Posted on 10/17/2001 12:11:40 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Arab militants from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network have provoked protests from Afghan tribesmen by acting as if they run the country and not the ruling Taliban, said a Taliban commander who fled the situation.
In the eastern city of Jalalabad, the Arabs began ordering Afghans around after the September 11 suicide plane attacks in the United States, telling them they were now in control, the tribal chief from the area told Reuters.
Malik Sherzad Khan, a Taliban militia commander and Arabic interpreter, said there were now so many Arab and Chechen fundamentalists in Jalalabad to defend the city against a possible U.S. ground attack that he left last Friday for safety in Pakistan.
U.S. bombs have hit empty al Qaeda bases in the Jalalabad area, he added, but none of about 1,800 militants there from Arab countries, Chechnya, Kashmir, Pakistan and other Muslim areas were killed because they live scattered around the city and move houses every night, he said.
"The Arabs and Chechens are now more powerful than the Taliban," said Khan, who said he had long supported the hardline Islamic movement and proudly showed his licence to carry a Kalashnikov to defend them.
"On Monday of last week, the Arabs told World Health Organisation workers not to speak English or they would be shot," he recounted.
"The workers contacted the Taliban and we met with the Arab commander for Jalalabad, who told us 'now we are the rulers, you are worthless'," he said.
"We handed in our weapons to the police in protest.
"Two doctors working with the WHO also resigned in protest when they saw the Arabs' behaviour," he said, identifying the two Afghans involved.
ARABS FLOCK TO JALALABAD
Western estimates say 10,000 to 13,000 Islamic militants, more than half from Arab states, are in Afghanistan with the Saudi-born militant bin Laden, training for terrorist attacks and now preparing to fight what they call a jihad, or holy war, against the United States.
Those who have encountered these Arabs inside Afghanistan, where they first arrived in the 1980s to fight with the mujahideen (holy warriors) against Soviet occupation forces, describe them as tough, zealous and aggressively anti-Western.
They normally live out in the mountains, in isolated training camps, and keep to themselves, said Khan, who said he had visited some camps but refused to reveal their location for security reasons.
"Before the bombing started, there were very few of them in Jalalabad," he said. "But after that, the Taliban brought them in to defend the city.
"So the bombs are hitting empty camps and ammunition dumps. There is a camp near Jalalabad called Melawa Tora Bora, which the mujahideen used and then Osama bin Laden and his friends took over. It was a well-known bin Laden camp.
"When the Americans attacked, not a single person was injured because the camp was empty. No Arabs or Chechens are being killed, only innocent people," Khan said in Pashto, speaking through an interpreter. Tora Bora was hit on Monday.
Khan said the 1,800 al Qaeda fighters now in Jalalabad had 180 pickup trucks at their disposal to move them around the area to a new place to sleep every night. "They live in small groups, not in camps," he said.
Taliban forces were also dispersed and mobile, he said.
"They live under bridges and trees, so most of their houses are empty."
Among the Arabs gathering in Jalalabad after September 11 were some -- Khan did not say how many -- arriving from Germany, where several bin Laden associates were based. Khan said one named Abu Imad figured on a U.S. list of wanted terrorists.
CLASSIC PASHTUN CHIEF
Having so many potential targets around acting like colonial masters was what made Khan finally leave last week for Pakistan, where he had already sent his wife and five children before the bombing began.
They now live with relatives in Jamrud, near the Khyber Pass in Pakistan's tribal belt.
"When I saw how many Arabs were there, I felt it was better for me to leave Jalalabad," said Khan, 43, a tall bearded man who learned to speak Arabic while working in Kuwait.
Khan, who as a "malik" or tribal chief owns large tracts of land outside Jalalabad, said a bomb had landed about 200 metres (660 feet) from his house.
But this had not turned him against bin Laden, who many Afghan refugees say has brought misery to Afghanistan and should be forced to leave.
"As a Muslim, Osama bin Laden is our friend and brother," he declared, refusing to answer questions about whether bin Laden should leave the country.
This sums the whole situation up.
That is right near the Pakistan border,
it ought to be easy to send in special forces and wipe them out.
hmmm.... 1,800 fighters using 180 pickup trucks to play a shell game every day in Jalalabad. So that means TEN A$$holes PER TRUCK! Say, THAT should be pretty easy to spot using the Hubbel telescope! Lets get `em boys!
AlQaeda is using a bunch of naive mountain people with goiter problem. But a few of them have enough wits to figure that out.
AlQaeda is betting on magic. They want to arise fanatics into believing that it was the hand of Allah. The Koran states that all is written by Allah, and hence Alqaeda is claiming it is in direct contact with Allah.
It's illarious in some ways, because Alqaeda knows its weakness as it is enslaved to the power of violence, and not God since God strives to balance Evil Earthly powers against each other so that his creatures can be served by chained demons.
An imagery of the mayhem is portrayed in Ghost busters, when the demons are unleashed and there is no balance of power available, because the Ghost busting team has been criticized and hampered by lawyers and what not evil act of man. Of course, later on, they are brought back to fight a final battle against evil by doing evil through the crossing of their Ghost busting rays. In other words, they are forced to risk enslaving themselves to the power of their rays instead of the balance of powers between each of the bickering team members that had kept their unified powers at bay. Indeed, ultimately we need to risk using nuclear weapons.
I hope the boys in the C-130 gunships are tuning in.
If it's a pick-up truck - blast it! You'll find them amongst the population, so try to be accurate, but hey don't forget it's a war.
Oh ya, don't forget to blow-up every bridge and tree you can find. I can't imagine that there are a whole lot of trees in Afghanistan, so it should be easy pickings.
"The workers contacted the Taliban and we met with the Arab commander for Jalalabad, who told us 'now we are the rulers, you are worthless'," he said.
In 1975, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered with hoes and other implements all who could speak English or French, along with their families.
The slogan of the KR was "Keeping new [educated] people is no benefit, losing them is no loss."
In 1979 the KR stupidly attacked Chau Doc, Vietnam with a rocket attack, to which Vietnam retaliated and took Phnom Penh and most of Cambodia in two weeks.
In 1996 - having established a commericial stronghold in Poipet based on the drug trade and ruby mining - several of Pol Pot's former henchmen declared peace in return for their virtual private fiefdom in western Cambodia.
In 1998, Pol Pot and his remaining band of thugs - crazed by 17 years of hiding in their jungle outpost at Anglong Veng - deterioriated into brutal factionalism, with Pol Pot killing his longtime friend Son Sen and Son's entire family, finally running over Son's head with a truck.
Pol Pot was "tried" by a KR kangaroo court, and later died in 1998 of a "heart attack" which one year later was admitted to have actually been a poisoning.
Such is the way of cult politics based on insanity, murder, and rampant evil.
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