LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Taliban
built 617 days ago
Assisting with the CentGas negotiations with the Taliban was Laili Helms, the niece-in-law of former CIA Director Richard Helms. Laili Helms... a relative of King Zahir Shah, was the Taliban's unofficial envoy to the United States and arranged for various Taliban officials to visit the United States. Laili Helms' base of operations was in her home in Jersey City on the Hudson River. Ironically, most of her work on behalf of the Taliban was practically conducted in the shadows of the World Trade Center, just across the river.
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Evidence mounted by early 2003 in the southern regions of Afghanistan that the Taliban was reorganizing and has found an ally in rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, labeled a terrorist and hunted by US troops," the Associated Press reported in early April. The evidence included the discovery by coalition forces of around 60 Taliban fighters holed up near the village of Sikai Lashki, 25 miles north of the southeastern village of Spinboldak. Further indication came from the killings in southern Afghanistan of a Red Cross worker and, separately, of two U.S. troops in an ambush, as well as allegations that Taliban leaders had found safe havens in private homes in neighboring Pakistan's Quetta province.
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The Taliban claimed it was trying to ensure a society in which women had a safe and dignified role. But the facts show the opposite. Women were stripped of their dignity under the Taliban. They were made unable to support their families. Girls were deprived of basic health care and of any semblance of schooling. They were even deprived of their childhood under a regime that took away their songs, their dolls, and their stuffed animals -- all banned by the Taliban.
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Not all former Taliban members have joined this fight. Many heeded a call by President Karzai to disarm and have assumed normal lives as members of Afghan society. Some even won seats Afghanistan in the September 2005 parliamentary election. This is not so surprising. Gannon says that during the Taliban's rule, "if you wanted to be anything you had to be Taliban."
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Newsweek has viewed a new recruiting video in which the Taliban's most notoriously cruel commander, the one-legged Mullah Dadullah Akhund, addresses an audience of some 400 men who are described as trained suicide bombers, ready to die on his order. "Our suicide bombers are countless," he says in a videotaped response to questions from Newsweek. "Hundreds have already registered their names, and hundreds more are on the waiting list." Those claims, while impossible to verify, can't be discounted, either. In an interview that aired on Al-Jazeera last week, Dadullah claimed to have more than 6,000 armed guerrillas in underground hideouts and other staging areas, awaiting the moment to strike. "The attack is imminent," he told the Arabic TV channel.
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After taking over Kābul, Taliban leaders began to institute an uncompromising regime. Their basic premise was to enforce a purist way of life based on their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. They immediately created the Ministry for Ordering What Is Right and Forbidding What Is Wrong to impose and enforce their rules of conduct. Mohammed Omar led the Taliban as Amir-ul-Momineen (Commander of the Faithful). He was the supreme leader in a strictly hierarchical system of rule. He was advised on various matters by members of special shuras (councils) composed of high-ranking Taliban leaders.
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