Meeting the Taliban

They emerge on the back of a pick-up truck from the shores of a sunken river. Six young men in black turbans, thick black beards and guns strapped to their shoulders, hips and chest. They are Taliban, or religious seminary students, but we are not in Afghanistan. We are in Hawed, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border.

We are here to meet Qari Safraz, the local Taliban commander. In a rare gesture, he has agreed to speak with Western journalists. He is a Pakistani but fought in Afghanistan, "both against the Russian occupying forces (between 1979-89) and alongside the Taliban, against their enemies," he says. He is coy about whether these included NATO and the Pakistan army. But he sees no contradiction between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban.

"We are active in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban is active in Afghanistan. But we have the same world-view. We support the Taliban's cause in Afghanistan and its struggle against foreign occupation. We also see the United States as the enemy of Muslims. But in Pakistan we are a peaceful Taliban. We were sent here [to Hawed] because we are needed here. Things were happening here that were un- Islamic."

To correct them, Safraz and his men have imposed their own brand of rule. In nearby towns, stores have been firebombed for selling Western DVDs and other "immoral" material. Three Pakistanis were killed in a neighbouring village because of "vice". And the Taliban has banned music throughout the district, including at weddings, in the teeth of tribal tradition. For a movement that prides itself on having local support, aren't such decrees counterproductive?

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/845/in3.htm