DIR, Pakistan — A revitalized Taliban army is drawing recruits from militant groups in Pakistan, including Al Qaeda loyalists, as it fights an escalating guerrilla war against U.S. forces and their allies across the border in Afghanistan.
These fighters are answering the call from Muslim clerics to wage jihad, or holy war, against U.S.-led forces, according to Taliban members and supporters as well as Pakistani militants interviewed on both sides of the border. The Taliban is also exploiting the alienation felt by ethnic Pushtuns in Afghanistan because of continued insecurity, a scarcity of development projects and ongoing U.S. military operations.
But even as fighting increases, a relatively moderate element of the Taliban is said to be interested in participating in national elections next June, and discussing a replacement for Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's fugitive leader. He is believed to still be in Afghanistan despite a $10-million reward for his capture.
Afghan authorities have blamed the Taliban for a string of attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan that have killed more than 60 Afghan civilians, pro-government Muslim clerics, police and soldiers since mid-July. U.S. and Afghan forces say they have killed at least several dozen suspected Taliban fighters in the same period.
Despite the presence of thousands of U.S. and other international troops, the Taliban fighters and their allies hope to eventually retake the southern city of Kandahar, once Omar's seat of power, said a local Pakistani commander of Harkat-ul-Moujahedeen, a longtime ally of the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
The commander, who was interviewed in this mountain town near the Afghan border, spoke on condition that he not be identified. As a member of a group banned by the Pakistani government, he fears arrest.
He runs a madrasa, or Koranic school, and says he has crossed into Afghanistan seven times since late 2001, to aid the Taliban's war against U.S.-led forces. In one case, he said with a sly smile, Pakistani soldiers guarding the border saw him and did nothing.
In any case, he said, borders are irrelevant for him and like-minded Muslims.
"We don't believe in any boundaries or separate countries for Muslims -- there is only one Islam," he said. "These people are going [to Afghanistan] because there is a fatwa from religious scholars that says there is a jihad against Americans there." A fatwa is a religious edict.
