or tne laliban:

Part Tragedy, Part Farce

By PAMELA CONSTABLE cials began soon enough, and no one is neutral," he saic
Washington Post Foreign Service __ A dispute over "I felt I needed to write what I had seen of thi
whether to destroy a valuable European Taliban, both bad and good." Friends tolc
KABUL, Afghanistan painting of a hunting scene became a tug of him he was taking too great of a risk, but Moj

T
o the outside world, the Taliban was war among officials in five separate min- da said several former Taliban leaders whc
a forbidding, mysterious clique of Is- istries. read his book privately acknowledged he had
lamic militiamen who shut women O" He described the crisis that erupted when "said some true things."
away, enforced puritanical rules with I Omar ordered the demolition of two majestic Mojda's book contains observations previ-
whips and crushed all military rivals until / Buddhas carved into the cliffs of central Af- ously made by several foreign experts, but his
U.S. bombers drove them from power in Cghanistan. firsthand descriptions and anecdotes contrib-
2001. According to Mojda, many officials were ute new and colorful detail to the emerging
s But as seen from the inside, the Taliban's unhappy about the order. Some tried to warn story of the reclusive Taliban's rule.
five-year reign over most of Afghanistan was foreign conservationists, while others "~ most serious Taliban mistake, Mojda
also one of bumbling comedy, fatal military ducked responsibility. writes, was the arbitrary power given to its
mistakes,1 disabling preoccupation with mi- p~ Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad religious police, mostly illiterate village gun-
nor religious matters, deep internal splits ( Muttawakil was "depressed" over the demoli- men who had neither the legal nor Islamic
and awkward relationswth the Arab fighters (tion but had to defend it to the foreign media. knowledge to carry out such work. In one in-
who flockedtn thf mowmont'n nid "A great tragedy occurred," Mojda wrote. cident, he recounted, a police squad forced a
heed Mojda, a former official in the Ta Military explosives were transferred to Ba- Sikh man to pray in a mosque, insisting that
liban Foreign Ministry, has written a 40,000- mian, where the Buddhas had been carved 13 "whatever else he was, he was still a Muslim."
word account of the Taliban years that pro- centuries before, and the statues were ren- Sikhs, have their own faith, known as Sikh-
vides both hilarious and painful insights into f ^dered jacelessJNot even senior Taliban offi-
a short-lived Islamic regime that left no writ- / cials nad dared defy Omar, whose spirit, Moj- The Taliban's obsessions with religious lit-
ten records, rarely explained its actions and/ / da wrote, "always hung over meetings like a mus tests and personal loyalty repeatedly un-
hunnedcontact with outsiders,., „-' i shadow." dermined its administrative competence, ac-
-According" to "Mojda's unpublished ap>> While much of the outside world recoiled, cording to Mojda. The ability to "recite
count, written in Dari,,ffi?Tali6ia5f s~exfferne Mojda noted, the symbolic.sinashing of the verses from the Koran beautifully" was
"notions 01 JSJam~lea to many bizarre mo- Buddhas attracfedsficre^donations from for- ; enough to obtain senior administrative posts,
ments. When Mohammad Omar, the move- eignMuslim synjjiathfc^jS3[afres¥16w of while transferred officials took along large
ment's religious leader, was offered a toy Arab fighters eager toi join ~Qie~ struggle coteries of followers, known as "andivalis,"
camel by visiting Chinese diplomats, he re- against the oppressive West. • forcing agencies to start from scratch.
coiled like "someone holding a piece of red- I Mojda, 48, a conservative, scholarly Mus- / The Taliban's permanent conflict with eth-
hot coal," because he believed all likenesses /lim who is now a senior aide in the Supreme nic militias from northern Afghanistan also
of living creatures to be un-Islamic. Court, never joined the Taliban, but he was prevented it from evolving into a real govern-
In another passage of Mojda's account, a fan activist with other Afghan Islamic groups ment. Senior officials were ordered to the
Kabul man desperately tries to secure a reli- (that fought Soviet forces in the 1980s, front lines, leaving their ministries drifting
gious order from the Supreme Court to have In an interview this week, Mojda said he (f a n d leaderless. Military commanders wield-
his teeth pulled because he had his cavities had no desire to make fun of the Taliban, but ed far more power and enjoyed greater per-
filled by a dentist but was told by a Taliban rather sought to point out the flaws and fa- / quisites than their civilian counterparts,
cleric (hat having filled teeth "would make natical aberrations that gradually disillu- r- 'The Taliban leadership had no plan but
my prayers and ablutions invalid." sioned him—and ultimately alienated many | war," wrote Mojda, and yet its battle plans of
MojdajjjSO wrote about' h^yr an internal other Afghans from the initially popular i ten went awry..Even seasoned commanders
spfiTbetween the moderate andjundamental- movement. lr£. ; ; ;

"In Afghanistan, history is never written See TALIBAN, A16, Coll

 /nil. But the ^^a
aaunting, she said, because WHSHP
are so many broken families and.

laliban Rulelll)epicted as a Painful Farce

CALIBAN, From A13 well as cruelty. Village mullahs lost sist their "holy war." The Arabs, television and liked to watch Arab
their way in the capital, and the Tali- /Mojda said hi an interview, looked news channels, but kept it locked
bad to wait to make field decisions ban radio station issued bulletins ! down on Afghans as vulgar and im- and under guard in the basement so
until they obtained permission from asking people to help locate them. [ pure, especially because they it would not be smashed by the reli-
Omar, who was usually incommuni- Newly named ministers went bare- smoked cigarettes and hashish, and
cado in his southern headquarters. foot as they sat in ornate office found even the stern Taliban cadres L» Today, Omar is a fugitive, be-
Planning was so haphazard that chairs. \y pure. lieved to be hiding along the Paki-
large numbers of troops were sent f So many Taliban officials were W-Some more progressive Taliban stan border. Muttawakil, who
into battles in which massive casu- /war cripples, missing eyes or limbs, (officials did, in fact, oppose their .,
alties were inevitable. / that Mojda said he developed a theo- \' most extreme policies, and was recently rdEa^3rfrom_over a
Mojda told the story of a man ( ry about repressive rule as a form of / over time a deep internal split devel- year inTOS7custody jSTQsJnow Hy-
who dined with several Taliban \l revenge. oped between the moderate
Omar, who and
had fun- ing[quiettyInTMgKffistan.
commanders near Kabul and was ! one eye, enjoyed absolute power as Ldamentalist camps. Inside the For- As for Mojo£rwh6~once wore a
then invited on a joyride in a caravan \e movement's chosen emir, yet he eign Ministry, one of the few bulky turban and long beard to
of pickup trucks. As they gained I resorted to "dreams and auguries" departments with educated employ- work, he now sports the same jack-
speed, shots rang out, and the man i and was often unreachable when ees, Mojda observed this struggle et-and-tie uniform as most former
realized they were racing through / major decisions had to be made. firsthand. employees of the Taliban. At night, Ca
enemy, lines. "There were many { H i s boss, Muttawakil, was known he writes in his home study on a Din
dead and captured, but the com- I as a Taliban moderate despite his computer that once even his boss Few
manders didn't care," Mojda said. tious ajSTHefiant of their mentors in f close relations with Omar. Mojda would have had to hide in the base- EX
"Their only idea was to drive fast P^jdslan, wj^e.movmg..^ojser,Jo Ljwrote that the minister Owned a ment. Sch
and break through the line. thek_weaWiy backersfromtijeMid-
~~ By his account, the Taliban ini- dlej|ast. 'KCfl3a. jiescnbes-Jhese
tially sought only to disarm and pac- Arabs as both shrewd and deadly. At
ify tile lawless, war-torn country and firi
.had no desire to take power. Their with OmarJffldhis_ajde5byjiymg
crackdown on crime and abuses by them expensive veWcies. Later, they
other muitias, beginning with the set up traininkpaniE? wfeexej^giban
punishment of a commander who fighters were tau&t to make explo-
• raped a bus passenger, was greeted "sives from common objects "like
L. with public relief. "From the Iranian hockey balls* aMS extract poison
borders to the remote reaches of Ba- from cucumbers.
dakhshan, all were ready to wel-
come them," he wrote.
tid yet the rustic Afghan mili-
/tiamen never meshed with the more
.The early days of Taliban rule in f fanatical fighters from Yemen, Saudi
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