CIA Director William Casey visited Pakistan in 1984 to review firsthand the logistics and systems to train Afghans set up by the Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani counterpart to the CIA. In 1985 the American military aide budget for the Afghanistan situation is said to have doubled. (Saudi Arabia matched US aid dollar for dollar, and rumor has it that Pakistan did not even have to account for the US money.) At that point the world situation pivoted on the tension of the USA versus Russia, superpower versus superpower. The US position of backing Pakistan certainly worried me and my friends, and I imagine, many other mujahideen; but the US considered Afghanistan strategic to obtain oil and natural gas and to counterbalance China’s looming presence.

Hekmatyar was slated to turn over his large collection of weapons and ammunition to Ahmed Shah Massoud and President Rabbani in Kabul in May 1991, when Massoud and Rabbani took control of the capitol city at the time of the Russian pullout from Afghanistan. However, Hekmatyar, backed by Pakistan, continued to battle Massoud for Kabul until Pakistan switched to the Taliban, who defeated Hekmatyar in battle.

Taliban means "Seekers after truth." The truth seems to be that they are supported by powers more worldly than the mullahs. They emerged in early 1994 from the Sunni religious schools, madrassat, near Quetta, Pakistan. Their name derives from the Arabic word for "student." Originally a small band of warriors from the majority Pashtun tribe, they swelled in numbers as they met with increasing success. Citizens of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar welcomed the Taliban takeover in April 1994. They quickly established order in Kandahar, disarming all factions and the general population. Amir ul-Momineen, Mohammed Omar, a mullah from Kandahar and a former mujahideen became the Taliban leader of the faithful.

I was very disappointed with the change in control of Kabul to the Taliban. I realized from the start it would be difficult to work with them. In August 1996 I spent two weeks in Kabul meeting with President Rabbani once and three times at the Ministry of Mines and Industry office; twice Dr. Mohammad Yacoub Lali gathered his staff of geologists to discuss plans for further exploration.

Between meetings, Khudai Nazar, Mir Waees, and I drove to Jabul-Saraj to meet with Commander Massoud for his permission and assistance. He promised use of a helicopter for geological exploration. We all had hopes of starting a major exploration for gem materials during the next summer, the summer of 1997.

At the end of my trip the Ministry of Mines and Industry appointed me as a consultant to the Ministry. I could even foresee myself having an office in their bomb-damaged building to start programs for mining and exploration. All those plans ended when Massoud pulled back his soldiers to ten miles north of Kabul to avoid a battle in the city itself. It was his humanitarian decision to save civilian lives. The next month the Taliban moved into Kabul.

As detailed in a later Chapter, serious personality clashes, professional jealousies, and lack of information on what was happening continued along historic patterns among the mujahideen groups.

Saudi Arabia also increased financial support for the Jihad in Afghanistan, which led to Arab fundamentalists’ joining in the training and fighting. One of the groups produced Osama bin Laden. Eventually, he grew strong. Stories were passed around Peshawar that bin Laden believed the CIA had set him up to be killed. Thus began his hatred of America.

Major changes in the region had actually started much earlier. In April 1988 witnesses viewed a most spectacular, devastating, and lethal fireworks display when over ten thousand tons of arms and ammunition stored at Ojhri Camp in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, Pakistan, went up with a big bang. Also that year the US introduced Stinger missiles, which were very effective in destroying helicopter gunships and airplanes; and Russia began considering pulling out of Afghanistan because staying was costing them both politically and economically.

On August 17, 1988, 31 people were flying to observe a demonstration of an American M-1 battle tank. Three to five minutes after takeoff from Bahawalpur airport the American-built C-130 transport plane exploded into a fireball. Dead were Zia ul-Haq, President of Pakistan; General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, Chairman of Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff; Arnold L. Raphel, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan; Brigadier General Herbert M. Wassom, US military attaché; and eight Pakistani generals and their staff and crew. The cause of the crash was rumored to have been sabotage. Details suggested that nerve gas had been released into the cockpit. By whom? Why?

Those questions have never been answered. I have asked friends, such as Arif Chaurdry, Nancy Hatch Dupree, and many others who seemed to have an inside ear to the situation, but none supplied a reasonable answer. This crash appeared to be intentionally soon forgotten by the respective governments. The American FBI complained in the news that they had been prevented from conducting a proper investigation. Policy changes began to occur. Americans reduced arms supplies, and the Russians planned a withdrawal for 1989. Was that all part of an international agreement? The Afghan Alliance had no voice or control over the agreement, and the agreement has resulted in a catastrophic stalemate for Afghanistan.

As the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan, the then-President of the Alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, along with Ahmed Shah Massoud, moved into the capitol city of Kabul. Their status irritated Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Pakistan trainers, because Gul Badin and his group wanted control of Afghanistan. The US had little to say as Hekmatyar started open warfare on Kabul. At times the Hazaras, the Iranian-backed Shiites, and General Dostum, leader of the Uzbek population in the area of Mazar-e-Sharif, supported by the Afghans of Uzbek origin, joined Hekmatyar in his attempt to unseat Massoud. Then they would get discouraged and return to a neutral position or join Ahmed Shah Massoud’s troops against Hekmatyar.

When Hekmatyar proved unable to take control of Kabul, Pakistan switched its support to a new group called Taliban, primarily made up of Afghan students who had grown up in Pakistani refugee camps. With Pakistan’s support and no objection from the US, within a two-year period this rapidly growing group took over Hekmatyar’s position and 70 percent of Afghanistan. Some commanders joined the Taliban willingly; others allowed themselves to be bought with large sums of cash, and still others capitulated in battle.

Massoud led the final drive into Kabul in 1992. He became Defense Minister in the new government, but almost immediately shooting broke out among the mujahideen. The fighting, which lasted four years, destroyed Kabul and killed tens of thousands of Afghans.

Thousands more were maimed, raped, or robbed. No one accused Massoud of ordering the atrocities, but many fault him for failing to rein in his men. In one terrible incident in 1993, documented by the State Department, Massoud’s troops rampaged through a rival neighborhood, raping, looting, and killing as many as one thousand people. It seems that Massoud’s enemies initiated this report and highly inflated the numbers.

At four o’clock on the afternoon of September 26, 1996, the Taliban Army, supported by Pakistan and Saudi soldiers, swept into Kabul with an estimated twenty to thirty thousand troops of which 30 percent were Pakistan madrassa students. They attacked Massoud on three sides, but he pulled off another miraculous escape at the last moment. One hour later he would have been trapped.

The Taliban-style Islamist revolutions are still spreading. Chechnya-based militants who took over parts of Dagestan during July of 1999 included Arabs, Afghans, and Pakistanis, most whom had fought in Afghanistan in the Taliban ranks. Other involvements included Kashmiri, Kyrgistanis, and Tajiks.

Pakistan believes that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will be an ally and give its army strategic depth against India and Iran. Despite its tolerance of Taliban policies and practices of growing poppies for production of opium and abusing human rights, including denying women education and work, the US government continues to support Pakistan.