Word: hanifs
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...idea of a kinder, gentler Taliban, the insurgent movement announced Sunday that it would open schools in Afghanistan's war-torn southern provinces this spring. The announcement, which comes just a week after the capture of a prominent Taliban commander by coalition forces and of Taliban spokesman Dr. Hanif by Afghan security forces, shows that the insurgency is stepping up its military and propaganda effort to weaken the government of President Hamid Karzai. As a prelude to the spring offensive for which NATO-led coalition forces are bracing, the Taliban late last year released a 30-point code of conduct...
...Hanif's confession is likely to turn up the heat on Islamabad. He is said to have told his interrogators that the recent surge of suicide attacks in Afghanistan were carried out by men trained at a fundamentalist madrassah in Pakistan's Bajur agency, not far from the Afghan border in Waziristan. And also that Mullah Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Taliban, was being sheltered by the ISI in the Pakistani city of Quetta. Dr. Hanif was instrumental in arranging a written interview with a Pakistani newspaper on Jan. 4 in which the reclusive leader warned, "Foreign troops...
...past year has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Bomb attacks more than doubled, and suicide attacks increased fivefold. And far from skulking in the shadows, the organization was working to build its media profile. Dr. Hanif gave his mobile phone number to journalists, and could always be reached for a comment on the latest fighting. "NATO says 50 dead Taliban?" he would splutter indignantly. "Not one dead, and we killed 50 soldiers." And even if his count rarely matched reality, the chubby-faced 26-year-old knew how to spin...
...Hanif's capture comes as no surprise to the journalists covering the war, because his swaggering confidence kept him moving perpetually closer to discovery - in recent months, he had begun calling up journalists himself, to correct what he termed "misreporting" in their stories. He even berated one journalist last summer for referring to Dr. Hanif as a "man who claims to be a Taliban spokesman." Hanif's confession to the NDS appears to reflect a bitterness against Pakistan and the ISI, even a feeling that he was betrayed by them. But it may be just as likely that he simply...
...Coalition forces in Afghanistan are bracing for a major Taliban offensive in the spring. But with Dr. Hanif in custody, that offensive may lack the accompanying media barrage - at least until the "Doctor" is replaced...