Author: Robyn Dixon
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: October 18, 2001
URL: http://www.indian-express.com/ie20011018/int6.html
Jabal-Us-Saraj, October 16: It started
as a dispute over a lunch tab and ended with a mass defection of Taliban
troops. One afternoon a month ago, several dozen Taliban fighters ate their
fill of rice, bread and meat at the teahouse in Taleh Barfaq, Afghanistan,
but decided not to pay the owner. The owner's close friends, another group
of Taliban fighters, took offence.
There was a spirited argument, and
the men, all heavily armed, spilled into the teeming bazaar, wildly firing
at one another. The first group of fighters saved a pocketful of Afghanis,
the Afghan currency, but the meal turned out to be much more expensive.
Because of the quarrel, the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan's major
north-south supply route last week when more than 1,000 fighters and 30
commanders switched loyalties to the Opposition Northern Alliance. The
key to this country's civil war is defections. No one ever surrenders.
They just change sides. In the shootout in Taleh Barfaq, several fighters
were killed, among them the brother of the second contingent's top commander,
Nuruddin. This was enough to make Nuruddin change allegiances, taking all
his men with him - as well as control of a section of the major road linking
the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
It was not his first betrayal. Nuruddin
used to fight for the Northern Alliance, but in 1998, with Taliban fighters
surging across the country and storming into Mazar-e-Sharif, the commander
switched to the Taliban side. ''When the Taliban took Mazar-e-Sharif, we
didn't surrender. We just raised the Taliban flag,'' said Abdul Hakim,
28, a representative of Nuruddin.
Hakim was lounging on a cushion
at a military base here in the heart of Northern Alliance country with
a fellow defector, Zulmai, 30. ''In our hearts, we were not on their side,''
said Hakim, describing the years he fought with the Taliban. During that
time, Nuruddin stayed in radio contact with the Northern Alliance, sometimes
warning it about impending attacks. Hakim's explanation of how Nuruddin's
men twice defected in the past three years sums up the fickle way the Afghans
fight their wars and why the winds of victory can change so quickly.
As US-led bomb strikes weaken the
Taliban, Northern Alliance commanders are keeping watch for signs of disarray
in the fundamentalist regime. They claim to have defectors lined up in
Kabul and other parts of Taliban-held territory, ready to raise their flag
at the right moment. Most Afghan commanders are not trained graduates of
military academies. They are regional warlords, many of whom can't read
or write and who reign supreme in their fiefdoms. In return for the unquestioning
loyalty of their men, they swap sides when the going gets tough to avoid
sacrificing too many lives. ''We were surrounded. We were cut off,'' said
Hakim, describing the 1998 defection. ''The commander decided we should
swap sides temporarily to save our lives. So we had negotiations with the
Taliban. And then they sent some people who told us we would not be arrested.''
- LATWP
