Too Radical for the Taliban

7/30/2019 Too Radical for the Taliban

1/31

Too Radical for the Taliban

BySami Yousafzai,Ron Moreau

It was early November 2001, andwith the onslaught of a Northern Alliance offensive and

under heavy American bombingthe Taliban in northern Afghanistan was close to collapse.

Fighters and commanders were surrendering en masse or trying to escape to Pakistan. Far to the

south, the beleaguered forces of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omarwho would end up

fleeing on a motorbike into the nearby mountainsheld out for one more month before

Kandahar fell, marking the end of the regime.

Mullah Najibullah, a 22-year-old Taliban subcommander in the north, was determined to keep

fighting despite the odds. Making his way south toward the capital, where combat was most

intense, he decided to take a last stand with a handful of his fighters just outside Kabul on the

Shomali Plain. Surrounded and outgunned, some of his men suggested they try to escape.

Najibullah refused. I wont do it. I will continue fighting and be the last Taliban leaving Kabul,

he recalls saying. However, as he drove into the capital one night in a Land Cruiser full of

fighters, Najibullah got caught in a heavy firefight at a checkpoint. His brother-in-law was killed,

and Najibullah took a bullet in the leg. Though wounded, he managed to escape and flee to his

home in Zabul province, hundreds of miles away. Undaunted, he hid and recovered from his

wounds while organizing his next move.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.html


2/31


3/31

Massoud Hossaini/AFP via Getty

Mansoor Dadullah, the younger brother of the late, brutal, and legendary commander Mullah

Dadullah, appears on Al Jazeera.

Today, more than a decade later, much has changed on the ground in Afghanistan. The last U.S.

troops are getting ready to leave, and the Talibans ruling council, the Quetta Shura, has opened

a diplomatic office in the Gulf state of Qatar, seemingly intent on negotiating a peace deal.

Najibullah, though, appears unchanged. Certainly he has lost none of his audacity. Having risen

to the position of senior commander, he is still bold, outspoken, and extremely hotheaded. And

he is doing what no insurgent leader had dared to do in the past: openly and vociferously

opposing the Taliban leadership and its current policy of pursuing talks with Washington and

Afghan President Hamid Karzais regime.

Indeed, Najibullah, whose nom de guerre is Umar Khatab, has broken away completely from the

shura leadership. He has formed his own insurgent faction and openly refers to the Taliban

leadership as traitors. Commanding as many as 8,000 fighters out of an estimated 25,000 to

35,000 insurgents nationwide, he could present a serious problem for the Taliban leadership

and any hopes for eventual rapprochement between the warring sides. This is the first time

someone has split from, and criticized, the Talibans top leaders so openly, says Zabihullah, a

key Taliban political adviser. In the past anyone who challenged the shura either faced death or

arrest in Pakistan.

His brazen, some say suicidal, move couldnt have come at a less convenient time for Taliban

leaders. The insurgency is flagging as U.S. troops prepare for the announced withdrawal of

combat forces by the end of 2014. To make matters worse, the morale of many fighters is waning


4/31

as a result of the leaderships move to begin talks with Washington and Kabul. Pushing a peace

agenda on religiously inspired guerrillas after nearly 13 years of sacrifice is a hard sell for the

shura. We are confused about what to do, given the peace talks, says a Taliban subcommander

in Helmand province, where the insurgents have been driven out of their former strongholds.

Why should I make my kids orphans and lose my beloved friends if we are going for peace?

Before Najibullah broke with them, the Talibans senior leadership viewed him as one of its top

officersa hero even, according to Taliban insiders. Now, by formally divorcing himself from

the mainstream movement,Najibullah has seriously weakened the Taliban leaderships hold on

the insurgency, both militarily and politically, while also undermining its credibility as a jihadist

force. His rebellion may even signal the Talibans ultimate breakdown into feuding factions. I

worry that this peace-talks issue is making once-united Taliban brothers enemies of each other,

says a former senior Taliban intelligence officer. They are now pointing guns and daggers at

each others chests and throats.

Najibullahs anti-peace message and his call to continue the fight until total victory is achieved

seem to have gained traction among the rank and file over the last few months. Big numbers of

Taliban and other Afghans are joining us, Najibullah claims in an exclusive interview

withNewsweek,speaking by telephone from an unknown location. If thats true, Najibullahs

campaign could certainly jeopardize any settlement that Washington, Kabul, and the Taliban

eventually negotiate.Reuters

Najibullah aims to not only fight Kabuls puppet forces and the American infidel invaders,

but also to stop the shuras peace process dead in its tracks.


5/31

BY ALL accounts, Najibullah is an imposing figure. Fellow fighters, and the handful of

journalists who have met him, say he favors big black turbans and camouflage military vests. He

sports a full, well-trimmed beard and short hair, is over six feet tall, has fair skin, and projects an

air of authority.

He joined the jihadist cause in 1994, just as Omar was launching the Taliban movement. He was

only 15 but quickly rose through the ranks to become a key subcommander under Mullah

Dadullah in northern Afghanistan, as the Taliban fought to eliminate the last pockets of

resistance by the Northern Alliance. He tellsNewsweekthat he joined Dadullahs forces because

he found him to be the bravest and most charismatic commander. He could have added that

Dadullah was also one of the cruelest: human-rights groups charged that Dadullahs men

committed widespread atrocities against the Hazara minority during the fight in the north.

Under Dadullahs tutelage, Najibullah acquired a reputation for launching daring attacks and

making Houdini-like escapes from the clutches of American and Afghan forcesthough, by his

own count, he has been jailed and has bribed his way to freedom on at least three occasions, the

first time in 1997.


6/31


7/31

Najibullahs 36-page Real Facts book.

After the attacks of 9/11, the American invasion, and his retreat back home following the

shootout in Kabul, Najibullah organized and in 2003 led the first Taliban attack against Afghan

government forces to take place in Zabul province. He was captured the following year and held

in prison for eight months before paying a hefty bribe to his jailers and escaping. Then in 2006

he was arrested again. He says he paid Afghan judges and intelligence officers $25,000 to

arrange his release.

By then he had become a valuable player as one of Dadullahs top deputies. He had also gained a

reputation for brutality; indeed, the Taliban leadership felt compelled to warn him against

excessive use of force such as the willy-nilly beheading of prisoners and alleged spies.

Dadullah felt differently about his protg and, to reward him, appointed him commander of

hundreds of suicide bombers and operational chief of insurgent forces inside Kabul. And when

special forces killed Dadullah during a 2007 raid, Najibullah immediately took command of most

of his late mentors forces.

Najibullah says he organized a failed suicide attack in 2006 against former Afghan president

Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and the successful kidnapping of one of Mojaddedis deputies in the

governments reconciliation program the following year. (He was released on the payment of a

large ransom.) He also asserts that during the past few years he and his men were behind some of

the biggest attacks against American convoys in Kabul and on U.S. outposts in nearby Wardak

province. And he claims responsibility for the high-profile kidnapping ofNew York


8/31

Times reporter David Rohde in November 2008. (Rohde was held hostage in Pakistan until his

escape eight months later.)


9/31


10/31

KH/Magnum

Mullah Mohammad Omar called for waging holy jihad until total victory.

MULLAH MOHAMMAD Omar, the reclusive, one-eyed founder of the Taliban, has not been

seen or heard from since late 2001 when, as he fled from his Kandahar base, he vowed to fight

until all foreign soldiers had been driven from the country. Najibullah believes that, by

negotiating, the shura leaders and their representatives in Qatar are ignoring Omars command

that they are selling out the original principles of the jihad for lives of comfort and riches.

Mansoor has hijacked and twisted Mullah Omars message, Najibullah says, referring to

Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, the shuras leader. The shura wants to lose at the table what we

have won with our blood on the battlefield. He believes that Omar has neither drafted nor

approved any of the periodic messages that increasingly talk of political compromise, which the

shura has issued in Omars name over the years.

Najibullah had closely followed the secret (later public) contact between Washington envoys and

shura representatives, which formed the basis for beginning the peace talksa process he

rejected from the beginning and still adamantly opposes (even though the talks have gone

nowhere). What sent him into open revolt was the leaderships plan to set up a political office in

Qatar as a venue for contact with American officials and Karzai negotiators; early this year he

abruptly, overtly, and loudly broke with the shura, about four months before the Taliban formally

opened the office. Talking to the U.S. in Qatar is treason, says Najibullah. This office and the

talks offend me, the fighters, and the families of the martyrs. It is clear treason against the blood

of the martyrs.

To fight this treason, he has established his own army, which currently has forces in five

strategic provinces around Kabul. His reaction doesnt surprise some Taliban insiders who know


11/31

him. Najibullah has always been aggressive and often has broken Taliban rules, says the

former Taliban intelligence officer. His new faction is, disturbingly, called the Suicide Group of

the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan. Its aim, says Najibullah, is twofold: killing the peace

process and continuing to fight the puppet government in Kabul and the American infidel

invaders until the last foreign soldier has been forced out of Afghanistan. There is much

criticism among our ground fighters of these peace moves, he says, so we decided to establish

the movement to stop it.


12/31


13/31

Baz Ratner/Reuters

The Talibans insurgency is flagging just as U.S. troops are beginning to stand down.

His movement recently published its policy statement on the Internet. The 26-point program

emphasizes the permanence of the jihad, making clear that the fight wont be limited only to

Afghanistan ... but will continue until Muslims have been freed from the atrocities of non-

believers. That statement sounds like a pledge from al Qaedawhich makes sense, given that

Najibullah steadfastly supports the terror group and says he has worked closely with its

explosives experts, who have taught his insurgents how to fashion more-lethal IEDs and suicide

vests and how to indoctrinate suicide-bomber recruits. We are not sorry for the sacrifice of our

whole Emirate for the cause of al Qaeda, he says, referring to Mullah Omars refusal to hand

over Osama bin Laden as demanded by President George Bush, and adds: We welcome al

Qaeda as our solid ideological friends. To get his message out to an even wider audience,

Najibullah published a pocket-size, 36-page book two months ago that denounces the peace

process and claims that the CIA is orchestrating a conspiracy against the Muslim world and has

headquarters in Qatar.

That Najibullah has friends in high places is suggested by the impunity with which he operates

both in Peshawar and in Pakistans Baluchistan province, just across the border from Kandahar

province, where he is headquartered. Senior Taliban commanders as well as Afghan government

intelligence officers are convinced that Najibullah has full Pakistani support, particularly from

the governments powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. (Pakistan formally denies that it

backs the Taliban or any Taliban faction.) That he is allowed to work openly inside Pakistan

means he has an understanding with the big boss, says Zabihullah, the key Taliban political

adviser, referring to Pakistan.


14/31


15/31

Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty

Pakistani commuters in Baluchistan province, near Najibullahs base. Theres speculation that

he receives both moral and financial support from Pakistan.

Taliban and Afghan government sources believe that Pakistan and its spy service are hedging

their bets by supporting Najibullah. They also believe that Najibullah is getting more than just

moral support, and that his money comes from Pakistan and perhaps some oil-rich Gulf sheiks

(who have been known to support jihadist causes). Najibullah denies getting any overseas

subsidies. We are relying on Afghan support and funding, he says. We have no link with

Pakistan or any other foreign country. What he has, he says, is the backing of key insurgents

both inside and outside the shura. I have the support of lots of top Taliban, he says.

Since his break with the shura, he has become more cautious when claiming responsibility for

attacks. Both Taliban and Afghan intelligence sources say Najibullahs group was behind the

failed suicide attack on the Indian Consulate in the eastern town of Jalalabad earlier this year.

Three suicide bombers were stopped short of their target and, under fire, blew up their explosive-

laden car, killing 12 people, mostly children. Najibullah denies his men were involved. But

Taliban and Afghan intelligence sources say the reason for his strong denial is that Pakistan

doesnt want to be linked to attacks on Indian targets carried out by its proxies.

Wherever the support is coming from, it has evidently emboldened Najibullah to promise

funding and weapons to disgruntled field commanders in Afghanistan, particularly in Helmand,

where the insurgency has lost much ground. And he is seemingly making headway with

commanders who feel neglected by the shura. Najibullah has assisted them with some but not

lots of money and weapons, says the Helmand subcommander. But he is promising he will


16/31

provide more money, weapons, and suicide bombers in the future to anyone who ignores the

peace plan and vows to fight until the end to free our country from foreign forces.

Noorullah Shirzada/AFP via Getty

A suicide attack took place in front of the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad earlier this month.

The fact that Najibullah has at least some cash to disperse among disgruntled fighters

understandably worries the leadership. Najibullah is gradually becoming a serious headache for

the shura, says a former Taliban senior minister. He is outspoken, dangerous ... and seems to

have money. The former minister says the Taliban did not take Najibullah seriously at first, but

that theyve come around on that. There are signs of serious concern within the shura, he says.

They thought he was alone, but now they see that there are strong people behind him and that

he has funds to distribute to fighters.

The shura reportedly also fears that Najibullah may launch an assassination campaign against

key Taliban negotiators and players in the peace process. According to top Taliban sources, the

leadership believes that Najibullah was behind the abortive assassination attempt against

Shahbuddin Dilawar, one of the shuras top envoys in Qatar, last December in Peshawar while

he was attending his daughters wedding.

Another headache is the fact that Najibullah operates in key provinces near Kabul, where his

anti-peace message can reach large audiences. According to Najibullah, the leadership recently

reached out to him, but he rejected the move toward reconciliation: I told them theirs was not

the path of honor.


17/31

Najibullah says he is preparing a spectacular attack just in case the Taliban ever signs a peace

treaty with the U.S. and Kabul. You watch, he says. We will use all of our bombers and show

all of our strength.

BySami Yousafzai,Ron Moreau

It was early November 2001, andwith the onslaught of a Northern Alliance offensive and

under heavy American bombingthe Taliban in northern Afghanistan was close to collapse.

Fighters and commanders were surrendering en masse or trying to escape to Pakistan. Far to the

south, the beleaguered forces of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omarwho would end up

fleeing on a motorbike into the nearby mountainsheld out for one more month before

Kandahar fell, marking the end of the regime.

Mullah Najibullah, a 22-year-old Taliban subcommander in the north, was determined to keep

fighting despite the odds. Making his way south toward the capital, where combat was most

intense, he decided to take a last stand with a handful of his fighters just outside Kabul on the

Shomali Plain. Surrounded and outgunned, some of his men suggested they try to escape.

Najibullah refused. I wont do it. I will continue fighting and be the last Taliban leaving Kabul,

he recalls saying. However, as he drove into the capital one night in a Land Cruiser full of

fighters, Najibullah got caught in a heavy firefight at a checkpoint. His brother-in-law was killed,

and Najibullah took a bullet in the leg. Though wounded, he managed to escape and flee to his

home in Zabul province, hundreds of miles away. Undaunted, he hid and recovered from his

wounds while organizing his next move.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/ron-moreau.htmlhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/sami-yousafzai.html


18/31


19/31

Massoud Hossaini/AFP via Getty

Mansoor Dadullah, the younger brother of the late, brutal, and legendary commander Mullah

Dadullah, appears on Al Jazeera.

Today, more than a decade later, much has changed on the ground in Afghanistan. The last U.S.

troops are getting ready to leave, and the Talibans ruling council, the Quetta Shura, has opened

a diplomatic office in the Gulf state of Qatar, seemingly intent on negotiating a peace deal.

Najibullah, though, appears unchanged. Certainly he has lost none of his audacity. Having risen

to the position of senior commander, he is still bold, outspoken, and extremely hotheaded. And

he is doing what no insurgent leader had dared to do in the past: openly and vociferously

opposing the Taliban leadership and its current policy of pursuing talks with Washington and

Afghan President Hamid Karzais regime.

Indeed, Najibullah, whose nom de guerre is Umar Khatab, has broken away completely from the

shura leadership. He has formed his own insurgent faction and openly refers to the Taliban

leadership as traitors. Commanding as many as 8,000 fighters out of an estimated 25,000 to

35,000 insurgents nationwide, he could present a serious problem for the Taliban leadership

and any hopes for eventual rapprochementbetween the warring sides. This is the first time

someone has split from, and criticized, the Talibans top leaders so openly, says Zabihullah, a

key Taliban political adviser. In the past anyone who challenged the shura either faced death or

arrest in Pakistan.

His brazen, some say suicidal, move couldnt have come at a less convenient time for Taliban

leaders. The insurgency is flagging as U.S. troops prepare for the announced withdrawal of

combat forces by the end of 2014. To make matters worse, the morale of many fighters is waning

as a result of the leaderships move to begin talks with Washington and Kabul. Pushing a peace

agenda on religiously inspired guerrillas after nearly 13 years of sacrifice is a hard sell for the

shura. We are confused about what to do, given the peace talks, says a Taliban subcommander


20/31

in Helmand province, where the insurgents have been driven out of their former strongholds.

Why should I make my kids orphans and lose my beloved friends if we are going for peace?

BeforeNajibullah broke with them, the Talibans senior leadership viewed him as one of its top

officersa hero even, according to Taliban insiders. Now, by formally divorcing himself from

the mainstream movement, Najibullah has seriously weakened the Taliban leaderships hold on

the insurgency, both militarily and politically, while also undermining its credibility as a jihadist

force. His rebellion may even signal the Talibans ultimate breakdown into feuding factions. I

worry that this peace-talks issue is making once-united Taliban brothers enemies of each other,

says a former senior Taliban intelligence officer. They are now pointing guns and daggers at

each others chests and throats.

Najibullahs anti-peace message and his call to continue the fight until total victory is achieved

seem to have gained traction among the rank and file over the last few months. Big numbers of

Taliban and other Afghans are joining us, Najibullah claims in an exclusive interview

withNewsweek,speaking by telephone from an unknown location. If thats true, Najibullahs

campaign could certainly jeopardize any settlement that Washington, Kabul, and the Taliban

eventually negotiate.Reuters

Najibullah aims to not only fight Kabuls puppet forcesand the American infidel invaders,

but also to stop the shuras peace process dead in its tracks.

BY ALL accounts, Najibullah is an imposing figure. Fellow fighters, and the handful of

journalists who have met him, say he favors big black turbans and camouflage military vests. He

sports a full, well-trimmed beard and short hair, is over six feet tall, has fair skin, and projects an

air of authority.

He joined the jihadist cause in 1994, just as Omar was launching the Taliban movement. He was

only 15 but quickly rose through the ranks to become a key subcommander under Mullah

Dadullah in northern Afghanistan, as the Taliban fought to eliminate the last pockets of


21/31

resistance by the Northern Alliance. He tellsNewsweekthat he joined Dadullahs forces because

he found him to be the bravest and most charismatic commander. He could have added that

Dadullah was also one of the cruelest: human-rights groups charged that Dadullahs men

committed widespread atrocities against the Hazara minority during the fight in the north.

Under Dadullahs tutelage, Najibullah acquired a reputation for launching daring attacks and

making Houdini-like escapes from the clutches of American and Afghan forcesthough, by his

own count, he has been jailed and has bribed his way to freedom on at least three occasions, the

first time in 1997.


22/31


23/31

Najibullahs 36-page Real Facts book.

After the attacks of 9/11, the American invasion, and his retreat back home following the

shootout in Kabul, Najibullah organized and in 2003 led the first Taliban attack against Afghan

government forces to take place in Zabul province. He was captured the following year and held

in prison for eight months before paying a hefty bribe to his jailers and escaping. Then in 2006

he was arrested again. He says he paid Afghan judges and intelligence officers $25,000 to

arrange his release.

By then he had become a valuable player as one of Dadullahs top deputies. He had also gained a

reputation for brutality; indeed, the Taliban leadership felt compelled to warn him against

excessive use of force such as the willy-nilly beheading of prisoners and alleged spies.

Dadullah felt differently about his protg and, to reward him, appointed him commander of

hundreds of suicide bombers and operational chief of insurgent forces inside Kabul. And when

special forces killed Dadullah during a 2007 raid, Najibullah immediately took command of most

of his late mentors forces.

Najibullah says he organized a failed suicide attack in 2006 against former Afghan president

Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and the successful kidnapping of one ofMojaddedis deputies in the

governments reconciliation program the following year. (He was released on the payment of a

large ransom.) He also asserts that during the past few years he and his men were behind some of

the biggest attacks against American convoys in Kabul and on U.S. outposts in nearby Wardak

province. And he claims responsibility for the high-profile kidnapping ofNew York

Times reporter David Rohde in November 2008. (Rohde was held hostage in Pakistan until hisescape eight months later.)


24/31


25/31

KH/Magnum

Mullah Mohammad Omar called for waging holy jihad until total victory.

MULLAH MOHAMMAD Omar, the reclusive, one-eyed founder of the Taliban, has not been

seen or heard from since late 2001 when, as he fled from his Kandahar base, he vowed to fight

until all foreign soldiers had been driven from the country. Najibullah believes that, by

negotiating, the shura leaders and their representatives in Qatar are ignoring Omars command

that they are selling out the original principles of the jihad for lives of comfort and riches.

Mansoor has hijacked and twisted Mullah Omars message, Najibullah says, referring to

Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, the shuras leader. The shura wants to lose at the table what we

have won with our blood on the battlefield. He believes that Omar has neither drafted nor

approved any of the periodic messages that increasingly talk of political compromise, which the

shura has issued in Omars name over the years.

Najibullah had closely followed the secret (later public) contact between Washington envoys and

shura representatives, which formed the basis for beginning the peace talksa process he

rejected from the beginning and still adamantly opposes (even though the talks have gone

nowhere). What sent him into open revolt was the leaderships plan to set up a political office in

Qatar as a venue for contact with American officials and Karzai negotiators; early this year he

abruptly, overtly, and loudly broke with the shura, about four months before the Taliban formally

opened the office. Talking to the U.S. in Qatar is treason, says Najibullah. This office and the

talks offend me, the fighters, and the families of the martyrs. It is clear treason against the blood

of the martyrs.

To fight this treason, he has established his own army, which currently has forces in five

strategic provinces around Kabul. His reaction doesnt surprise some Taliban insiders who know

him. Najibullah has always been aggressive and often has broken Taliban rules, says the

former Taliban intelligence officer. His new faction is, disturbingly, called the Suicide Group of

the Islamic Movement of Afghanistan. Its aim, says Najibullah, is twofold: killing the peace

process and continuing to fight the puppet government in Kabul and the American infidel


26/31

invaders until the last foreign soldier has been forced out of Afghanistan. There is much

criticism among our ground fighters of these peace moves, he says, so we decided to establish

the movement to stop it.


27/31


28/31

Baz Ratner/Reuters

The Talibans insurgency isflagging just as U.S. troops are beginning to stand down.

His movement recently published its policy statement on the Internet. The 26-point program

emphasizes the permanence of the jihad, making clear that the fight wont be limited only to

Afghanistan ... but will continue until Muslims have been freed from the atrocities of non-

believers. That statement sounds like a pledge from al Qaedawhich makes sense, given that

Najibullah steadfastly supports the terror group and says he has worked closely with its

explosives experts, who have taught his insurgents how to fashion more-lethal IEDs and suicide

vests and how to indoctrinate suicide-bomber recruits. We are not sorry for the sacrifice of our

whole Emirate for the cause of al Qaeda, he says, referring to Mullah Omars refusal to hand

over Osama bin Laden as demanded by President George Bush, and adds: We welcome al

Qaeda as our solid ideological friends. To get his message out to an even wider audience,

Najibullah published a pocket-size, 36-page book two months ago that denounces the peace

process and claims that the CIA is orchestrating a conspiracy against the Muslim world and has

headquarters in Qatar.

That Najibullah has friends in high places is suggested by the impunity with which he operates

both in Peshawar and in Pakistans Baluchistan province, just across the border from Kandahar

province, where he is headquartered. Senior Taliban commanders as well as Afghan government

intelligence officers are convinced that Najibullah has full Pakistani support, particularly from

the governments powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. (Pakistan formally denies that it

backs the Taliban or any Taliban faction.) That he is allowed to work openly inside Pakistan

means he has an understanding with the big boss, says Zabihullah, the key Taliban political

adviser, referring to Pakistan.


29/31


30/31

Banaras Khan/AFP via Getty

Pakistani commuters in Baluchistan province, near Najibullahs base. Theres speculation that

he receives both moral and financial support from Pakistan.

Taliban and Afghan government sources believe that Pakistan and its spy service are hedging

their bets by supporting Najibullah. They also believe that Najibullah is getting more than just

moral support, and that his money comes from Pakistan and perhaps some oil-rich Gulf sheiks

(who have been known to support jihadist causes). Najibullah denies getting any overseas

subsidies. We are relying on Afghan support and funding, he says. We have no link with

Pakistan or any other foreign country. What he has, he says, is the backing of key insurgents

both inside and outside the shura. I have the support of lots of top Taliban, he says.

Since his break with the shura, he has become more cautious when claiming responsibility for

attacks. Both Taliban and Afghan intelligence sources say Najibullahs group was behind the

failed suicide attack on the Indian Consulate in the eastern town of Jalalabad earlier this year.

Three suicide bombers were stopped short of their target and, under fire, blew up their explosive-

laden car, killing 12 people, mostly children. Najibullah denies his men were involved. But

Taliban and Afghan intelligence sources say the reason for his strong denial is that Pakistan

doesnt want to be linked to attacks on Indian targets carried out by its proxies.

Wherever the support is coming from, it has evidently emboldened Najibullah to promise

funding and weapons to disgruntled field commanders in Afghanistan, particularly in Helmand,

where the insurgency has lost much ground. And he is seemingly making headway with

commanders who feel neglected by the shura. Najibullah has assisted them with some but not

lots of money and weapons, says the Helmand subcommander. But he is promising he will

provide more money, weapons, and suicide bombers in the future to anyone who ignores the

peace plan and vows to fight until the end to free ourcountry from foreign forces.

Noorullah Shirzada/AFP via Getty

A suicide attack took place in front of the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad earlier this month.


31/31

Documents

Too Radical for the Taliban