What people tend to forget is that Afghanistan was never a country led by Radical Islamists. In fact there are many sayings in Pashtu that question the judgment of Mullahs’ and almost degrade them.
Things changed when the Soviets invaded or were invited by the Afghan ruling establishment at the time. The Americans did not want Russia expanding it’s influence and Pakistan did not want to have Russians interfering.
The Americans helped form the ISI and they came up with this policy of Jihad to fight the Soviets. Jihad became an in-word and Madrassah’s and Training camps were set up to indoctrinate Afghans within Pakistan. These 2 institutions were found all over Pakistan especially within NWFP, Punjab and Karachi.
The Pak Army and ISI “educated” the Afghans with Islam and also found supporters from all over the Muslim world, including Arab states and Pakistan itself. The Pak Army and ISI did not want to see the good old Afghans to go without religion so they indoctrinated them with Islamic qualities to make sure they could go and rid their country of these Godless humans.
When the Soviet’s left, the Americans left their trusted allies ie the Pak Army and it’s new born child the ISI to set up governments within Afghanistan. The Pak Army did not want to see Godless people ruling Kabul but rather those who embedded strong Islamic characteristics. The Pak Army and ISI were thoroughly impressed by Gulbudin Hikmatyar who led the radical Islamic Hezb-I-Islami. They were very virtuous. They had even gone around Kabul throwing acid on to the faces of women who did not have theuir faces covered. The Pak Army and ISI loved these virtues and gave this militia-cum-political party its full moral support. They did not want to see anti-Islamic people rule Kabul and their choice dealt with “wanton” women who unashamedly uncovered their faces in public.
Massoud and his militia were sidelined as Pakistan thought it would be best that Afghanistan was led by “religious” Pashtuns, the majority ethnic group. In English this means that Pakistan wanted a leadership that it could exploit and a docile but extremist religious leadership fitted the Pak Army and ISI Christmas, Ooops! I mean Eid wish list.
Kabul received a new type of rain. No it did not rain cats and dogs but missiles and gunfire was music to the City’s ears! Hikmatyar, Massoud and co. fought over Kabul and the Pak Army and ISI were adamant the former should win. He proved to be of no worth.
The attention was on Kabul but down south a group of students rumbled in Kandahar and their influence spread over the south slowly but surely. The current P.M. Benazir recognized their Islamic virtues and gave them her support. The Pak Army and ISI saw that this group of students could move and were very “Islamic” so they retired Benazir from her duties. She was a woman she could not direct foreign policy! The group was nick named Taliban, a local corruption of the word Telly (short for television) and Ban. They banned TV’s. This zeal greatly impressed the Pak Army and ISI. Other policies which won over the Pak Army, ISI, the Pak Politicians and great swathes of the general Pakistani public were:-
- punishing wanton women who wore nail varnish
- punishing women who did not dress in the all covering Burqa
- punishing anyone who wore western clothes
- forcing men to keep beards that were at least a fist length long
- making sure people prayed and if the Taliban security guards did not believe you, then you would have to pray again.
They were so keen to get people to heaven, how could the Pak Army and ISI not love them? The Pakistan media heralded the Taliban when they took over Kabul. The Taliban were that good that they even hanged Najibullah. He “deserved” to be hanged as he was a communist. If Zia ul Haq was alive he would surely be impressed as he “loved” Islam and had “tried” so hard to introduce it into the Pakistani system.
The resistance by Dostum, Massoud and co continued in the North. The ISI and Pak Army must have had a secret home swap scheme with the Persian speaking Kabulites , who left in droves for Pakistan in 1996. The Pak Army and ISI settled around Kabul and they planned to bring Islam to the whole of Afghanistan. The Pak Army and ISI gave the Taliban a new line up – new members included Osama Bin Laden alongside other non-Afghan nationals who predominantly were Arab or Pakistani. The Taliban, the foreign reserves and the Pak Army and ISI became the new Trinity.
The ISI used it skills to push the Trinity north into lands dominated by non-Pashtuns. This was the bit where the Trinity saw “ignorance” to Islam here. They saw that the women did not cover their faces as a whole and walked more freely than the rest of Afghanistan, western dress was more evident, there were more Shia’s too. The Pak Army and ISI decided to lead the takeover of the North and with its guidance thousands of those belonging to the Trinity received Shahadat.
What this means is that the Trinity pushed forth northwards with the intelligence gathered by the ISI. They made a deal with an Uzbek leader around Mazar I Sharif but he changed his mind allowing Uzbek militia’s to massacre those members of the Trinity who went forward. As the Trinity pushed into Hazara territory they realized that they cold not move forward easily and Hazara fighter’s came out of holes, trees and caves to stop the opposition advance. The Hazara’s were most hated as they were Shi-ites, a “good enough” reason to be punished I suppose, especially if you support the Trinity.
The Trinity did manage to take over huge tracts of the North and this is where they got to punish those “bad” people who resisted “Islam”. Uzbeks, Hazara’s and Tajik’s were massacred. Hazara’s were blockaded in their villages in the mountains forcing them to starve and die. Their crops were destroyed. The Trinity also punished the Tajik’s by burning the Shomali Plains to the North of Kabul. These punishments were envisaged by the ISI who knew what was right and wrong. The Pakistani Government was proud of what the ISI and Pak Army had achieved in Afghanistan. They had given the Afghans “Islam”.