Taliban : An Analysis

Profile: Pakistan`s military intelligence agency

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1750000/1750265.stm

By BBC News Online`s David Chazan

Pakistan`s powerful military intelligence agency has been accused of propelling the Taleban to power in Afghanistan and using drug money to finance a proxy war with India in disputed Kashmir.

Critics of the shadowy Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), believed to have worked closely with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, say it is a ``rogue agency`` - functioning as an ``invisible government``.

Inter-Services Intelligence

Founded in 1948 by British army officer

Estimated to have at least 10,000 officers and staff

Officers seconded to it from armed forces

Said to be organised in six to eight divisions

Musharraf reported to have closed or restructured division responsible for Kashmir

Said to be deeply involved in domestic politics

Delhi accuses it of sponsoring rebels in Kashmir and other parts of India

Since the 11 September suicide attacks in the United States, Pakistan`s President, Pervez Musharraf, has forced the ISI into an abrupt U-turn on Afghanistan - purging its leadership along the way.

Now the agency faces another, potentially even more difficult challenge.

Following an attack on the Indian parliament - blamed by Delhi on Pakistan-based Kashmiri militants - General Musharraf is now believed to have ordered the ISI to prevent further attacks by militants in India that could precipitate all-out war.

But India holds General Musharraf himself responsible for an outbreak of hostilities in Kashmir in 1999 - and there are questions about the extent of central control over the ISI.

Some Pakistani politicians have railed at what they claimed was the ISI`s failure to answer to the government - or even to the army command.

ISI `dictates policy`

``It is a state within a state,`` says Wajid Shamsul Hasan, a former Pakistani High Commissioner in Britain who is close to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

``Pakistan`s foreign policy has been run by the ISI rather than the foreign office,`` he said.

General Musharraf: ``Better able to control the ISI than a civilian leader``



But former ISI chiefs say corrupt politicians have created ``misperceptions`` about the agency because they were trying to blame the ISI for their own failures.

``Politicians have always viewed the ISI in a doubtful light... especially when the ISI was reporting that they were plundering the country,`` said former ISI director-general Hamid Gul.

``Our foreign office created the impression that the ISI was a rogue agency out of control,`` General Gul said.

Shortly before the US air strikes in Afghanistan began, General Musharraf appointed a new ISI director-general - Lieutenant-General Ehsanul Haq.

He is seen as more liberal and moderate than his predecessor General Mahmood Ahmed, said to have been close to the Taleban - although he also enjoyed good connections in Washington and was in the United States on 11 September.

The Americans have always felt more comfortable talking to the ISI than to the government of the day



Wajid Shamsul Hasan

But there are questions about how far central control extends in the ISI, although General Musharraf - as a military leader - is probably better able to rein in the agency, which is part of the military structure.

``Under civilian rule the ISI had a fair amount of independence,`` says Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. ``Under Musharraf, they`re answerable.``

Mr Hasan, however, said: ``Musharraf has made a few changes but the fact of the matter is that the organisation is too big and self-interested.``

ISI officers are more likely to wear sunglasses and sharp haircuts than turbans and beards.

But because of ISI support for the Taleban, the agency is reported to have developed links with Osama Bin Laden`s al-Qaeda network.

This still taken from an Indian army video allegedly shows a militant training in Pakistan



``You can`t develop ties over 10 or 15 years and then cut them off instantly,`` says Steven Cohen of the Brookings Institution - a Washington think-tank.

``It`s a big bureacracy and changing its direction will take a while, Mr Cohen said, but added that ``Musharraf has done a pretty good job on switching policy on Afghanistan.``

Afghan Interior Minister Younis Qanooni has accused the ISI of helping Bin Laden to flee from Afghanistan.

That accusation is dismissed by the Pakistani Government, which views the new Afghan authorities as being pro-Indian, whereas the Taleban were seen as pro-Pakistani.

General Gul claimed that the ISI - said to have supported and funded the Taleban with help from the CIA - was only heavily involved in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.

``It is wrong that the ISI created the Taleban,`` he said. ``They were a spontaneous response and the ISI and the US started supporting them because everyone wanted an end to the in-fighting between the Afghan factions.``

General Gul rejected accusations that the ISI or rogue elements within the ISI were to blame for the 13 December suicide attack on India`s parliament.

``Somebody would be mad to prepare an attack like that,`` he said. ``The ISI has not had full control over all the factions operating in Kashmir.``

Kashmiri `freedom movement`

Asked whether the ISI was sponsoring attacks in Kashmir, General Gul said: ``I would say it`s the freedom movement... They are fighting Indian occupation.``

Another former ISI director-general who headed the agency during the early days of the Taleban, General Javed Ashraf Qazi, says: ``There has been a change of policy on the Taleban and extremism in general.``

He said the agency was much less of a law unto itself than generally believed because it was tied into the armed forces.

``No one can make a career out of the ISI,`` General Qazi said. ``ISI people are serving armed forces officers and after three years they go back. The director-general is appointed by the prime minister.``

Ref Bhardwaj #: 212

[What is the importence of accurately assesing age .The point of discussion was that i knew accurately ``Approx`` age when she said in post she lived in States in Washuiington area to Stuka .]

How does the age of any interactor matter to you? So what if Semipreciousme was 6 in 1993 and lived in the Washington area at that time? Does it have any relevance to the opinions that she posts here? A lot of others do give clues as to where they live, so if Semipreciousme found out that she had lived in the same area as somebody else and thought to share that info, why has that put a bee in your bonnet? Or, is it ants in your pants?

[i was NSTS & JBNSTS scholar with admission both to ENG & MEd finished Advanced Math Calculus in Pre Engineering operiod .]

Listen, even that idiot Headshrinker uses only one handle and posts not as frequently as you do. So my earlier assessment that you are a janitor in some nursing home is just about right. That is why you have all the time in the world to post idiotic statements in broken English.

Semipreciousme at age 6, I am sure, would have written better English than you do today. So just shut up.

As I said somewhere else to you, you have been here too long to do any good. In the name of God, go. And take your multiple personalities with you.

re: hydra-at-it-again

“What is the importence of accurately assesing age .The point of discussion was that i knew accurately ``Approx`` age when she said in post she lived in States in Washuiington area to Stuka .I dont want to waste my time retreiving just to,embarass her .That is not worth it or rather i would dont like to say i was correct i just wanted to be vindicated from being labelled liars from Harami..OU like you .”

….what a tangled web you weave....now, let me get this straight….you accurately knew my “Approx” age in some post to Stuka…but you don’t want to waste your time (yeah, posting at the rate of 50/second on chowk would leave one with a shortage of time) retrieving it???…because it would embarrass me???…. if i thought you were losing it before, i’m really worried now….please….go ahead…embarrass me…make my day….

Studebaker/Sadhna #216

I forget, what were you lying about? Lets see

``I LIVED MOST MY LIFE IN DEMOCRATIC SECULAR DEMOCRATIC INDIA ``
and
``Most vote are cast by unemployed worker goons``
and
``politically correct name ....just like ours SIS sadna ...sadhna``

Now you say you maybe lying about these things and I should explain. Well, its the job of your health care provider or your zookeeper to explain that to you, I am neither qualified nor interested in treating your disorders online.

re: AAmir

...abey ulloo, angrezi nahi aati tau koi aur bhasha bol...

Stuka:

“TAhmed: Thanks for the best wishes. I am in Delhi, going to Amritsar tonite. Will be at the Wagah Attari border tommorrow, to catch the first glimpse of Pakistan. :) Going back on the 15th.”

…so how was the trip to the border?…don’t you just love the way the border guards spit at each other?…..from looking at them, you couldn’t imagine that they regularly have tea with each other….

harimau:

...never thought i`d say this:)...but thanks

Rajanjua

I don`t think you have read many of my posts - and as a challenge to you and any other militant authoritarian secularist: If you or any one else can come across a single post of mine that calls for the enactment of ordinance you mention - I will not only retract my statement, but offer a public apology - Further if you will read more of my posts, you will note that such ordinances and their intellectual foundations are held in contempt by me.

I have used the words militant authoritarian secularists for a reason: What is the difference between a religious bigot and a secular bigot? or a religious authoritarian and a secular authoritarian? - it is this way that we should be more conscious.

If you disagree with a particular point of view, you at least have to offer argument - telling us how you ``feel`` about it is entirely inappropriate.

Feeling, emotions, instinct - these appeal to the most base aspects of persons, wouldn`t you agree.

And on the other hand, what are realistic options for militant secular authoritarians?? Imprison believers? afterall if 30 or 40 members of a religious tradition should decide to hold a meeting or protest or march, that would be religion in Public - what options then? I urge you to reject authoritarian view. I would agree that coming from traditional societies where suppression and oppression is also associated with the traditional, as we become more aware and educated, we tend to favor a more liberal outlook, yet I don`t recall liberal being part of authoritarian.

The ordinances you mentioned and the mind set that produced it are to Islam and it`s understanding what pedestrians are to motorists (irrelvant)

I have suggested that we acknowledge that the institution of religion and governance be specialized. I agree that religion in governance is the corruption of religion given the compromise of principle, ethics, morality, and intellectuality inherent in governance, however; I will not aboragate anothers right to suggest that religion does have a public role - and indeed I would support such a proposition to the degree that religious based ethics and morality do regulate society (ALL laws are derived from it - There is no religion that says it`s good to murdr, cheat, steal, disobey, etc) and are identified with developing an understanding of the ``good`` as a guidance for ciivil society.

What`s all the rubbish about no reading lists? since when has reading become a social ill? I don`t know you from Adam, why would you assume hostility?? Too much ego is invested in authoritarian positions.

re: hobbyty

``What kind of an example to you set when you seek not to offer argument but react with fear? - Argument, reason and restraint these are guides we can trust, I`m sure even you, think so.``

What is reasonable about hudood ordinance. And please don`t give me a reading list (Have you read Mills, Hobbs, Nietzsche...?).

re: sameerjb #205

I am glad people are finally talking about this. Yasser Arafat is not just neutral - this bayghairat has been calling Pakistani, terrorists, for quite some time now. All of the Islamic ummah especially the arabs should be left to their pathetic miserable fate. Pakistan has nothing to gain by associating with them, let alone championing their causes.

Studebaker #208
If you cannot handle reality and want to lie to yourself, pl. feel free.

Dear nasah #150: You are right about Samuel Huntington`s past association of conservative right. Actually in this famous book, he moves away from the usual right wingers’ agenda. I have read this book twice and unlike focussing on clash of civilizations as the title of his book, it is really a thesis predicting rise and success of east Asian Confucian model. He devoted lot more pages and chapters to that hypothesis than popular coming clash of civilizations - very popular will all kind of political pundits.

I intentionally tried not to build my case around his thesis and brought in Francis Fukuyama and others. Unfortunately I could not attract attention to Fukuyama statement in this article, [``We cannot picture to ourselves a world that is essentially different from the present one, and at the same time better. Other less reflective ages also thought of themselves as the best, but we arrive at this conclusion exhausted, as it were, from the pursuit of alternatives we felt had to be better than liberal democracy``]. Notice west did not devise a plan to end up adopting liberal democracy because they hated Islam or any other ideology. It was the natural outcome of exhausted deliberation and experimenting over the last few centuries. West found attraction in Averroes ideas and adopted it just like Samuel Huntington seems to be indirectly suggesting to adopt and experiment with Confucian model or at least accept it as equal to liberal democracy within the boundaries of east Asia. Notice that he does not make the same suggestion to accept Islamic model within the bounds of Islamic countries. Is he a racist here? I do not think so because once you look around in the world, Islamic model has not produce any success to be looked by the West with envy. On the other hand, thriving east Asian economies with more than 80 percent of all Christmas related products actually made in non-Christian China, Malaysia and Indonesia, very low crime rate, low disorderliness in the societies - all this because religion, governance, private lives and economy are not linked like beads in a single string. A Chinese person can smoke, drink, party, work hard, and love his family, save money, religious with occasional visits to adult entertainment joints. All of them without being scare to death of going to burn in hell, some millions of years down the road.

Muslims were in direct contact with European west, being in Middle East and Ottoman Empire, crusades etc. In the light of above Fukuyama`s statement, the opportunity to adopt and experiment with Islamic model was there for the West for centuries, yet they arrived exhausted at liberal democracy.

Do you think if eating with right hand preferably had a benefit or found to lower cholesterol level; wouldn`t West have adopted it? If slaughtering animal by cutting the jugular vein increased the quality or calories of meat; wouldn`t West have accepted it? If Jinn power really existed; wouldn`t Wall Street have invested in exploration of alternate sources of energy with high probability of success based on belief, conviction and cognition? If prohibition of alcohol consumption reduces risk of heart attack and saves lives from the hands of drunk drivers; don`t we have all sort of organizations both at public and private level against drinking? MADD and others.

Western thinkers have carefully looked at Quran and other Islamic literature over the centuries. They did not find much in them to adopt. Islamic model is really a revelation and belief based cultural model which does not accept any competing culture through derogation and forced suppression and lowers the importance of non competing cultures of Muslims. What else is new in Middle East based religions? You are either born sinner or stupid or slave - definitely not thrown into this world without choice, usually headfirst.

Dear nasah #150: You are right about Samuel Huntington`s past association of conservative right. Acrually in this famous book, he moves away from the usual right wingers agenda. I have read this book twice and unlike focussing on clash of civilizations as the title of his book, it is really a thesis predicting rise and success of east Asian Confuciuan model. He devoted lot more pages and chapters to that hypothesis than popular coming clash of civilizations - very popular will all kind of political pundits.

I intentionally tried not to built my case around his thesis and brought in Francis Fukuyama and others. Unfortunately I could not attract attention to Fukuyama statement in this article, [``We cannot picture to ourselves a world that is essentially different from the present one, and at the same time better. Other less reflective ages also thought of themselves as the best, but we arrive at this conclusion exhausted, as it were, from the pursuit of alternatives we felt had to be better than liberal democracy``]. Notice west did not devise a plan to end up adopting liberal democracy because they hated Islam or any other ideology. It was the natural outcome of exhauted deliberation and experimenting over the last few centuries. West found attraction in Averroes ideas and adopted it just like Samuel Huntington seems to be indirectly suggesting to adopt and experiment with confucian model or at least accept it as equal to liberal demmocracy within the boundries of east Asia. Notice that he does not make the same suggestion to accept Islamic model within the bounds of Islamic countries. Is he a racist here? I do not think so because once you look around in the world, Islamic model has not produce any success to be looked by the West with envy. On the other hand, thriving east Asian economies with more than 80 percent of all Christmas related products actually made in non-Christian China, Malaysia and Indonesia, very low crime rate, low disorderliness in the societies - all this because religion, governance, private lives and economy are not linked like beads in a single string. A Chinese person can smoke, drink, party, work hard, love his family, save money, religious with ocassional visits to adult entertainment joints. All of them without being scare to death of going to burn in hell, some millions of years down the road.

Muslims were in direct contact with European west, being in Middle east and Ottoman empire, crusades etc. In the light of above Fukuyama`s statement, the opportunity to adopt and experiment with Islamic model was there for the West for centuries, yet they arrived exhausted at liberal democracy.

Do you think if eating with right hand preferably had a benefit or found to lower cholesterol level; wouldn`t West have adopted it? If slaughtering animal by cutting the jugular vein increased the quality or calories of meat; wouldn`t Wset have accepted it? If Jinn power really existed; wouldn`t wall street have invested in exploration of alternate sources of energy with high probability of success based on belief, conviction and cognition? If prohibition of alcohol consumption reduces risk of heart attack and saves lives from the hands of drunk drivers; don`t we have all sort of organizations both at public and private level against drinking? MADD and others.

Western thinkers have carefully looked at Quran and other Islamic literature over the centuries. They did not find much in them to adopt. Islamic model is really a revealation and belief based cultural model which does not accept any competing culture through derogation and forced supression and lowers the importance of non competing cultures of Muslims. What else is new in Middle east based religions? You are either born sinner or stupid or slave - definitely not thrown into this world without choice, usually head first.

`If You Won`t Talk to Us Now, You Will Later` - Then They Beat Him

Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Service Tuesday, January 8, 2002

Taliban`s Systematic Torture

http://www.iht.com/articles/44076.html

KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.

One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.

``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``

Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.

The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.

Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.

He felt a rush of fear.

Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.

``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``

``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``

The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``

Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.

When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.

Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``

The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.

Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.

Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.

After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.

Mr. Sayed handed it back.

``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.

The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.

``Do you want to write something now?``

Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.

They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.

He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.

He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.

One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.

The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``

Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.

The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``

The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.

A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.

``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.

``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.

An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.

The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``

In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``

It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.

BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.

Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.

Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.

``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.

``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``

The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.

Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.

He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``



KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.

One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.

.

``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``

.

Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.

.

The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.

.

Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.

.

He felt a rush of fear.

.

Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.

.

``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``

.

``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``

.

The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``

.

Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.

.

When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.

.

Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``

.

The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.

.

Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.

.

Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.

.

After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.

.

Mr. Sayed handed it back.

.

``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.

.

The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.

.

``Do you want to write something now?``

.

Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.

.

They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.

.

He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.

.

He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.

.

One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.

.

The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``

.

Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.

.

The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``

.

The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.

.

A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.

.

``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.

.

``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.

.

An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.

.

The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``

.

In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``

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It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.

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BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.

Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.

Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.

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``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.

``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``

The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.

Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.

He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``

Saminashah: Sorry, I could not comment on your posts, particularly that of Ethiopian writer. I think her answers in that interview were quite good given the conditions and history of Ethiopia.

Communism suffered in many ways Islam is suffering. It was a refusal to adjust and reform with the changing conditions. The world wide geo-political situation and Capitalism as it is practiced - with more concerns of social and economic conditions of workers than the times of Engel and Marx. It failed because of its totalitarian model of governance of USSR and ruthless and brutal regimes of Stalin and Mao. Its economic model was wrong in assessing the future changes in Capitalism with respect to progress as well as workers concerns. Instead of concentrating on workers rights, they went after Capital and capitalists as if their removal will change workers lviing conditions. They replaced the diversity, expertise, capital and individual`s desire to succeed with inept, corrupt, monstrous state monoplies. Their dilemma was same as currently faced by fundamentalists and Islamist, i.e., a poor model in th presence of better models can only succeed if successful model are destroyed - hegemony of poor model.

Having said all this, the bright side of Communism is totally ignored in the west because it did not matter to largely educated, literate and shrinking disparities between genders. However, in poor third world countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America with some experience of Communist rule, clearly suggest an accelerated rise in literacy and more importantly the role and rights of women in those society. Even in turbulent period of Communism in Afghanistan or Ethiopia, serious efforts were made to bring equality to women in every field despite failing economic situations and constant state of war. One can not ignore the elevated status of women even in traditional Islamic republics of Central Asia. They constitute much larger percent of workforce at all levels. In Kerala also, the women status, rights and participation is better and so does literacy level despite variosu shortcomings of communist model. Similarly Cuba is much better record on these two points comapred to similar neighboring sugar cane and cigars based economies of Haiti and Dominican Republic.

It may be news to you that the best and most numerous Muslim scientists (because I can recognize them by their names) in my area, Chemistry, are from Russia with possibly central Asian roots.

If I am forced to take sides between Islamic fundamentalists or even Pakistani Islamists models and Communism models of current Chinese style, it would be later without a doubt.

Regards,

Sameer

From Nation daily

[One-sided love affairs

Dr Ijaz Ahsan

We Pakistanis have always had a romantic relationship with the Muslim Ummah. However, in most cases these have been cases of unrequited love. Whether it is Palestine, Afghanistan or Kashmir, we have been at the forefront of efforts to help our brothers in distress. However, the other party has never had the same intensity of feeling for us. The number of times we have held demonstrations in favour of Palestinian and Arab causes is legend. Further, every time we staged more forceful rallies and processions than any Arab country. I still remember the day in 1956 when the British and French invaded the Suez Canal area of Egypt. I was one of thousands of students who demonstrated noisily in front of the British Consulate in Lahore. The wood and brass name plate of the Consulate was smashed, its pieces being retained for years as souvenirs. Yet, dear reader, how many times have the Palestinians or other Arabs demonstrated to show solidarity with us? In fact, some time ago Chairman Yasser Arafat passed quite unflattering remarks about us during his visit to Delhi. Recently I understand a senior Pakistani rebuked the Palestinians for not saying enough in favour of Pakistan viz-a-viz India, to which they replied that they were neutral. Yet we had never been neutral between them and Israel; we could also have been.

Coming nearer home, we bore the brunt of the fall-out of Russia`s occupation of Afghanistan. Not only that, we helped the Afghans throw out the Russians. If it was not for us the Russians would still have been in Afghanistan, and there could have been no government of the Taliban. Later, we backed the Taliban to the hilt, being the first as well as the last country to recognise their regime as the government of Afghanistan, and being one of only three countries to do so. But what did they do in return? When we asked them to return our sectarian terrorists, and fugitives from our judicial system, they did nothing of the sort. They turned a deaf ear to our entreaties to spare the Bamayan Buddha and to negotiate with the United States in respect of Osama bin Laden, well in advance of September the 11th. Finally, when Afghan and Pakistani Taliban were taken prisoners of war, the former negotiated their own release with the Northern Alliance, forsaking the Pakistanis to their fate at the hands of the captors. In the event the Pakistanis were mercilessly slaughtered by machine guns and aerial bombardment.

In Kashmir the locals have appreciated the help given by our youth. However, even their leaders have said that the presence of the Pakistanis has converted an indigenous freedom struggle into a situation where both Indians and the world community can point to `outsiders` and call it terrorism. It seems to me in future we should realize our limitations and confine our crusades to our own country. There are so many issues to be tackled at home, whether it is illiteracy or sectarianism, corruption or crime. Charity begins at home, so we should put our own house in order before we start trying to solve other people`s problems for them. ]