By Noor Khan
The Associated Press, 12 December 2007
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban appointed a judge and a police chief and drove through town in stolen police trucks. They oversaw dozens of heroin labs, using the profits to fund their insurgency.
That was life under the Taliban in the key southern town of Musa Qala — a rule that ended, at least for now, when Afghan and international troops moved in this week and the militants retreated.
But residents say it will be a battle to keep the Taliban from returning.
Security forces need to consolidate control over a region that has slipped in and out of their hands over the past two years, a back-and-forth emblematic of the failure of President Hamid Karzai's government to assert itself in the Taliban's southern heartland.
After overrunning Musa Qala in February, the Taliban installed their own government structure. Residents said hundreds of fighters roamed the streets, and militants killed people they accused of being spies for the Afghan government and NATO forces.
Notably, though, the militants did not impose a strict ban on radios, televisions and kite flying — the type of restrictions that made the Islamic militia unpopular when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
But the fighters did collect "taxes" from businesses, farmers and others, money used to help fund the insurgency that raged across the northern part of Helmand province in 2007, a year of record violence in Afghanistan.
Fariq Khan, a Musa Qala resident in his early 30s who owns a telephone shop, said the Taliban would take about $8 from each family every month during a collection at the mosque. Though small, the amount is significant; teachers in Afghanistan are paid only $50 a month.
Trucks passing through paid $50 and poppy farmers had to turn over 10 percent of their profits, Khan said, speaking to The Associated Press in Kandahar.
Musa Qala was the site of 50 to 70 heroin labs used to process the opium poppies grown across northern Helmand — the world's largest poppy growing region. Khan said small labs employed 15 Afghans, while larger operations had some 60 workers.
Another Musa Qala resident, Mohammed Rauf, said the town has dozens of labs run by residents. "When the Taliban took control after this peace agreement failed, the heroin factories increased," he said in a telephone interview.
Gen. Sharif Khan, a counternarcotics official in the Interior Ministry, said the government had reports of more than 70 heroin labs in Musa Qala before this week's attack on the town. He said counternarcotics forces would soon travel to Musa Qala to investigate.
In its annual report, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime published a map showing a number of heroin labs in northern Helmand, where Musa Qala is located.
A Taliban spokesman couldn't be reached for comment.
Though the militants were pushed out of Musa Qala — an important symbolic victory for Afghan and NATO troops — Taliban fighters still control three remote districts in the north of the province, Washer, Naw Zad and Bagrhan, said Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi. The Afghan-NATO force will continue operations in those areas, he said.
Afghanistan this year produced 93 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin, and Helmand produced more than 50 percent of the country's opium. More than 80 percent of the province's farmers are involved in the opium trade.
A local tribal leader said the government should appoint powerful but honest government leaders and police for Musa Qala.
"If they build roads and clinics and provide jobs, then it will be easy to win the sympathies of the people," Jalal Khan said by telephone from the nearby Gereshk district.
He said Taliban fighters have moved from Musa Qala into the nearby districts of Kajaki, Sangin and Naw Zad, and that Afghan and international troops would need to take on the militants in those areas as well.
The Ministry of Defense said Wednesday that more than 50 Taliban fighters fleeing Musa Qala were killed in two days of battles in Sangin.
"If the NATO and Afghan forces carry out operations in the neighboring districts as well, then it will be easy to control Musa Qala," Jalal Khan said. "But if they only patrol Musa Qala ... then the Taliban will constantly be attacking Musa Qala and checkpoints and planting roadside bombs, and they won't have control around Musa Qala for a long time."
Rauf, who stayed home during the fighting in Musa Qala, said some residents were starting to return. But he said it wasn't clear if the Taliban's ouster will be a good thing for residents.
"We don't know anything right now. The government hasn't even announced that it's safe to return to Musa Qala," Rauf said. "We will wait and see if this is good for us. We can't talk about these things in the future."
Citation: Noor Khan. " Taliban collected taxes, ran heroin labs," The Associated Press, 12 December 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071212/ap_on_re_as/afghan_taliban_town_1