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October 15 2006 2006 The Sunday Telegraph Massoud Ansari and Gethin Chamberlain QAMAR KARAIZ, Afghanistan - The man in the cave kneads the dough and turns to the griddle on the open fire beside him. Prying loose the loaves of bread he had made earlier, he serves them to his comrades, who sit barefoot with their rifles by their sides. In pictures obtained by the Sunday Telegraph, this is Mullah Dadullah as few have seen him before. Best known as the Taliban leader responsible for launching countless attacks on coalition forces, his public image is that of the man who wields the knife when prisoners' throats are slit and who blesses suicide bombers as they set out on their missions. But in an interview with the fierce tribal fighters who have conducted a ferocious campaign against NATO forces in the Helmand region of Afghanistan, the Taliban -- and their leader -- emerge in a different light. The life of Taliban fighters is a simple one. They sleep on rough mats, using their turbans as pillows, and survive on flat Afghan naan breads, baked on an iron griddle or in a clay oven. "We have launched a guerrilla warfare, we do not need much to carry on our movement," says Mullah Khalid Ahmed, a Taliban commander at the Spin Boldak outpost in Kandahar province. "We survive on flat bread; our soldiers fight barefoot and can walk miles in the rugged mountains. The total bill for one year's Taliban movement across Afghanistan is not more than $500,000 and this can be borne by just one Afghan businessman. We are all set and have the guts to fight for a hundred years." As they wait for the opportunity to launch fresh attacks on coalition forces, his men say their prayers five times a day. In between, they laugh and joke and swap stories about such Islamic warriors as Salahuddin Ayyubi and Khalid bin Walid, or mull over the perceived conspiracy by the Jews and Christians against the Muslim world. Military commanders in Afghanistan have talked about turning the corner against the Taliban, but in a rare interview, four Taliban commanders at Spin Boldak told the Sunday Telegraph that they were prepared for a long fight. Mullah Ahmed, 43, a veteran who boasts of having personally led attacks on British soldiers, said there was no question of cutting deals with the coalition troops. "Why should we negotiate peace with these infidel foreigners? We are committed to secure independence. If not, we would rather prefer to kill or be killed," he said. His colleague, Mullah Abdullah Zabulwall, claimed that their fighters had forced coalition troops back to their barracks, leaving them just a couple kilometres of territory around the main towns, with the rest in the hands of the Taliban. "We are just two kilometres away from victory," he said. "Whenever they try go out from one place to another, they are so scared that they go in huge convoys, but still they cannot prevent themselves being attacked." The Taliban commanders accused coalition troops of attacking civilians and claimed that most of those killed by NATO forces were women and children. Propaganda videos produced by the Taliban show Mullah Dadullah embracing suicide bombers before sending them out on their missions. "You can see that we do not have a dearth of suicide bombers," said Mullah Abdullah. His colleague, Mullah Sher Ali Khan agreed: "Every Talib when he goes at the front line, he is a suicide bomber because he is committed to die," he said. The Taliban leaders said they remained confident that they would drive out the coalition forces, just as they had seen off the Russians before them. "The Taliban have the support of a huge army and we have completely surrounded the NATO troops who now cannot move from one place to another," said Mullah Abdullah. "They are completely trapped." Mullah Dadullah, who lost a leg fighting for the Taliban in the 1990s, is credited with beheading numerous prisoners. A member of the Taliban's 10-man leadership council before the 2001 invasion, he claims to have 12,000 fighters under his command in southern Afghanistan. A Pakistan court sentenced him, in absentia, to life in prison in 2005 for the attempted murder of a member of the country's parliament. |
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