Return to Basic Islamism
"He is for sure in Afghanistan but we cannot disclose his whereabouts due to security reasons. The leadership of the Taliban supreme council doesn't allow him to appear in public or speak to the media, as his life is in danger."There may still be 100,000 foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of NATO operations still in progress there, 66,000 of them American, and with a $10-million bounty on his head, but Mullah Mohammad Omar, that reclusive, respected and brutal head of the Taliban remains in Afghanistan. Hale and healthy and prepared to resume ruling the country at the earliest opportunity.
Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman , member of the governing Grand Shura, Quetta, Pakistan
Some who know him describe him as a pleasant person. He is thought of by them as a friendly individual. "The way he governed Afghanistan, with strict sharia law, creating a lot of calm and law and order, and no corruption, is still remembered..." To some, a "Robin Hood" figure, among the Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun tribe.
Testament to whom his style of governance appeals, obviously. On the other hand, ask those who suffered under the rule of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and one hears horror stories of lashings and beatings of those men who shaved their beards, and women who were insufficiently modest in garb, covered head-to-toe in suffocating burqas. No music, no celebrations, no parties permitted; no vestiges of Western-type entertainment.
No education attainable for females of any age, and women tethered to the interiors of their homes, forbidden from seeking employment, and free to starve to death along with their vulnerable dependents. Male physicians forbidden to treat female patients. Dissenters imprisoned, tortured. A Taliban fatwa against Afghan women working for Western aid agencies: "Death will be their destiny".
Islamic rule meant prohibiting females from schools and workplaces, banning amusements including kite flying, and offences against prohibitions due cause for staging public executions. But the positive side, of course was the Taliban reputation for sweeping aside corrupt, violent warlords, and encouraging boys' attendance at madrassas where the lessons were in Arabic, not spoken nor understood by Afghans.
Mullah Omar was born of peasant stock north of Kandahar. As a mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation he lost an eye to shrapnel. He later commanded a group of youthful, madrassa-tutored fundamentalist students committed to jihad, and won the conflict over the warring, sparring, brutal and corrupt warlords prying territory and riches from one another in the war-worn country.
Now, as NATO and the United States prepare to pull troops out of Afghanistan, finally by the end of 2014, the concern is how to negotiate a settlement between the ruling Pashtun-majority, Karzai-led government and their Pashtun brethren, the Taliban. Leaving Afghans themselves to decide how they will divide-(the geography)and-conquer(one another).
To undo all the civil instruction and infrastructure that Western sources felt obligated to commit to. Afghanistan to return to its rigid, anti-human-rights roots of pure Islam.
Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Controversy, Human Relations, Human Rights, Islamism, NATO, Taliban
posted by Pieface @ Monday, June 24, 2013
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