Word: afghanistan
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Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul and Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef were both held by the U.S. at Guantánamo. Both were senior Taliban commanders, and both say they were subjected to solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, countless interrogations and beatings. But when they were released back home in their native Afghanistan, the two men's paths diverged radically...
...namo, Rasoul immediately rejoined the Taliban insurgency, bent on revenge. Better known by his nom de guerre, Mullah Abdullah Zakir, he is now believed by Afghan and NATO intelligence officers to be the Taliban's new field commander, responsible for a string of bombings and ambushes in southern Afghanistan over the past year that have killed dozens of NATO troops (and which killed more than 30 people in a series of bombings in Kandahar over the weekend). He is believed to have assumed overall responsibility for Taliban military operations from the movement's No. 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar...
...Zaeef took a different route. The ex-commander with a scholarly side who had risen in the Taliban government to become a deputy minister of mines, and the ambassador to Pakistan shortly before 9/11, now writes books on the Afghanistan conflict. Published in five languages, Zaeef's latest book, My Life with the Taliban, has received noteworthy mention in the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. And his message to the U.S. and his erstwhile Taliban comrades is that the conflict in Afghanistan will have to be settled through negotiation. "I believe that is the only solution...
...parallel stories of Zakir and Zaeef embody the complexities that exist within the Taliban. Their shared religious fervor may explain why - despite NATO's intention to extend its massive assault on Marjah into a sweep through the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan - it may take years to militarily defeat the Taliban...
...Unlike other Taliban officials who defected after U.S.-led forces swept into Afghanistan, Zaeef still has credibility with Taliban fighters. He is said to be respected by Omar, whom he has known and fought alongside since he was a teenager in the 1980s, taking potshots at Soviet soldiers. Zaeef's views are said to reflect those of the Taliban leadership. As such, he may be poised to play a key role in any future peace talks between Karzai and the Taliban's governing council. And, according to Zaeef, there is room for maneuver. He insists that the Taliban...