Unpaid lunch turned into costly defections for Taliban

By Robyn Dixon Los Angeles Times

JABAL-US-SARAJ, Afghanistan — It started as a dispute over a lunch tab and ended with a mass defection of Taliban troops.

One afternoon a month ago, several dozen Taliban fighters ate their fill of rice, bread and meat at a teahouse in the Afghan town of Taleh Barfaq but decided not to pay the owner.

The owner's close friends, another group of Taliban fighters, took offense. There was a spirited argument, and the men, all heavily armed, spilled into the teeming bazaar, wildly firing at one another.

The first group of fighters saved a pocketful of afghanis, the Afghan currency, but the meal turned out to be much more expensive: Because of the quarrel, the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan's major north-south supply route last week when more than 1,000 fighters and 30 commanders switched loyalties to the opposition Northern Alliance.

The key to this country's civil war is defections. No one ever surrenders. Fighters just change sides.

In the shootout in Taleh Barfaq, several fighters were killed, among them the brother of the second contingent's top commander, Nuruddin. This was enough to make Nuruddin change allegiances, taking all his men with him — as well as control of a section of the major road linking the Afghan capital, Kabul, with the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

It was not his first betrayal. Nuruddin used to fight for the Northern Alliance, but in 1998, with Taliban fighters surging across the country and storming into Mazar-e-Sharif, the commander switched to the Taliban side.

"When the Taliban took Mazar-e-Sharif, we didn't surrender. We just raised the Taliban flag," said Abdul Hakim, 28, a representative of Nuruddin.

Hakim was lounging on a cushion at a military base here in the heart of Northern Alliance country with a fellow defector, Zulmai, 30.

"In our hearts, we were not on their side," said Hakim, describing the years he fought with the Taliban. During that time, Nuruddin stayed in radio contact with the Northern Alliance, sometimes warning it about impending attacks.

Hakim's explanation of how Nuruddin's men twice defected in the past three years sums up the fickle way the Afghans fight their wars and why the winds of victory can change so quickly.

As U.S.-led airstrikes weaken the Taliban, Northern Alliance commanders are keeping watch for signs of disarray in the fundamentalist regime. They claim to have defectors lined up in Taliban-held territory, ready to raise their flag at the right moment.

Most Afghan commanders are not trained graduates of military academies. They are regional warlords, many of whom can't read or write and who reign supreme in their fiefdoms. In return for unquestioning loyalty, they swap sides when the going gets tough to avoid sacrificing too many lives.

"We were surrounded. We were cut off," said Hakim, describing the 1998 defection. "The commander decided we should swap sides temporarily to save our lives. So we had negotiations with the Taliban. And then they sent some people who told us we would not be arrested."

Last month's shootout outside the teahouse in Taleh Barfaq pitted several dozen fighters against 200 of Nuruddin's men, among them Hakim. Two of Nuruddin's commanders immediately were killed. Three of their opponents were shot to death, and two more died when their pickups were hit and burst into flames.

The mayhem ruined relations between the two Taliban-aligned factions.

"We were all Taliban until that moment," Hakim said. So on Nuruddin's orders, he and Zulmai sneaked across the front line to tell the Northern Alliance about the shootout.

"We had to find out whether we should become friends with the Taliban again or not," Hakim said. "We were told, 'No, come out into the open.' "

The timing of the switch was perfect for the Northern Alliance. The United States had just launched airstrikes against Afghan military targets. The Taliban were under pressure. And a major road was up for grabs.

Shortly afterward, Northern Alliance commanders announced the defections, trumpeting the fact that they had severed the Taliban's main supply route from Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif. The only alternative route is a long haul through Herat in far western Afghanistan, close to the Iranian border.

Hakim and Zulmai seemed remarkably comfortable as they explained their complicated story at the Northern Alliance base in front of commanders who, a month ago, were formally their enemies.

In Afghanistan, there is no shame attached to betrayal. Everyone understands. It is just the way things usually work.

-- Anonymous, October 16, 2001