Real bad news in Afghanistan

While the Bush administration is on the defensive for its conduct of the war in Iraq, the real setback in the U.S. war effort is coming in Afghanistan where the Taliban is alive, well and thriving throughout the countryside and even in much of neighboring Pakistan, according to an exclusive report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

In a report by Paul L. Williams, author of the new book, "Dunces of Doomsday," and David Dastych, one-eyed Mullah Omar and his army of radical Islamic students are currently in control of all of the rural and mountain areas of Afghanistan, including Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Ghazni, Zabul, Helmand, and Oruzgan, as well as a vast expanse of eastern and southern provinces including sections of Kandahar. They also have become the central governing body in South and North Qaziristan and other tribal territories of Pakistan.

The news comes in part from an interview with Hamid Mir, the only journalist to conduct face-to-face interviews with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in the wake of 9-11.

Journalist Hamid Mir

Mir, who has just completed an extensive tour of both countries, says that Pakistanis in government vehicles are no longer permitted to enter Waziristan, Baluchistan, and other tribal areas without the permission of local Taliban commanders. Muslim men who wander into this area without beards are routinely cast into prison as apostates. Kafirs (non-Muslims) are assumed to be enemy agents; most are put to death. Women are only permitted to appear in public in full burqa. And Shariah has become the rule of the land with regular occurrences of stoning, crucifixion and decapitation.

Over 1,500 Pakistanis in recent months, according to Mir, have been publicly executed for saying something in support of the regime of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the coalition forces. Most were beheaded. The victims, Mir says, were "not ordinary people but very prominent people."

Regarding the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Mir contends that Afghan police are "weak"; that the coalition forces "limited in number"; and that the Pashtun people remain fiercely dedicated to Osama bin Laden and his jihad against the West.

Mir claims he has personally visited 12 provinces of Afghanistan in the past few weeks and has received first-hand confirmation that the Taliban has regrouped, recaptured much of the country, and remains intent upon ousting the coalition forces and toppling the puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai.

"If the president of Pakistan and the president of Afghanistan are not ready to accept my claims," Mir says, "they should accompany me with some international media personalities and the world will know who is right and who is wrong."

Support for the Taliban in the form of munitions and money is coming from Iran and Russia.

The Iranian-Taliban alliance, Mir maintains, is a new, unique and disturbing development. When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Mullah Omar and his army were decried by the Shiite mullahs in Iran for the massacre of thousands of Shiite Hazaras and Panjshiri Tajiks. Iran began to send money and arms to Ahmed Shah Massoud and his opposition army of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras that became known as the "United Front" or "Northern Alliance." The Russians also came to the support Massoud's army to protect the interests of Uzbekistan.

The Northern Alliance continued to receive support from Iran and Russia until the launching of Operation Enduring Freedom (the codename for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan) Oct. 7, 2001. Overnight, the Iranian and Russian advisers to Massoud became replaced by CIA operatives and Green Beret A team members.

A major blowback of the war on terror, according to Mir, is that Iran and Russia are now allied in Afghanistan on the side of their old enemy.

The first major indication of Iran's change of heart toward the Taliban came in the wake of the bombing of Tora Bora in December 2001, when Mullah Omar and hundreds of his soldiers and al-Qaida agents, scaled the mountains between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, cut through the southern provinces of Afghanistan and headed west to Iran, where they found safe refuge, thanks to the intervention of Imad Mugniyah and the other leaders of Hezbollah.

The newly arrived guests included such luminaries as Saad bin Laden, Osama's eldest son; Yaaz bin Sifat and Saif al-Adel, al-Qaida military planners; and Mohammed Islam Haani, the mayor of Kabul under the Taliban. Within Iran, they were placed in luxurious safehouses under the protection of SAVAMA, the Iranian intelligence service.

When the war on terror moved to Iraq, Iran came to serve as a base of operations for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaida field commanders to mount attacks on the occupying armies.

This monumental event – the union became Sunni with Shiite – remained largely ignored by Western observers.

While the war dragged on in Iraq, Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders returned to Pakistan, gained thousands of new recruits, secured control of much of the tribal areas, and launched the re-conquest of Afghanistan.

The Taliban soldiers are now accompanied by advisers and regulars from the Iranian army and, according to Mir, within Afghanistan, Mullah Omar has received visits from his old friend and fellow jihadi, Osama bin Laden.

For all the details, subscribe to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin now

Order Paul Williams brand new book, "The Dunces of Doomsday: 10 Blunders That Gave Rise to Radical Islam, Terrorist Regimes, and the Threat of an American Hiroshima."

Previous stories:

Where bin Laden is and why he's still alive

Al-Qaida leader warns of attacks

Nuke terrorists' favorite dates

Chertoff warns of nuclear terrorism

Nunn sees nuke terror threat

White House 'concerned' about al-Qaida drug link

How Osama bought bomb

Bin Laden did it, say terror experts

Al-Qaida's U.S. nuclear targets

Who shorted British pound?

Russian WMDs hidden in U.S.?

Tancredo to request al-Qaida nuke briefing

Al-Qaida nukes already in U.S.

Al-Jazeera to look at open U.S. border

Mexico's blind eye to al-Qaida activity

Non-Mex illegal crossing surge

Mexican army escorts border drug-runners

Islam on march south of border

FBI chief warns of aliens from al-Qaida-tied nations

FBI chief warns of aliens from al-Qaida-tied nations

Al-Qaida runs own travel agency

Financial squeeze pushed al-Qaida south of the border

Al-Qaida south of the border?

Terrorist base south of the border

Terrorists active in U.S. 'backyard'

A Mexico cover-up of U.S. terrorist threats?

Defector: Chavez gave $1 million to al-Qaida