Chapter 2 continues…

What ensued during the Taleban rule was a continuous conflict between the Taleban trying to capture the provinces not under their control and their opposition struggling to hang on to their own bit of territory.

All this naturally resulted in a number of civilian as well as non- civilian casualties and destruction of the infrastructure. There were widespread reports of the Shiite Hazaras being victimized by Sunni zealots in the Taleban ranks. Sectarian motives likely played a role in the targeted killing of Hazaras each time their strongholds in Bamiyan, Mazar-e- Sharif, Ghazni, Urozgan and Wardak fell to the Taleban. In fact the reputation of the Taleban was so bad that few bothered to accept or probe the mass killings of Taleban prisoners by the Northern Alliance in Mazar- e Sharif in 1997.

Besides all this, the political game played by interfering neighbours and others crucial actors further complicated the situation. The presence of Osama bin Laden, hosted by the Taleban, and his usage of Afghan territory for training of Islamic militants for the so called Islamic struggle in Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere drew international criticism for the Taleban rule who refused to part with his company.

Human rights violation, ill-treatment of minorities, population displacement compounded with strict enforcement of the Shariat, poor administration, rise of militancy, existence of war economy with drug peddling, smuggling and arms trade marked the dismal state of affairs during the Taleban rule. Michael Griffin61 draws attention to the fact that the concentration of drugs, arms and smuggling rings around a single imploded state created the conditions for the birth of a unique, post- modern phenomenon: an illegal trading empire that defied customs, frontiers and laws and was controlled by scarcely literate warlords living hundreds of miles from the nearest bank or fax. Its capital market was the road-side money booth and the only real currency was trust- and the fear of reprisal, if it were broken.

To be continued…