But there was a problem—no one had actually visited the town. The New York Times, for instance, reported the storyfrom Beirut and New York, relying solely on statements and video from anti-Assad activists and the testimony of a man from “a nearby village” who visited the scene afterward. When the first U.N. investigators arrived two days later, they uncovered a very different story. Instead of an unprovoked massacre of civilians, the evidence pointed to a pitched battle between resistance forces and the Syrian army. Despite rebel claims that there had been no opposition fighters in Tremseh, it turned out that guerrillas had bivouacked in the town, and that most of the dead were in fact rebels. Observers also downgraded the death toll to anywhere from forty to a hundred.

The battles of the Syrian revolution are, among other things, battles of narrative. As I recount in “Welcome to Free Syria,” the regime has indeed committed grievous massacres, including one I saw evidence of in the northern town of Taftanaz. The Assad government also puts forth a narrative—the country is under siege from an alliance of criminal gangs, Al Qaeda, and the CIA—that is quite removed from reality. Yet there is also a powerful pull in the West to order a messy reality into a simple and self-serving narrative. The media, which largely favors the revolution, has at times uncritically accepted rebel statements and videos—which themselves often originate from groups based outside the country—as the whole story. This in turn provides an incentive for revolutionaries to exaggerate. A Damascus-based activist told me that he had inflated casualty numbers to foreign media during the initial protests last year in Daraa, because “otherwise, no one would care about us.”

Some in the West are equally uncritical in their skepticism toward the revolutionaries. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, recently declared that as many as a quarter of Syrian rebel groups may be inspired by Al Qaeda—which, according to those who have been inside and met the resistance, is simply not the case. Al Qaeda–style groups can be found among the revolutionaries, but they remain rare. Moreover, radical Islam is far more complex than Washington tends to appreciate. I’ve met beer-guzzling Syrian rebels who carried the black Al Qaeda flag, but for whom this was no contradiction: Islamist stylings in Syria are typically part performance vocabulary, part unifying norm in a riven society, part symbolic invocation of guerrilla struggle in a post–Iraq War world, and part expression of pure faith.

Continued here

Abu Malek was pacing back and forth in the hospital parking lot, muttering to himself and firing off phone calls. “Don’t say ‘How are you’ to me,” he told one caller, “because I am not fine, I am very, very, very, very bad.” The hospital was in the Turkish town of Antakya, and the staff was treating several rebels who had been wounded in the fighting across the border in Syria, about ten miles away. The Syrian army was in the midst of a major offensive, sweeping through one northern town after another with tanks and heavy artillery, trying to kill as many rebel fighters as possible before April 12, when a ceasefire brokered by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan would go into effect. The revolution had been grinding on for more than a year, and as many as 10,000 people had died already.

From Turkey, Malek had followed events closely and stayed in contact with his family in the northern town of Taftanaz. (Malek’s name and those of some of the people mentioned in this article have been changed.) Soon after he learned that the army had surrounded Taftanaz, phone lines were cut, so he sent a friend to retrieve his family. The friend returned with the news that Malek’s mother was missing, his cousins were missing, and his house had been razed.

The government had lost control of Taftanaz near the start of the revolution, and an intricate system of popularly elected councils called tansiqiyyat had been created over the past year—“like miniparliaments, a government for us,” as Malek put it. He had been chosen to represent Taftanaz in Turkey, where he raised funds and cultivated contacts with the international community. He was proud of the rebel councils—they were proof that Syria did not need President Bashar al-Assad—but he worried that the other council members had been captured or killed.

Malek agreed to help me get to Taftanaz, but he demanded information in return: “I want to know if my family survived—and I want to know if my revolution survived.”

Continued here

What do the bombings say about the evolving nature of the Afghan insurgency?

On the one hand, they don’t seem to be the work ofthe Afghan Taliban at all, but of a Pakistani group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJ-Alami), whose specialty is assassinating Shi’a in Pakistan and who claimed credit for the attacks. LeJ-Alami was behind the kidnapping and executionof Taliban godfather and spymaster Col. Imam (despite Taliban efforts to stop it), and is seen by many in the Afghan Taliban leadership as dangerous and uncontrollable. In fact, in a rare move, the Afghan Taliban issued a strongly worded condemnation of the attacks. Over the years, the Afghan Taliban have assiduously strived to portray themselves as a national movement, representing the aspirations of all Afghan ethnicities and sects. They have developed detailed guidelines for their foot soldiers and field commanders, put forth political representatives to explore the possibility of talks, and have even begun to circulate documents that examine in a serious way the nature of a post-American government. One document, meant internally for the Taliban leadership, decried the country’s ethnic and sectarian divides and declared they should “try to bring an environment of fraternity among all [ethnicities] of Afghans.”

But none of this, it seems, matters. If indeed LeJ-Alami turns out to be the culprit, then they appear to be one of the first foreign insurgent groups to succeed in operating within Afghanistan so unilaterally. In years past, foreign militants — al-Qaeda, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Taiba, and others — operated strictly under thesupervision of Afghan commanders. Small, mobile groups of foreigners were closely controlled; those who stepped out of line would be sent back toPakistan or, in some cases, killed. Groups of foreigners, like the “Zarqawis,” a band of Pakistanis in Kandahar, or the so-called “White Taliban,” a collection of Europeans and Uzbeks who operate in Zabul province, were given a degree of tactical freedom, but would have to operate strictly within the Afghan Taliban’s strategic guidelines. A unilateral LeJ-Alami attack would mark a significant erosion of the Taliban’s control over the battlefield.

This, however, would only be latest in a string of incidents indicating that things were slipping away. The assassination of former President and High Peace Council (HPC) chair Burhanuddin Rabbani earlier this fall was likely a rogue operation, unsanctioned by the leadership. Locals and Taliban figures tell me that in anumber of cases around the country, field commanders have defied the orders of their superiors. Last summer, when a commander delivered night letters in parts of Kandahar and Nangarhar provinces threatening to kill all tribal elders in the area, Taliban leaders were powerless to stop him. In another province, a field commander decided that he no longer wanted to transfer taxes he had collected to the leadership, as per the rules, and kept the money and weapons for himself, fighting anyone who tried to take it away.

To add to the troubles, those within the Taliban’s political leadership, based in Karachi, and their military leadership, in Quetta and Peshawar, have been embroiled in rivalries, squabbles over money, and petty jealousies. More than once, top Taliban figures have even come to blows. All of this has been spilling into the rank-and-file, creating further discord. Meanwhile, other groups, such as the Haqqani Network, are increasing in power and prestige, allowing foreign militants an easier entryway into Afghanistan while staying outside of the Taliban’s writ.

If this process continues, are we heading towards the day where the Taliban no longer have the monopoly over the strategic course of theinsurgency? It’s too soon to say. But if so, a dark question poses itself — how do you end a war that no one can control?

Haqqani has been reticent in the last year–largely because, his people explain to me, of the fear of drone attacks. In fact, if I’m not mistaken this is the first time he has publicly surfaced in over a year. That it comes in the midst of heightened US accusations against the Pakistanis is probably not an accident: Islamabad has for some time been promoting the Haqqanis as responsible interlocutors in a potential peace process.

Your father worked with the U.S to defeat the Soviets. Is there any way you could talk with or work with the Americans to bring peace to Afghanistan?

At that time my father didn’t have a personal relationship with Americans. Back then the whole international community was supporting the Afghan Jihad, including Western and Arab countries. Also back then the Afghan freedom fighters were relying more on the assistance and aid of Islamic countries rather than Western countries. Like today, during the Soviet era the  Mujahidin were fighting an occupying force and believed that foreign forces are the only obstacle which prevents peace and stability in Afghanistan. This is why we wanted the immediate withdrawal of the occupying forces. Today too the withdrawal of the occupying forces is one of our main demands. Once the occupying forces leave Afghanistan the fighting will end and peace and stability will be restored.

Under what conditions could you be part of an Afghan government led by President Karzai?

We are not an independent or separate group. We are part of The Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan. And we are serving under the leadership of Mullah Omar.  We don’t have any personal demands. The whole world knows about The islamic Emirate’s demands.

Under what conditions would you be open to a negotiated settlement of the war?

We are not a separate group. We follow the Islamic Emirate’s decisions regarding talks. We support whatever path they chart.

What are your responsibilities?

We have been assigned to organize and coordinate jihadi affairs in Loya Paktia by his excellence the Amir-ul-Mominin. We also have membership on the Emirate leadership council and I am to perform duties of the Emirate delegated to me on a timely basis.

Was your group directly involved in the suicide blast that killed a number of CIA officers in Khost recently?

I can say that we were not involved. But beyond that, I can’t say–I’ve been ordered by our leadership in the Shura not to talk about this. It’s better that I don’t say anything. Our central leadership has ordered that I keep quiet about these sorts of sufferings of NATO and America.

Was your group directly involved in the recent attack on a guesthouse in Kabul where Indians lived?

Our Mujahedeen were not involved in the attacks, but we are happy that they took place because all foreigners who come to our country are working for the continuity of the current occupation and they help the crusaders in various areas and issues.

What are the differences between the Taliban and al Qaeda?

In our faith in Islam, we are one. In the countries that we want to capture, our geographical location, our organizational structure and our fighting tactics, we are different.

Some Taliban fight against Pakistan, but some others fight only against the U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Is there any difference between the two?

In terms of belief, we are all Muslims of one body. But the organization, fighting strategy and geographical location is different.

Why has Pakistan been arresting senior Taliban leaders?

None of our leaders have been arrested.

Pakistan says Mullah Beradar and other senior Taliban have been arrested. What has been the impact?

We must give sacrifices in the fight against the crusaders. In this fight, whether we are killed, martyred or thrown in jail we are proud of it. We have organized our campaign in such a way that our struggle is based on ideas, not individuals. You can harm people, but no one can harm ideas.

What is the goal of your movement? What kind of government do you want?

Afghanistan should have an independent, free and strong central Islamic government, in which the life, property and honor of every Afghan is protected and people can live a life of respect and dignity.

Is your war against all foreigners or just those associated with foreign militaries? What is your stance on NGOs?

In accordance with Islam we are ready to deal with every NGO. Islam has a full set of guidelines about social relations. The benefit of Afghanistan and Islam are the top priority for us.

Is the Taliban mainly a Pashtun movement or do you have support from other ethnic groups?

We enjoy the support from all ethnic groups in Afghanistan. It’s a conspiracy of the crusaders to present the movement of the Taliban as a Pashtun one. They want to provoke the linguistic differences in Afghanistan, through which they will guarantee their presence and existence here.

Some Shiite groups and non-Pashtuns are concerned that if the Taliban once again come to power they will be deprived of their rights. Is their concern valid?

The Islamic Emirate believes that the rights of all citizens in light of Islam are equal and should be without any discrimination. Such propaganda is propagated by outside agents. The Islamic Emirate was tested by the nation already and has delivered in practical terms to their countrymen, so there is no concern from any Afghan citizen about the Islamic Emirate.

Do you believe that girls should be allowed to go to school and get an education?

Yes, we believe that under the direction of Islam, males and females should study. The education of men and women is in accordance with the sacred religion of Islam. If you look to history, those who today speak about education and other rights of women did not consider women as human even yesterday. And they still use women solely as a means to satisfy their sexual pleasures, whereas women have an honorable status in Islam. Islam was the first to give respect to women. When we have the direction of Islam with us, we do not need the spoiled and filthy civilization of the West to tell us about women’s education.

It was a verse from the Quran, but to the men in this room, in the tightly packed neighborhood of Souq al-Juma, it was so much more — a code that signaled that their uprising was to begin. Over the next 48 hours, the people of Tripoli pushed Libya’s six-month revolution to its staggering denouement, ensuring their country would never again be the same and reinvigorating the Arab awakening — and it all began in this neighborhood.

The men watching the television were part of a group of 62 underground revolutionaries who had been preparing for this day for weeks. Malik Jamal Abargo, a 20-something port worker, was one of them. He grabbed his Kalashnikov and rushed into the streets with his comrades. “My heart was pounding,” he says. “I thought that I might become a martyr.”

The sight of the small crowd chanting slogans against Muammar al-Qaddafi in the street prompted shouts from the mosque. Soon its speakers issued forth a thunderous chant: Allahu akbar! Out came Khalid Abu Humeida, a customs worker. “I was standing in line for vegetables when I heard it,” he says. “It had more force to me than any bomb or jet. I knew what to do.” He was joined by Salem El Burai, a restaurant owner who came rushing out with a bag of rocks. Abdul, who would not give his last name and has no job at all, emerged with a Molotov cocktail.

The crowd grew to hundreds — the first large open protests against the government in any part of Tripoli since February, when demonstrations were drowned in blood. Almost immediately, truckloads of state security forces began to arrive. They pointed their weapons at the demonstrators. “We inched forward, step by step, trying not to waver,” says Abdul.

Soon, less than 100 meters separated the two sides. They were facing off under a large overpass, and speeding cars roared above. Snipers were arrayed on a nearby high-rise. One group of protesters then doused vehicles parked on the roadside in gasoline and set them ablaze. “We wanted to create a sense of chaos, to confuse the government forces,” El Burai explains.

This provocation was enough: The security forces opened fire. Bullets whizzed and popped, the protesters recall, and they jumped behind concrete pillars and behind trash cans.

At first, the security forces outnumbered the protesters almost three to one. But the protests were spreading from one block to the next, and soon they reached the streets behind the security forces. Within moments after the shooting began, the government forces were surrounded. The few protesters with weapons began firing back. Some started throwing stones. “I’m a bit scared of guns, so I threw Molotov cocktails,” says El Burai.

Things turned into a stunning rout in the protesters’ favor: Thirteen police lay dead and almost 30 were captured. The rest fled. In that moment, on that street corner, 42 years of despair began to dissolve. “We’ve lost a whole generation to fear,” says El Burai. “This was like a rebirth.” Women and younger children gingerly stepped out onto the streets, for the first time in their lives free of the state’s presence. Strangers embraced, men praised God, and rebels fired their weapons in the air.

What appeared to be a spontaneous uprising was in fact the result of months of careful planning carried out in tiny apartments and automobile back seats. It all started in January, when 15 political activists, inspired by the Tunisian revolution, met secretly and drew up plans to issue a document calling for greater freedoms. They came from the higher layers of Libyan society — doctors, engineers, and businessmen — drawn together through the frustrated aspirations of the country’s professional class. But before they could issue the document, protests erupted on Feb. 15 in Benghazi against the arrest of a prominent human rights lawyer, spreading within days to Tripoli. “We were the revolutionaries, yet we were actually trailing behind the people,” says Muhammad Omeish, a stout, balding American-trained doctor who was one of the group’s leaders.

Tripoli’s February uprising was crushed, but Omeish and his comrades persisted and went underground. Eventually, the group came to be known as the Tripoli Local Council, and it headed nine Tripoli-based revolutionary organizations and operated autonomously from the rebels in Benghazi. They established a military wing and clandestine cells throughout the city. “We smuggled in satellite phones and learned to speak in code,” Omeish says. “If someone said they bought medicines, I knew it meant an AK-47.”

The council’s military committee began to covertly train activists in Tripoli’s dark back alleys. Some 20 rebels went secretly to Tunisia to meet with figures in the rebels’ operations center on the Tunisian island of Djerba, and then went back into the western Libyan mountains to receive training from NATO soldiers and intelligence agents.

Meanwhile, the revolutionaries on the ground turned their efforts to procuring weapons, and they got help from the most unlikely of sources — Qaddafi himself. The strongman was perhaps so taken by the force of his own personality that he was convinced Tripoli’s citizens would rise up and defend the regime. The government handed out weapons throughout the city to those it deemed trustworthy — but many simply turned around and sold the arms to the rebels. Some weapons also came secretly on boats; others were stolen from government caches.

The rebels fixed a date for the uprising: Aug. 20, commemorating the Prophet Mohammed’s capture of Mecca. But then, just weeks before the big day, disaster struck. Mustafa Noah, head of the Tripoli council’s military forces, went missing. Noah, a onetime Libyan army captain turned revolutionary, had been integral to preparing the city for insurrection. “He was supposed to show up for a meeting with us, but we never heard from him,” says Omeish. “His phone kept ringing, but there was no answer. We got nervous and shut off our phones.”

They soon learned the truth. Security forces had nabbed him and a number of his associates, dealing a potentially devastating blow to the movement. Miraculously, however, one of the detainees had managed to smuggle in a cell phone and got the word out. Omeish and his family fled to Tunisia, and other members went deep underground.

They decided, however, to press on with their plans. “We knew that we couldn’t hold out for long underground,” says Abargo, the revolutionary from Souq al-Juma. “Qaddafi’s people knew about our group, and they were closing in.” A well-placed source told the rebels that Qaddafi was preparing a list of thousands of people to be imminently tried for treason and executed. From hiding and in exile, the remaining rebel leaders sent couriers into the various neighborhood cells, passing along the code phrase and instructions for the insurrection day.

“We felt we could sustain the resistance for 24 hours,” says Omeish. It would be enough time, according to the plan, to allow for the arrival of supporting forces from Misrata, the western mountains, and elsewhere. “The regime cannot fight the whole city,” he says. “That’s what we were banking on.”

But moments after Abargo and his comrades defeated the police in Souq al-Juma, a neighborhood woman scaled her apartment building, pointed a Kalashnikov, and began firing wildly into the crowd below. Protesters managed to shoot their way into the building and forced her to surrender. “She said she would support Qaddafi to the grave,” says El Burai, the restaurateur. “There were people like this on every street.” Some rebels contemplated revolutionary justice, but cooler heads prevailed and they banished her from the area. She hasn’t been seen since.

The war, however, was not yet won. NATO airstrikes pounded key government installations — with the aid of the 20 or so rebels from Tripoli whom NATO soldiers had trained in the mountains to dial in coordinates. Meanwhile, with the coordination of the underground cells, uprisings spread elsewhere throughout the city. Qaddafi’s men responded in force and a number of protesters were killed, but the breadth of the uprising proved too much for the security forces to completely wipe it out. The two sides battled for nearly 24 hours, until the first units arrived late on Aug. 21 from the newly liberated city of Zawiya, by boat from the eastern city of Misrata, and elsewhere. The incoming rebels were  aided by a deal cut with the senior officer in charge of Tripoli’s gates, who allowed the rebels to enter unmolested at the zero hour.

Over the next day, as these outside rebel groups fought their way through key Qaddafi strongholds, the regime apparatus began to crumble. Muhammad Farajala was at home when he heard the thuds of rocket fire coming closer. Gangly and soft-spoken, Farajala was an air force pilot until the outbreak of the revolution, when he refused to bomb fellow Libyans and stayed home. He walked down the street to the notorious Abu Salim prison, a massive center for political prisoners, and patiently convinced the guards to walk away. He then shot open the prison’s main doors one by one with his Kalashnikov until more than 1,500 prisoners escaped to freedom. “We hid some of them in our houses until we knew it was safe,” he says. In a similar fashion, hundreds of jail cells around the city were opened. Among those who walked out was Noah, the Tripoli rebels’ military commander, who had been badly tortured in custody.

Back in Souq al-Juma, even as the revolutionaries celebrated their victory, something gnawed at Abargo, the young member of the secret group of 62. He had not heard for days from his brother, who had gone on to fight in other neighborhoods. Mohanad Abargo, 27, was found six days later, when locals noticed blood running from a box in a government office. Inside were the bodies of six men and one woman, killed presumably by Qaddafi’s forces. Mohanad’s battered body showed the bruises of torture. “He is why I am still out here,” his brother told me as he patrolled his neighborhood with a Kalashnikov days later. “I want to make sure he did not die in vain.”

Beneath the triumph lie immense challenges ahead. There are class divides — the rebel movement has had difficulty penetrating some poorer areas, particularly those with Libyans who believe they benefited from the state’s social welfare programs. And the victory has been marred by racism against darker-skinned Libyans, whom some rebels unfairly see as being in the pay of Qaddafi. A subtle power struggle is being waged between the Tripoli council and the military brigades from outside the city. A growing number of Tripoli-based revolutionaries are voicing discontent with the official Benghazi leadership. “During this whole uprising, Mr. Jalil has been sitting out there in Doha. He rarely shows up,” complains Omeish, referring to Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the rebels’ governing body, the National Transitional Council. The sentiments underscore deeper tensions between eastern and western Libya. “We need a ruler from Tripoli,” says rebel Ibrahim El Titly. “We won’t accept being ruled from the east.”

In Souq al-Juma, the mood is still too festive to dwell on such concerns. Locals are busy painting over the ubiquitous green doors, and armed citizens continue to patrol the streets. “Now I don’t mind if I die tomorrow, for I’ve done my part,” says El Burai. “I have a nice chair. I’ll sit and watch my children grow up — they own this neighborhood now.”

(This is a joint post by Alex Strick van Linschoten, Felix Kuehn and Anand Gopal)

I wouldn’t normally put something like this up on the blog, but after over a year or so of asking around (without success) we’re trying all options.

For several years now, Felix, Anand and I have been collecting old (and new) Taliban documents. Felix and I made a point of finding things that covered pre-2001, and Anand found things post-2001. Some of the research you may have read about on this blog or in books came from this material. For example, the poems written by Talibs in Poetry of the Taliban (published later this year) were all gathered together in this way.

Our collection is pretty wide and comprehensive. I won’t say too much about the kinds of sources we have, but suffice it to say that we have complete collections of most publications and books that the Taliban were associated with (and various other documents/videos/audiotapes). These sources date from the 1980s until the present day.

We are looking — we have been looking — for funds to translate these sources into English and place them (and scans of the originals) online so that researchers and anyone else can access them. Almost none of this material is used (or has been used) in the study of the Taliban (particularly pre-2001) and this project would allow a far deeper understanding.

If you are a donor and are interested in funding this project, please get in touch with me, Felix or Anand at the contact page.

In style, JMK and Ahmed Wali couldn’t have been more different — Jan Muhammad was an unpolished, old-guard mujahed, evoking images of the rough-and-tumble life of the Afghan frontier, while AWK was an English speaking, business-minded powerbroker. But both are products of the modern way of war, men of enormous power born of contracting dollars and access to U.S. officials. They leave behind lucrative political and financial networks, and what becomes of these networks will play a big role in determining the shape of things to come in southern Afghanistan. Who, then, is likely to take their place?

To know where we’re headed, it helps to understand how we got here. In Kandahar, it was not AWK but Gul Agha Sherzai who had initially dominated the province. Sherzai used contracting money and military ties to U.S. forces to accrue massive wealth in the early years after 2001, and used his access to the presidential palace as governor to cloak himself in legitimacy. U.S. forces relied on him for everything from maintaining their bases to convoy security, from counterterrorism operations to development efforts. From this starting point, he managed to exert control over customs, earning millions, and extended his reach into construction, land, mining, and transportation — in effect, every sphere of the economy. But in doing so, he alienated swathes of the population: whole tribes were marginalized, sections of the economy were essentially closed off to competition, and provincial government was stacked with his relatives and tribesmen. Sherzai’s purview eventually proved so narrow that he even lost the backing of most of Kandahar’s elite, leading ultimately to his removal in 2005.

Enter Ahmed Wali. He too had been busy developing a vast patronage network, also touching all corners of local society. He developed sizable interests in all realms licit and illicit, from real estate and foreign contracts to poppies. The policies of both men left them deeply unpopular among ordinary Kandaharis. Sherzai’s men were notorious for corruption and using the foreign forces to settle scores. Ahmed Wali ruled like a mafia don, spawning a culture of fear where few dared to criticize him openly. Yet there were major differences — where Sherzai wielded a hammer, Ahmed Wali chiseled his way to power. He understood the subtleties of civil politics. Unlike Sherzai, he forged alliances with all sections of the ruling elite. Whereas, for instance, the Alikozai tribal leadership was persistently at odds with Sherzai, Ahmed Wali expertly brought them into the fold. He maintained ties with certain key Noorzais, a group that had been completely alienated under Sherzai. In doing so, he transformed himself into the key node through which most political and financial networks passed.

Can anyone replicate his success? It’s hard to say, but there appears to be a dearth of options. Power in southern Afghanistan has little to do with elections or shuras. Rather, there are two kingmakers — the foreign forces and Afghan president Hamid Karzai — and in Kandahar, Ahmed Wali enjoyed an unrivaled blend of access to both. None of the contenders to take his place — Sherzai, Chief of Police Abdul Razzak, old-time mujahedeen commanders like Amir Lalai, and so on — seem to be similarly positioned. Nor is it likely they would be able to corral support from a broad spectrum of Kandahar’s elite. Instead, the node that Ahmed Wali represented will most probably fissure, leaving a number of competing networks, redolent of Kandahar in the early years after 2001.

In Uruzgan, since his removal in 2006 Jan Muhammad’s networks have been steadily eclipsed by his nephew, strongman Matiullah Khan. The dynamic here is similar to Kandahar: JMK strove crudely to dominate the province, earning enemies within the Uruzgani elite and popular society. Matiullah has taken a more sophisticated approach, even copying some of AWK’s methods, like establishing “reform shuras” to bring over marginalized Ghilzai elite. Like AWK, he has co-opted many tribal elders, dominated the local economy and kept most of the province in fear. (Uruzgan is far more fractured than Kandahar, however, and he has had less success than AWK in these endeavors). Over the years, JMK had been clinging to a loyal network, particularly within a section of his Popalzai tribe, but this seems certain to fall to Matiullah, further strengthening him.

Whatever the end result, southern Afghanistan’s problems run deep. The international community — and in particular the foreign forces — have helped create a system where it’s personalities that matter, not institutions. While much has been said about cleaning up the Afghan government, Afghans I speak to point out that the U.S. has repeatedly undermined the process from the very beginning. As the Afghan army and police were brought into formation, foreign forces funded an array of private militias that regularly acted outside the law (members of the Kandahar Strike Force, a militia Ahmed Wali contracted to the CIA, shot dead Kandahar’s police chief in 2009, amongst other crimes). They encouraged corruption by pouring vast amounts of money, with little oversight, into the coffers of a few key players. They’ve relied on intelligence from these same key players, in essence becoming unwitting allies in complex local rivalries. They’ve backed the creation of armies of private security contractors who answer only to their own commanders, not the Afghan government. In effect, they’ve created a perverse incentive structure, where it pays to be perpetually on the edge of chaos.

Ahmed Wali and JMK may be gone, but the system that created them is still in place. “Even when we win,” a Kandahari elder told me, “we lose.”

Erudite and politically savvy, Agha is one of the few people in the world with direct access to Mullah Omar in Karachi, senior Taleban figures say. He’s been able to parlay such connections into considerable influence, despite being only in his mid-thirties. Most recently he headed the Taleban’s political committee, a body tasked with formulating the political objectives of the movement and developing contacts with foreign governments. He is well respected within leadership circles, both for his political abilities and his education—he is fluent in five languages, including English and Arabic.

But how did someone so young manage to win the trust of Mulla Omar and other top leaders? Agha was born in Jelahor (aka Jelawur) village of Kandahar’s Arghandab district sometime around 1976, to a prominent religious family from the Naser tribe.** His father, Mawlawi Sadozai, was one of Kandahar’s leading ulema, with a large religious following and a network of madrassas, who at one point even provided instruction to a young Mulla Omar. During the nineties and the current insurgency, Sadozai held a leading position of the Taleban’s ulema shura, providing edicts and rulings on Taleban affairs. Agha’s maternal grandfather was Mawlawi Abdul Qayum, another of Kandahar’s leading religious authorities.***

But the family’s biggest claim to fame was Agha’s older brother, Lala Malang. In the mid-eighties, Lala Malang was the preeminent mujahedeen commander in Kandahar, the Soviet’s biggest foe. Malang had studied at the Nur-ul Madaris under Nasrullah Mansur in Ghazni, one of the early incubators of Taleban-type movements. He led a large ‘taleban front,’ or mujahedin group consisting entirely of religious students, in the Arghandab and Panjwayi areas, quickly earning renown as one of the most effective and popular commanders.

In 1984 he was captured by the Russians and, in a highly publicized move, exchanged for a Soviet soldier two years later (legend has it that the soldier himself had converted to Islam and the mujahedeen cause and desperately resisted the hand over). But Lala Malang’s time was short—he was killed in barrage of 122 mm Howitzer shells during a Soviet sweep of Arghandab in the summer of 1987 (only after this did Mulla Naqib emerge as the leading commander in the area).

Tayyeb Agha, meanwhile, had been too young to fight during most of the jihad. Towards the end of the eighties he moved to Quetta for studies, where he learned English and Arabic. His language abilities and his family history allowed him to rapidly climb the ranks of the nascent Taleban movement. As so few Talebs could speak a foreign language other than Urdu, Agha was enlisted into service as Mulla Omar’s press secretary and translator, which was useful particularly in meetings with Arabs. He also worked as a translator in various ministries in Kabul. Eventually, he grew to become Mulla Omar’s personal secretary.

During US invasion and bombing campaign, Agha was one of the few Taleban leaders who maintained contact with Mulla Omar as he fled like a fugitive through the outskirts of Kandahar city. It was during these tense days that the two grew very close and Omar began to trust Agha with his life.****

During and after the fall of the Taleban, like many other members of the senior leadership, Agha displayed a strong pragmatic streak. He was a key member of the delegation that transferred authority from Mulla Omar to Hamed Karzai in December of 2001. At the time, he and other leaders were looking for a deal that would give them amnesty in exchange for recognizing the Karzai government and abstaining from armed struggle. In January of 2002, Tayyeb Agha, former Finance Minister Agha Jan Mutassem and former Health Minister Muhammad Abbas Stanakzai traveled to Khas Uruzgan in an attempt to work out a deal with new government. But confusion reigned: the district was split into two competing pro-government groups, each insisting that Taleban surrender to them. The trio then reached out to Gul Agha Sherzai, governor of Kandahar, but was rebuffed—in part because Sherzai had come under major US criticism for earlier accepting the surrender of other high-ranking Taleban. At the same time, US forces conducted a pair of night raids in Khas Uruzgan that wiped out both pro-government camps, killing and capturing a number of government workers. The three men came to believe that the raid was intended for them and grew convinced that any attempted deal would be futile. They fled across the border to Pakistan.

In the subsequent years Agha engaged in fundraising activities of the insurgency, traveling frequently to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. At the same time, he has been centrally involved in political tasks, including frequent travel (such as to Mecca in 2008) for talks about talks. He has clearly articulated the Taleban’s position on talks - they should be directly with the U.S. In a 2009 interview, he explained:

‘Our problem is not with the Karzai government because the power is not in his hands at all. We have not been part of these negotiations. A few days after his statements on negotiations in Saudi Arabia, he stated that there were no negotiations whatsoever. If negotiations were to be held here to solve the conflict in Afghanistan, they must be between the two parties to the conflict, namely the Afghan people and its mujahed leadership, represented by the Islamic Emirate and its leaders on the one hand, and the foreign forces occupying Afghanistan on the other. Any negotiations held with other sides are a waste of time, and an attempt to sidestep the realities on the ground and prolong the crisis and the ordeal of the Afghan people’*****.

Agha is believed to be one of the Taleban leaders briefly arrested by Pakistan early last year. If so, it was likely to ensure that he does not act too independently of Pakistan’s wishes.

Is Agha the address or representative for the Taleban that US and Afghan officials have for so long asked for? It’s hard to say—there are different tendencies in the leadership and some real differences on political outlook. But his closeness to Mulla Omar may just give him the credibility needed to be the representative interlocutor the West has been looking for.

Indeed, the roots of the mass uprising that swept dictator Hosni Mubarak from power lie in the central role this dust-swept company town played years ago in sparking workers’ strikes and grassroots movements countrywide. And it is the symbolic core of the latest shift in the revolution: a wave of strikes meant to tackle social and economic inequities, which has brought parts of Egypt to a standstill.

Here in Mahalla’s smog-beaten, faded yellow factories and textile mills, a series of workers’ strikes demanding better pay and benefits erupted in 2006. The actions, in a country where large demonstrations were rare and independent labor organizing remains illegal, galvanized a youth movement that played a key role in eventually toppling Mubarak.

More than 24,000 workers at dozens of state-owned and private textile mills, in particular the mammoth Egypt Spinning and Weaving plant, went on strike and occupied factories for six days in 2006, winning a pay raise and some health benefits. Similar actions took place in 2007.

Then, on April 6, 2008, thousands joined protesting workers in one of the town’s central squares, a frenetic array of vegetable stalls and shouting street vendors. “At first, there were only a few of us,” said Marai. “We chanted ‘Down, down with Hosni Mubarak!’ and people started joining us.”

Within hours, the protest had grown to thousands and riveted the country. Incredibly, demonstrators pulled down a poster of Mubarak and stomped on it; some clashed with the police and torched vehicles. Such images had not been seen in Egypt for almost 30 years and shook the government to its core, according to former officials.

The workers immediately won concessions — as they had in the strikes of 2006 and 2007 — including bonuses and pay hikes. The success spawned a Facebook group, the April 6 Youth Movement, which has played a prominent part in the current uprising, and inspired a strike wave over the next two years.

“After Mahalla in 2008, the first weaknesses in the regime appeared,” says Gamal Eid of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. “Nothing was the same in Egypt after that.”

Perhaps most importantly, the Mahalla strikes birthed a new opposition movement as socialists, left-wing lawyers, and Internet activists forged lasting links with labor leaders and facilitated connections between factories. The U.S. Embassy observed at the time that “in Mahalla, a new organic opposition force bubbled to the surface, defying current political labels, and apparently not affiliated with the [Muslim Brotherhood]. This may require the government to change its script,” according to a classified document released by WikiLeaks.

In recent weeks, Mahalla workers joined a nationwide general strike that started on Feb. 9 and likely tilted momentum in favor of the Tahrir Square protesters and hastened Mubarak’s fall two days later. “The workers have tremendous power to change society,” says Kamal al-Fayumi, a labor leader who works at a power station and has been imprisoned a number of times for his activities. “When we entered the picture, it signaled the end for Mubarak.”

Once a symbol of the grandeur and vision of the country’s economic nationalism, Mahalla was home to the first fully Egyptian-owned enterprise, the Egypt Spinning and Weaving plant, established in the 1930s. By the 1960s, the plant was the largest factory in the Middle East, employing tens of thousands.

But under Mubarak, a large number of state firms were privatized, including some in Mahalla, pushing thousands into relative job insecurity. And many state subsidies were slashed — food subsidies alone dropped by more than half during his rule.

After 2004, these changes accelerated with the appointment of a “reform cabinet” of business tycoons who pushed further liberalization of the economy along IMF-suggested lines. On the one hand, this produced robust growth rates and attracted investment; on the other it fostered official corruption and exacerbated woes for the poor, who faced soaring inflation and food prices.

By 2008, the U.S. Embassy was noting that the “fundamental unspoken Egyptians [sic] social pact — the peoples’ obeisance in exchange for a modest but government-guaranteed standard of living — is under stress,” according to the document leaked by WikiLeaks.

Many in Mahalla say the reforms have put tremendous pressure on them. “I have five children and I can barely survive,” says Khala Muhammad, a striking worker. “I can’t afford even basic things.”

Fayumi, who works at the power station, says he and his colleagues work double shifts or two jobs to make ends meet. He works from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. every day and still finds it difficult to pay the rent.

Wages have not kept pace with rising staple prices. According to official statistics, the average base salary for employees in Mahalla is about $100 a month, a derisory sum that is nonetheless more than in many other towns, thanks to the previous strikes. Elsewhere, this could be as low as $50 a month.

Such pressures have fueled widespread labor actions across the country, buoyed by the anti-Mubarak protests and growing since his departure. There have been work stoppages and protests in government banks, the oil and gas ministry, the transportation sector, the telecommunications ministry, the health ministry and more, in dozens of cities across the country.

Many of the strikers are state employees or workers in public-sector factories who are concerned about privatization. “Privatization would make us like temporary workers who can be fired on whim,” says Yasser Ishaq Ahmed, who is on strike from Elegikt, a state-owned electricity company.

Most are also demanding raising (and enforcing) the minimum wage. “How can I support my children? I make 400 pounds a month,” about $65, he says. “All of the workers in the company make 135,000 pounds per month combined, but the CEO alone makes 180,000.”

A number of strikes have already won some or all of their demands, most notably at the Tawfiq al-Nour department store chain, when 5,000 employees from around the country descended on Cairo to demand shorter working hours and benefits. Strikers won a 12-hour day (down from 16) and a sizable pay raise.

The spread of strikes in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation has alarmed Egyptian officials. On Feb. 14, citing economic instability, the Army urged strikers to “go back to work,” in what many took to be a thinly veiled threat. On state TV and radio the striking workers have been repeatedly denounced as selfish and upsetting the economy, even while the protesters who were in Tahrir are now praised.

But the two groups are not so easily separated — thousands of workers joined the demonstrations in Tahrir, and many say the political space provided by Mubarak’s fall has emboldened them to strike. “This is the time to act. We want an overthrow of this whole system, not just the removal of one person,” says a labor leader from Mahalla, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Still, labor organizers say they take the Army’s threats seriously — the memory of a pair of striking workers hanged by the new government following the 1952 revolution, which brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power, has not faded. And as economic instability continues, they risk losing the urban middle-class allies that helped make the revolution possible. “Dear Egyptians, go back to your work on Sunday,” tweeted Wael Ghonim, a Google marketing executive whose account of his detention by Egyptian security services galvanized protesters. “Work like never before and help Egypt become a developed country.”

In Mahalla’s crowded coffee shops, where the air is thick with shisha smoke and the tea served in dirty glasses, labor activists are debating and planning their next move. Ironically, while the rest of the country is engulfed in labor unrest, there have been no strikes in Mahalla this week.

Instead, workers here are planning the launch of an independent labor union, a rarity in a country where most unions are tied to the state. Some see this as a move with clear political implications. “When you are fighting a state-controlled union, that is inherently a political demand, not just an economic one,” says Marai, the Mahalla labor activist.

In fact, many of the strikes assert political and economic demands simultaneously, in part because the CEOs of many firms are tied to the Mubarak regime. And with a few exceptions, such as steel magnate and National Democratic Party kingpin Ahmed Ezz, those CEOs are still in positions of power.a

“A lot of us here in Mahalla are talking about democracy and political freedom alongside better wages and living conditions,” says Marai. “Some people felt that our mission was accomplished after Mubarak fell, but I think our revolution is just beginning.”

When he finally appeared on screen, the square fell silent. Mubarak began by sympathizing with the martyrs of the revolution, and acknowledging that the protesters’ demands were “legitimate and just.” He spoke about putting the interests of Egypt ahead of his own. The crowd shivered in anticipation. But the words so many desperately wanted to hear never came. “I will not leave,” he said defiantly, “until I am buried in the ground.”

The square erupted in fury. A thunderous chant resounded across Tahrir: Leave! Leave! Leave! I saw three protesters rushed to the clinic after fainting in exhaustion and shock. A group of protesters immediately left the square to head straight for the presidential palace, about a two-hour walk away. Word quickly went around that another protest would depart for the palace in the morning. “I will join that demonstration, even if it means I die,” said a young man, wearing an Egyptian-flag tricolor headband and glistening in sweat. Others rushed to the state TV headquarters, which spewed hated regime propaganda, and set up camp to protest through the night. The mood in the square shifted from joyous and hopeful to fiery and determined. Protest organizers had originally dubbed the protests on Friday, the following day, as the “Day of Patience,” a show of resolve to the regime, but after Mubarak’s speech, this was changed to the “Day of Confrontation.”

On Friday, the crowds came to the square early. Like previous days, it defied easy categorization: young and old, working-class and professional, men and women. Women appropriated popular wedding songs, modifying them into songs of protest. Men did the same with soccer chants. A retired brigadier general spoke to the crowd, pledging his support to the revolution. By the close of midday prayers, Tahrir filled to the brim and the crowd began spilling into the side streets. Men and women stumbled over each other, pushed here and there by the waves of people. Around the city, there was a sense of the momentous possibilities the day held. In cafes, sheesha-puffing men gathered around small television sets, watching like it was the World Cup.

Within the ruling establishment, there were divisions on how to proceed. The army, keen to avoid what it saw as spiraling chaos, had given Mubarak an ultimatum early on Friday: leave or be forced out, in a coup d’état, according to government officials. On the one hand, the army sought to preserve its image as a truly national institution, above the corrosive politics that had rent the nation. On the other, with its considerable financial holdings—factories, construction, luxury estates on the Mediterranean—millions of dollars were at stake. Workers’ strikes had slowly spread during the week, reaching military production factories south of Cairo by Wednesday.

And protesters were forcing the issue in downtown Cairo. By Friday afternoon, they had completely overwhelmed the cordon of tanks and armored personnel carriers at the state TV building, and soldiers could no longer stop the flow of protesters pouring through the concrete barricades. “The army and the people are one, united,” the crowd chanted, as soldiers looked on nervously. Near the president’s palace, demonstrators had grown to the thousands.

The pressure from all sides was immense, and at some point Friday afternoon, as the sky dimmed, Egypt changed forever. The tanks at the presidential palace swung their barrels away from the protesters, and a soldier hoisted an Egyptian flag atop a turret, to riotous cheers. Shortly past six in the evening, a waiter burst into a restaurant near Tahrir Square and screamed, “Hey youth, it’s over! He resigned!” Everybody in the restaurant ran into the street, leaving their unfinished food, their unpaid bills. Thousands were running toward Tahrir Square. Some men crumpled to the ground in tears.

I went to a decaying office atop a storefront near the square, which was a meeting place for one of the three main committees directing the protests. Men and women gathered around a blurry TV set, watching Vice President Omar Suleiman’s announcement of Mubarak’s resignation over and over on various channels, as if they could not believe it. Some erupted into a debate as to whether Mubarak should be allowed to leave or be put on trial. “There’s only one way to deal with him,” a woman interjected, and slowly drew her finger across her throat, to applause.

All of downtown Cairo erupted into a mass celebration. Almost a dozen people mounted a tank perched at one entrance to Tahrir, waving flags and chanting that they had defeated “Obama and Mubarak.” One shouted into his phone, tears streaming down his cheek, that they undid thirty years in a mere eighteen days. “We were dwarves under Mubarak,” said another protester. “Now we are giants.”

Cairo’s streets, tense for weeks, burst into a cacophony of song, honking horns, cheers and firecrackers. As they celebrated, a number of people told me how they were no longer afraid, how they had a new understanding of their power. The revolution had forced them to imagine the impossible. “Just the thought of change was unthinkable before,” an activist told me. “But now there is a sense that the old way of doing politics has changed.”

As the sun rose over Cairo on Saturday, revelers were still streaming through the streets. But while the ebullience simmers, the first questions of the post-Mubarak world are emerging. Mubarak’s resignation will likely deeply divide the protesters, according to organizers. Many will see this as the end of their struggle, while others as only the beginning. “I’m not leaving until this regime is put on trial,” said Muhammad Ibrahim, who has been living in Tahrir for more than a week. Some are calling for patience. “We need to give a chance for the government to reform itself,” a young woman told me.

Others are pushing to deepen the revolution, calling for a redistribution of wealth and greater social justice. Indeed, the worker strikes that started earlier this week show no signs of abating. “I make a few hundred [Egyptian] pounds a month,” said a striking worker at the Telecommunications Ministry. “I can’t survive on this, and the minister is a corrupt supporter of Mubarak.”

And what role should the army have? I spoke to many people who supported the military’s takeover, but almost all insisted that it should be a temporary step until free elections can be held. But the army also announced Saturday that it will keep the current cabinet, most of them powerful businessmen who are members of Mubarak’s hated ruling party.

Many have gone home from Tahrir, but they say they are forever changed. “I’ll leave and stop protesting,” a young man whirling an Egyptian flag told me. “But if I’m not happy with how things are going, I know my way back to Tahrir.”