Word: tribalization
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When the Taliban came to power in 1996, according to the DEA, Noorzai reached the peak of his influence. While Taliban leader Mullah Omar's tribal background is not known, he was always reliably supported by the Noorzai tribe. Even when the ruling Taliban was cracking down on the opium trade, Noorzai's closeness to the regime allowed Noorzai to become one of just four big traffickers permitted to grow and process poppies, according to Jamil Karzai, a current member of the Afghan parliament and a second cousin of President Hamid Karzai's. In 1997, the DEA says, Noorzai...
Noorzai's position as tribal leader was more than an honorific. Leadership is not simply inherited: while descent is important, a chief usually emerges by consensus, recognized for his military prowess, his charisma, and his skill with money and negotiation. Noorzai needed all those qualities when the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001. He immediately understood that the U.S. would retaliate and that the Taliban's days were numbered. That day Noorzai was at one of his homes in the Pakistani border city of Quetta, a two-story fortresslike structure. He left quickly for Afghanistan to prepare for the coming...
...Noorzai sent word via one of his relatives, a man named Khalid Pashtoon, to say he wanted to meet with the U.S. military. It is a testament to either craftiness or desperation that Noorzai turned to Pashtoon, who despite the family tie was a key aide to a rival tribal chief who often clashed with Noorzai. But that enemy was one of America's chief allies in the south of the country. The seeming alliance did the trick. In November 2001, instead of being targeted, Noorzai was meeting with the Americans...
...dramatic gesture. In January 2002, to convince the Americans that he wanted to work with them and demonstrate not only his worth but his influence over his tribe, he delivered 15 trucks loaded with weaponry, including about 400 antiaircraft missiles, that the Taliban had concealed in his tribal villages. The gesture apparently had the desired effect. Over the next few months, Noorzai said he met with U.S. military and intelligence officers five times. The purpose, he says: "To make the situation in Afghanistan stable and also to help the Americans negotiate with the moderate members of the Taliban to reconcile...
...Kandahar, U.S. attack helicopters swooped in and bombarded Birqet's home, killing him and two of his grandchildren. The U.S. claimed it had got wind of a plot by Noorzai and Birqet to attack American forces. Noorzai says that report was erroneous. "He was an innocent man, a tribal leader who had come back to help," Noorzai says...