military assistance to the anti-Soviet jihadists in the 1980s

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    • Monday, October 5, 2009
    • The Washington Post reports that the attack that killed eight U.S. soldiers on Saturday in Kamdesh "appeared to be led by a local commander of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgent group, which is run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar."  Similarly, an AP story on the attack calls Nuristan on the rugged northeastern border of Afghanistan and Pakistan home to "wanted terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar." 

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    • February  14, 2003

        

      Meet Mr. Blowback

        

      Gulbuddin  Hekmatyar, CIA Op and Homicidal Thug

        

      By GARY LEUPP

    • Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Pashtun warlord, former Afghan  prime minister, fundamentalist religious fanatic, and homicidal  thug, has been much in the news of late. The largest battle in  Afghanistan in recent months, in the mountains near Spin Boldak  on January 27, pitted US forces against guerrillas "most  closely aligned with the Hezb-i Islami movement, which  is Hekmatyar's military arm," according to US military spokesman  Colonel Roger King (Daily Times, Pakistan, Feb. 10).

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    • Friday, Oct 9, 2009
    • In an Afghan province known for its hostility to the West, the U.S. is hunting for a fierce Islamic military leader.

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    • Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, originally from Baghlan, is the head and founder of Hezbi Islami. Hekmatyar, who is now in his late forties, first studied at the military academy; then in 1968, he switched to the engineering department of Kabul University.
    • Before becoming a "devout" Muslim and getting into Islamic politics, Hekmatyar spent four years in the PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan). The PDPA was the Afghan communist party comprising both Parchami and Khalqi groups.

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    • "I have eight Taliban with weapons in a car who say that they want to come to the shrine. What should we do with them?" the policeman asked.

        

      "Let them come!" the government official replied. "They're probably just coming to enjoy the music. Who are we to stop them?" So they came. And nobody sitting there in the desert seemed the least bit worried.

    • In Kandahar, the Taliban are a fact of life -- not necessarily liked, but present nonetheless. The traditional Pashtun recourse to healthy dollops of pragmatism means that a government official can enjoy live music with a Talib, even while each has full knowledge of who the other is.

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