The monster called 'Taliban' was born in the 1980s. During its heyday, thousands of young men were produced, who knew only two things to kill and to-be-killed in the name of Islam. The unfortunate children, mostly coming from poor and deprived segments of society in the NWFP and from Afghanistan, were converted into killing machines in the so -called madressahs through latest techniques of brainwashing and arms training.

Brig (r) M. Yousuf, head of the Afghan Bureau in the ISI from 1983 to 1987, has thrown light in his book on the strategy adopted by the CIA and the ISI to defeat the Soviets. It was “death by a thousand cuts,” which he states is a time-honoured tactic adopted by guerilla forces against conventional armies.

The strategy included carrying out ambushes, assassinations, attacking convoys, destroying bridges, pipelines and airfields by the bands of Mujahideen without entering into a battle with Soviet forces.

Funding for creating this deadly machine came from the US and its closest ally Saudi Arabia. Mr Yousuf writes “A high proportion of the CIA aid was in form of cash. For every dollar supplied by the US, another was added by the Saudi Arabian government. The combined funds running into several hundred million dollars a year were transferred by the CIA to special accounts in Pakistan under the control of ISI.”

The experiment proved successful and yesterday's Mujahideen and today's terrorists left the Soviets bleeding in Afghanistan.

Once that war was over, the wise step would have been to decommission that deadly force. And money should have been spent on their rehabilitation in normal lives and in creating for them alternative sources of livelihood.

But that did not happen and the US interest, with the bags of dollars, flew back to Washington in the belief that the US was too far from the reach of those deadly creatures. Pakistans security establishment tried to utilise this force for its own strategic interests, in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

But their handlers could not keep them in check due to limited resources as well as inefficient management. The result was that at both the new places of their deployment, they played havoc.

Once they got hold of territory in Afghanistan in the 1990s, they turned their guns towards their originators the US and Pakistan. They applied the same technique against them that they had learnt from them “death by a thousand cuts”.

While Pakistan had been silently reaping the fruits of creating a deadly force, inspired by the mediaeval notions of religion, in the form of sectarian violence for several years, the US encountered it in a big way on Sept 11, 2001. This brought back the US to the region, with 'war on terror.'

Since 9/11, it seems, the Taliban have scored more points than the combined forces of the US and Pakistan. They might have lost the nominal control of Kabul but in addition to retaining their power in the rest of Afghanistan, they have snatched Pakistans territory, along with Pakistans citizens living there.

The reasons for the failure of the US and Pakistan are manifold. Briefly, the forces have been using air and artillery where infantry has more chances of success, though it would demand more sacrifices from the army.

Then, there is no plan as what to do with the highly deadly, brained-washed and trained-in-arms manpower called Taliban. For instance, if they surrender or are captured alive, what the state is going to do with them. Are they to be sent to rehabilitation camps, killed or placed permanently in high security prisons? The enormity of the issue increases due to a large number of such deadly persons.

Most important of all the factors for greater successes of the Taliban than failures is the constant swelling in their ranks through the nurseries of madressahs. According to a government estimate in 2000, about one million students were studying in deeni madaris. The failure of the state to enforce reforms in madressah education has allowed thousands of such madressahs to produce the mindset amongst the younger generation from poorer classes that could easily be moulded in deadly 'Taliban.'

If this trend continues, time is not far when the drama of Mongols and Baghdad would be replayed on the stage of this world, though the actors and location would be different.

DR MOHAMMAD ALI SHAIKH

Karachi