MAYDAN SHAR – A more liberal Taliban group in an Afghan province of Wardak, southwest of Kabul, has stopped arresting women without burqas and is allowing some music, representing a new generation of militants, locals say. Although the situation varies across Afghanistan, Wardak highlights how the Taliban’s newest recruits have of late shown greater flexibility over social issues.
It may also indicate that the Taliban are waging their own campaign of hearts and minds. “They don’t arrest women who don’t wear burqas, they let people watch television or listen to music in their homes, play football or volleyball,” explains Mohammad Khan. But he says the tolerance has its limits – in his village, the playing of music in public is still banned. And the rebels are not proving universally popular.
Many residents of Maydan Shar, an hour’s drive west of the Afghan capital, say they prefer the more conservative old guard to the new pretenders. “Most of them are not religious, they are mafia types who attract the unemployed and impose their power through fear,” says Fareed Hidayati, who used to work for the Taliban pre-2001 but is now an entrepreneur.
The more liberal inclination of Wardak’s rebels indicates the insurgency could be recasting itself to curry favour among local populations, according to analysts. “The Taliban movement is responsive to negative attitudes that some of the population – including Pashtuns – held against it during its regime and it is able to change positions,” Thomas Ruttig of think-tank the Afghanistan Analysts Network wrote in a report last year.
Ruttig also says that the new, softer generation remain among the lower ranks of Taliban, while an older generation retains power in the top leadership. Mohammad Khan, a 70-year-old whose age would traditionally draw great respect in Afghan society, says he was beaten up by a group of Taliban after he planned to speak publicly about their racketeering. “They dragged me around outside my house and beat me. I haven’t spoken out since,” he says.
Locals say the Taliban they come across are focused on cash – for example, they impose a ten percent levy on trade and harvest yields. Experts say
they are still under the authority of the Quetta Shura and all are said to remain loyal to the group’s leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. The Quetta Shura mainly concentrates on setting up shadow administrations opposed to Kabul’s authority in towns and villages, including Islamic courts and schools, as well as coordinating attacks, say experts, adding that the local commanders are given some autonomy to run their own affairs.
“After three or four attacks, groups receive the endorsement from Quetta,” plus its financial backing, Hidayati says. But the leadership and local Taliban, which are hundreds of miles apart, are apparently not in step on all issues. “Despite instructions from Quetta, some of them have not abandoned racketeering, kidnappings for ransom and murders,” says a local elder from the district of Chak, speaking on condition of anonymity.
On the streets of Maydan Shar, however, some locals still prefer the rebels to international forces, mostly drawn from the United States, citing the issue of civilians killed mistakenly in airstrikes. “Each death sends one entire family over to the Taliban side,” says Hadji Rehman, a local entrepreneur.
