The Taliban troop with an east London cab driver in its ranks
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad - The Guardian - November 24, 2010
Special report: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Afghanistan meets a growing community of part-time expat jihadists
The landscape of Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan is a quilt of fields outlined by earth berms, poplar trees and irrigation canals. Driving into the district to meet the area's Taliban commander late last month, we passed men and boys who cooked rice in mud kilns, piled sacks of red onions on trucks or followed herds of goats and sheep.
Our escorts were a mix of Afghan ethnicities – Uzbek, Hazara, Tajik and Pashtun – from Baghlan and its neighbouring provinces. Most surprising, though, were the two who said they lived in Britain. >> read more
Five days inside a Taliban jail
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad - The Guardian - November 25, 2010
Special report: Guardian reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad was with a group of Taliban last month when US and Afghan forces attacked. In the second of a three-part series, he tells how, after the assault, he ended up being imprisoned by the fighters he had come to interview
After the battle with US special forces, helicopter gunships and Afghan government troops, two Talibs were dead and several more injured.
We had been asleep in a guest room belonging to a man from east London who was a mullah and a fighter when the attack happened. But the timing of the firefight made the Taliban suspicious and Bilal, one of the senior commanders in this district of Baghlan province, told us politely that we would have to answer some questions. Our phones, bags and cameras were confiscated.
They detained us first in a madrassa – a religious school – a compound-style building flanked on one side by a mosque and on the other by a government school. In the courtyard there were pools of congealed blood where some of the casualties had been brought that morning. We were led into a room where Amanulah, a bespectacled teacher in his 30s, sat with his students, who ranged from seven-year-olds to fuzzy-bearded teenagers with turbans and guns. >> read more
Talking to the Taliban about life after occupation
By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad - The Guardian - November 26, 2010
Special report: In the last of his series from Afghanistan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad asks Taliban leaders past and present what kind of regime they would run – and whether there is a chance of negotiated peace
In the south-eastern city of Khost, the everyday business of the Taliban administration carries on across the street from the fortified, government-run city court and police station.
The head of the Haqqani network's civilian administration and his assistant hold their council in the grand mosque, which is also known as the Haqqani mosque because it was built with Taliban and Arab money.
When I met them, the two men – a frail-looking 60-year-old and his younger sidekick – gave the impression of being haggard peasants seeking work in the city rather than members of one of the organisations most feared by Britain and America. >> read more
