Jihad's umbrella

>> The fall of Kabul has changed the war drastically for most, less so for others

by KEN HECHTMAN

Peshawar--Nov. 13 There's a perverse satisfaction in venting at a government official with the sure and certain knowledge that in 24 hours he'll be on the unemployment line. The morning that Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance, I was in the absolutely-business-as-usual Afghani Consulate--the only place in Peshawar where nobody had heard the news, or if they had, didn't believe it--making a last-ditch effort to get some kind of authorization to see their side of the war. No help. "You go to Islamabad. Journalist visas are approved in the Foreign Ministry in Kabul and issued in Islamabad."

"You don't have a foreign ministry in Kabul anymore. Your government is no longer in the visa-issuing business. All I want is a receipt for my original application so I have something in my hand to prove I'm not a spy. Look, by the end of this week, there's going to be a Shomali Tahid behind this desk, sitting in your chair, so if you have any interest in helping me out, it has to be done today." Still no help.

Next stop, Mardan and the Jamiat Hezbollah Mujahideen (JHM). The plan is to go to their HQ in Bajaur Agency and from there over the border to Kashmir Khan's in Kunar province. It's possible; it's just not that simple (it never is, around here). Jamiat Hezbollah is serious about not fighting the Northern Alliance, no matter who's paying their bills, supplying their ammo or flying their ground support missions, saying they won't kill Afghani Muslims and call it defending Afghanistan and Islam. They're actually in the process of evacuating Kunar ahead of the Northern Alliance advance on Jalalabad, as are the Taliban forces. There's some real fog of war in Kunar. Nobody's sure who's in charge right now. Kashmir Khan is supposedly still there, along with Sufi Mohammed, although 4,000 of Sufi Mohammed's men were last seen heading in the direction of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Staying out of the Northern Alliance's way is probably a good call on JHM's part. The Northern Alliance is not accepting surrender from any of the non-Afghan fighters--they kill every one they catch. Canadian TV shows Pakistanis being led away with the commentary, "We don't know what will happen to them." The Pakistani press, however, is running front-page photos of mass graves outside Mazar-i-Sharif.



Memories of ground wars past

The JHM's Asif Bacha repeated his pledge to fight the foreign invaders whenever their ground forces show themselves. He believes that by mid-winter, the Northern Alliance will control the cities and stop there. The Taliban, Al Qaeda and mujahideen forces will have pulled back into the Hindu Kush mountains and it will be up to the Americans and British to try to dig them out. Asif's been there and done that. In 1982 the Russians entered the Hindu Kush from Khowst to dislodge his mujahideen group from their mountain stronghold. "It was minus-24 degrees and the Russians were dressed so [bundled up] they could not run, they could not fight."

"How were you dressed?" I already know where he's going with this.

"Dressed so, like this," he says, indicating his thin cotton kameez. "We are Pakhtoon!"

Actually, they're Dravidians, from south India--they've just been in Frontier Province long enough to soak up some of the local attitude. It didn't seem like the time for a discussion of comparative ethnography, though.

There's a protocol to be followed when interviewing Muslim paramilitaries. I usually have to listen to a minimum of four hours of religious sermons, then they sound me out to see what I think of the American bombing, Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya and so on. Only after that do they relax and talk about operational questions. I was in the Mardan office of the Jamiat Hezbollah Mujahideen a couple of weeks ago, intending to let Asif's brother, Abed Bacha, their young, long-haired, bearded firebrand political spokesman burn himself out while I pretended to listen. Then I caught something that woke me up. "Third principle for peace: Peace is the way of the Muslims and Christians, Hindus and Jews. Do not disrespect anyone's holy books, prophets or beliefs."

These are not your stereotypical Muslim extremists. Their history is a bit different from the other mujahideen organizations currently fighting in Kashmir. They were founded in Hyderabad in southern India in 1924 as an ecumenical preaching organization and still have 10,000 missionaries in the Indian states of Andra Pradesh, Karnataka and Marashtra, now working underground. When the British declared their founder, Sayasidi Hussein, Public Enemy Number One in the 1930s, he came to North-West Frontier Province and militarized the organization for the Quit India campaign. They've had a gun in one hand and an olive branch in the other ever since. Abed says, "If someone is not accepting peace, there is only one way to bring them back to the way of peace." In the 1990s they fought a guerilla war in Kashmir, while organizing interfaith conferences in southern India until India's Hindu extremist BJP government banned their preaching arm.

In the 1980s they, along with the Kashmiri Harkat-ul Mujahideen, had a few hundred men fighting the Russians in Afghanistan. Both organizations left Afghanistan in 1988 following the Russian withdrawal and entered the guerilla war in Kashmir a year later. They were originally reluctant to discuss current troop strength, saying only "Anyone who is working for peace, that is our member," although I later saw a chart in an inner office that showed 11,604 men under arms. They don't maintain their own training camps in Kashmir, as the native Kashmiri groups like Hezb, Harkat and Al Badar do. Once again, the first answer was only that they get training provided by "The Friends." Zahid Hassan, a former Jamiat Hezbollah Mujahideen drill instructor, later explained that training is done in Al Qaeda's Shahamdani camp near Khowst and whenever any mujahideen refer to "The Friends," they mean Osama and Al Qaeda.



Getting back into the war

The revised plan now is to go to Bajaur, talk to the returning mujahideen, talk to Sufi Mohammed's people--his base camp is 20 miles away from JHM's--and figure it out from there. The hard part is going to be getting into Bajaur. I outline the difficulties, not least of which is the 5,000-rupee bounty (two months average income) the Frontier Police are paying to locals who turn in foreigners.

"For $5,000, I'll turn you in myself," says Asif.

"It's only 5,000 rupees," I correct him.

"Oh, well, for 5,000 rupees, you are still my guest."

Next he directs a stream of rapid-fire Pushto at his brother, of which the only word I catch is "burqa."

"No chance!" I cut him off. "My copy of War Reporting for Dummies clearly says, 'Don't wear a burqa. It never helps.'"

The other choice is for Asif to call his heroin smuggler friend in Bajaur--I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried--and find out when he's heading back home with an empty truck. While waiting for that to get done, someone asks me if Osama has been blamed for the Nov. 12 plane crash in New York. (Remember, they don't believe he's responsible for Sept. 11. Nobody here does.) I say nobody knows yet but my cousin suggested it might have been a bird flying into the engine. "If it was a bird, so they will say Osama trained the bird," says Adil, another young mujahid.

Finally the inevitable question. "Can I go to Canada?" asks Azam Khan, a clean-cut guy in his twenties who looks more like a local business school student than the typical long-haired, long-bearded mujahid.

"Sure, why not," I tell him. "But when Customs ask for your ID, don't show them your Al Qaeda membership card."

Checking my e-mail from the mujahideen office, I see this one:

This just in: not all Jews in the World Trade Center got the word to stay home Sept. 11. They just released the final list of Canadian victims (25 in total), and it includes this item: Meredith Ewart, 29, and Peter Feidelberg (a good friend in high school, although we lost touch afterwards).

Logically, it shouldn't change anything. Everybody killed there was somebody's friend from high school, would have been described by somebody as a great guy, funny as hell, had absolutely nothing to do with anyone's political problems and whatever else I could say about Peter... Practically, I don't think I'll be able to smile and nod the next time I hear the story of the 4,000 Jews not at work that day. I'll probably end up saying something like this: "Thing #1: I heard it from a high-level Taliban source, 'It was our operation. We did it. We're responsible.' Thing #2: An old friend of mine, Jewish guy, died there. So, I still want to tell your story, but only if you're ready to talk straight instead of talking shit." :