Word: talibanize
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...Taliban took the school-books away. It also took the flour and cooking oil. It warned the farmers of Kajaki Olya, a village on the banks of the Helmand River in southern Afghanistan, not to accept any other gifts from the British troops struggling to bring order to this corner of the country's most problematic province. Ghulam Madin, an opium-poppy farmer, begs the soldiers to stop coming through his village. He doesn't want any more food or cash, even though his gaunt face and bare feet indicate that he needs both. "Last time you brought us shoes...
Major Mike Shervington, commander of a company of British troops stationed in the hills above the village, scowls. For the past few weeks, the Taliban has been following in his footsteps, stealing by night the gifts his soldiers gave out during the day. But the villagers couldn't--or wouldn't--fight back. "We are afraid," says Madin. "The Taliban has force. It has power." Shervington, who leads about 200 men, asks, "More than me?" Madin shrugs. "You will come down and fight, and you will win," he concedes. "But you will win only for one hour. Then you will...
...Afghanistan Return of the Taliban On June 18, NATO and Afghan forces launched an offensive against Taliban militants gathered outside the southern city of Kandahar. The attacks, which killed at least 20, targeted insurgent-occupied villages in the Argandab district, a strategic way station to Kandahar, where they had massed following a daring June 13 prison break that sprang some 400 members of the militant group. Authorities say a recent spike in violence suggests the insurgency, which at times seemed dormant, now poses a grave threat to Afghan security...
During the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Pakistan backed the Taliban by offering training, funding and weapons. In 2001 President General Pervez Musharraf severed the ties, but many observers believe that some elements within the military have retained links, either for ideological reasons or in order to keep control over their neighbor. "I do not believe it is centrally directed or accepted," says a Western military official in Pakistan who was not authorized to speak on the record, "but I do believe there are individuals at the lower field levels who are maintaining ties...
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has said he is fed up with Taliban militants using Pakistan as a sanctuary, announcing in a press conference on June 15 that he would send Afghan troops into Pakistan to hunt down Taliban leaders. "Afghanistan has a right to self-defense," Karzai said. Pakistani officials reacted angrily, swearing to defend their territorial sovereignty. Relations between the two countries have always been fragile; Karzai's statement strained them further. But instead of being chastised for his lack of diplomacy, Karzai received the blessing of U.S. President George Bush: "Our strategy is to deny safe haven...