Word: mullah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...attempts by Karzai to reach out to Taliban leaders fizzled largely because the Taliban wanted a third-party to act as go-between. The President either sent his brother or a few Taliban defectors who were distrusted by their former jihadi comrades. Mullah Omar broke off talks through Saudi Arabia several months ago, saying that the Taliban would only talk with Karzai once all foreign troops had agreed to withdraw from Afghanistan. Taliban experts say that, if anything, the fraud-tainted elections have damaged Karzai's standing so badly that the Taliban and their supporters in Pakistan no longer...
...years back, the Taliban commander thought his personal war with the Americans was over when he surrendered his Toyota Land Cruiser, a stack of rocket-propelled grenades and his personal weapons to the police chief in Kandahar. Mullah A, who prefers not to be identified, was exhausted. In late 2001, when U.S.-backed forces were pushing into northern Afghanistan, the commander saw most of his men wiped out by heavy American bombardment. He was one of the few survivors, and he fled south, back home to Kandahar, convinced that his fighting days had come...
...part of the surrender, Kandahar's police chief gave Mullah A a letter of protection. But the would-be ex-guerrilla fighter soon realized the paper was worthless. Like so many other Taliban who tried to lay down arms, the commander had a complex history, interwoven with tribal rivalries and greed. The CIA was offering $100,000 for the return of Stinger antiaircraft missiles, and the local intelligence chief, who belongs to the enemy Achakzai tribe (allied to President Hamid Karzai's Popalzai tribe), was convinced that he could make good money if he shook down Mullah...
...rage and also out of fear for his own life, Mullah A rejoined the Taliban. Nowadays, he and his men ambush U.S.-led coalition targets in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, and he brags to TIME that recently his outfit blasted a dozen rocket-propelled grenades into the NATO base at Kandahar. (See pictures of U.S. Marines at war in Afghanistan's Kunar province...
Where did it go wrong? First, the U.S. and Karzai had different goals. The Afghan President wanted an amnesty extended to all Taliban, from their leader Mullah Omar down to the lowliest turbaned jihadi. "The Americans said 'No way. We don't deal with terrorists,' and they excluded the leadership," one senior Afghan official explained to TIME. One tactic that worked well in Iraq has not been used in Afghanistan. The U.S. forces in Mesopotamia were able to buy off the Sunni insurgency there by offering a monthly wage of $300 for each of 90,000 fighters. No such incentive...