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News Analysis
Panjsher tradition continues
By Atul Aneja
KABUL, DEC. 11. In the new interim government which is set to assume authority on December 22, the influence of the ``Panjsheris'' or leaders belonging to the Panjsher valley is perceptible. The Panjsheri leaders are the Interior Minister, Mr. Yunus Qanooni, the Defence Minister, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, and the Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdullah Abdullah.
The Panjsheris had formed the core of the Northern Alliance that has spearheaded the Afghan resistance against the Taliban. In doing so they have carried forward a much-older tradition of the people residing in the Panjsher valley.
The Panjsher valley is defined by the Panjsher river. Rising close to the strategic Khawak pass, it rolls down the southern slopes of Hindukush mountains. The valley derives its name from the ``five lions'' or five people who performed extraordinary labour to build the ``Sultan dam'' in the Ghaznavid period.
The people of the Panjsher valley are mainly Tajiks who converted to Sunni Islam in the 16th century. The Panjsher valley is quite inaccessible and is ideal for mounting guerilla operations. Its strategic importance lies in its proximity to the Salang pass, the key link between Northern and Southern Afghanistan. The area is, therefore, ideal for laying ambushes and undertaking sabotage operations so that the supply lines between north and south Afghanistan can be disrupted. Not surprisingly, a large amount of Taliban supplies for its forces in the north were airlifted to the air base of Kunduz, close to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The late Commander Ahmad Shah Massood, who led the Afghan resistance both against the Soviets in the eighties and the Taliban, was a Panjsheri. His memory today is cementing bonds among a variety of Afghan factions.
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There is order in the streets of Kabul. This is mainly because of the Northern Alliance's decision to ban the entry of heavy weaponry into the city. Tanks and artillery pieces are out of the city, but a large number of people bearing automatic rifles are visible. The upcoming challenge before the interim government is to disarm the numerous sub-factions within the alliance.
Disarming people is not going to be easy as the possession of weapons is the currency to power, if not survival in the turbulent Afghanistan.
There is grab for houses vacated by the Taliban in the posh localities of Kabul. There are reports that some of the junior commanders are simply taking charge of real estate by forcing their way into these houses. The grapevine is that the Commander Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, who is part of the Northern Alliance, is occupying the guest house of the Pakistan embassy here. The 56-year-old Commander Sayyaf after his preliminary education graduated from the Abu Hanifa Theological School. He travelled to Egypt to acquire a master's degree from the Al-Azhar University. He was the deputy of the head of the Northern Alliance under Mr. Barahanuddin Rabbani. During the years of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Commander Sayyaf went to Peshawar and became the spokesman of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen Alliance.
An eloquent speaker in Arabic, he was reportedly a key Afghan link with the Arab states. Commander Sayyaf is a hardline Afghan nationalist and is opposed to the presence of any foreign troops in Kabul.
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A detachment of U.S. marines has landed in Kabul. It is now supervising the survey by a State Department team on rehabilitating the American embassy. The Taliban, prior to their departure from Kabul, had torched one wing of the U.S. embassy. Only its white walls have survived the devastation. A U.S. bomb disposal team has surveyed the compound, but no mines or booby traps have been found. This is not the first time that Afghans have set ablaze buildings occupied by Westerners. The residency building occupied by the British in the Bala Hisar fort was destroyed by Afghans in 1879 and its occupant, Sir Louis Cavagnari, along with his staff was killed in September 1879. An Afghan revolt earlier in November 1841 had led to the destruction of the property as well as the slaying of Captain Alexander Burnes of the British Army.
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It is said that the initial phase of Taliban operations in Afghanistan was partly funded by the UNOCAL Corporation, a U.S. oil major based in California. UNOCAL apparently wanted to lay a pipeline that would bring gas from Kushka in Turkmenistan to Pakistan via the Taliban-controlled Afghan corridor. But UNOCAL was not the first U.S. oil company to seek inroads into Afghanistan. The Afghans in 1937 had signed an oil concession with the U.S.-based Inland Oil Exploration Company. But like the UNOCAL attempt, the company cancelled the concession ``in view of the worsening international situation.'' It now remains to be seen how, at the end of war against terrorism, international oil majors attempt to exploit Afghanistan's location for transiting Central Asian oil ad gas to South and Southeast Asia.
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