As Taliban nears Kabul, shadow gov't takes hold

[Adsos Letter]

Source: AP

WARDAK PROVINCE, Afghanistan (AP) -- Two months ago, Mohammad Anwar recalls, the Taliban paraded accused thieves through his village, tarred their faces with oil and threw them in jail.

The public punishment was a clear sign to villagers that the Taliban are now in charge. And the province they took over lies just 30 miles from the Afghan capital of Kabul, right on the main highway.

The Taliban has long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, but its power is now spreading north to the doorstep of Kabul, according to Associated Press interviews with a dozen government officials, analysts, Taliban commanders and Afghan villagers. More than seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, the Islamic militia is attempting - at least in name - to reconstitute the government by which it ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

Over the past year in Wardak province alone, Taliban fighters have taken over district centers, set up checkpoints on rural highways and captured Afghan soldiers. The Taliban in Wardak has its own governor and military chief, its own pseudo-court system and its own religious leaders who act as judges. Bands of armed militants in beat-up trucks cruise the countryside, dispensing their own justice against accused spies and thieves.



Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_TALIBAN_SHADOW_GOVERNMENT?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

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There is much more at the link.

[bemildred]

1. "This is like deja vu all over again." nt

[IndianaGreen]

2. with the US in the role of the Soviets

Afghanistan is lost, but then, it was never much of a country.

[bemildred]

3. Yeah, definitely on the Soviet experience, but we can go back farther than that too.

I do think I remember very similar rhetoric somewhere about the Soviet loss, which might not be an accident here, but I'm not going to try to dig it up. It's almost a cliche in guerilla war arguments, how at a certain point the alternate administrative structure jells outside the main cities.

Merry end-of-the-year holiday-of-your-choice IG. Big ups and downs.
:hi:

[IndianaGreen]

4. Happy New Year to you, bemildred

2008 is going out on a bloody note.

[bemildred]

5. We're going to look back on 2008 with regret, I fear.

It looks a lot like 1913.

[acmavm]

6. Run Hamil! Run!