Kabul is under siege again. For the second time in eight months, the Taliban are knocking at its gates. The 13-month-old students' movement was unable to take the capital in March but months of preparations and morale-boosting military victories against the beleaguered Burhanuddin Rabbani Government in western Afghanistan and near Kabul have suitably inspired its cadres.
In their latest attack on Kabul which began on October 11, the Taliban have advanced from their bases in Mohammad Agha in Logar province up to the Khairabad hills south of Kabul after capturing Charasyab and ishkhor garrisons. They have also made some gains west of Kabul.
Residents of Kabul have already started moving out of the city, with most of them heading for Jalalabad and others for Pakistan, which over the past two years has applied stricter border controls vis-a-vis Afghan refugees.
By capturing Herat, Chor, Farah and Nimruz provinces in early September, the Taliban emerged as the strongest military force in Afghanistan, with control over 14 of its 32 provinces. Former communist militia leader, Gen Rasheed Dostum, who now heads the Jumbush-e-Milli Islami Afghanistan, was a distant second with seven provinces. After losing Bamiyan in central Afghanistan to the Shiite Hezb-i-Wahdat on October 17, Rabbani was left with only six provinces: Kabul, Parwan, Kapisa, Badakhshan, Takhar and Kunduz.
The rest of the provinces are commanded by minor players in the Afghan power game; among them is the once-powerful Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose radical Hezb-i-Islami now controls only one province (Laghman in eastern Afghanistan). The upshot of this is that talks of a peaceful solution to the Afghan problem have been pushed to the background. In fact, the factions opposed to Rabbani met last week in Kandahar to work out a joint strategy.
Pakistan and Iran have also been drawn into the factional fighting, with the Rabbani Government blaming Pakistan for nurturing and arming the Taliban. Since the Septtember 6 attack on the Pakistan mission in Kabul, in which one staff member was killed and 25 others injured, including the ambassador, ties between Kabul and Islamabad have deteriorated. Pakistan has even accused Rabbani of playing into India's hands.
And the Iranian Government has yet to come to terms with the Taliban, who are all Sunnis and mostly Pashtoons, and its increased influence near its borders. By giving refuge to the defeated Herat governor, Ismail Khan, and other pro-Rabbani elements, Teheran has earned the Taliban's ire and been blamed for arming a group of Afghans who briefly occupied the border town of Islam Qilla in Herat a few days ago.
The failure of various mediation moves and the intransigence of the warring armed factions have increased the sufferings of the Afghan people. The urge for peace prompted many of them to welcome the Taliban, who promised to disarm the population and enforce an Islamic system when they emerged in Kandahar last September.
The students succeeded in restoring peace in the areas under their control but many Afghans weren't amused when they started ordering working women to stay indoors and closed educational institutions for girls. Objections were also raised when the Taliban strictly enforced Islamic punishment for murder and theft--ordering qisas (revenge) for murderers and amputation of limbs for thieves--without first establishing a welfare state or a central authority. But that depend upon whether Kabul stands or fail.
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