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Synopsis Further historians may well conclude that the Taliban victory did more to change the world than the violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The Taliban have come to power in one of Asia’s most strategically located countries with one single-minded aim: to redeem the entire Islamic world of one billion people. Two million people – one tenth of this country’s pre-war population – have been killed during the past 18 years. Another 1.5 million are permanently disabled. No fewer than 5000 Afghans have lost one or both legs to mines. Between 4,000 and 6,000 Afghan Hazaras were massacre by the Taliban when they captured areas of northern Afghanistan last month. A girl of about 12 told us that she had hidden in a bread over and watched the Taliban kill her father for his wristwatch and waistcoat. Extraction of human organs, mainly kidneys from refugee children. A mother watched her daughter writhe with stomach pain for days…. she could not afford the head-to-toe burqa that the Taliban insist women and girls shroud themselves in when they venture out in public. The 22-year-old daughter died. But the Mullahs like commerce – so even if women are not free, the trade in them is to some considerable extent. I just talked to a farmer who said: ‘I gave my small daughter to the one I got a loan from.’ Millions of people are facing starvation…..reduced to eating grasshoppers and animal feed. Mulla Mohammed Omar said the drought was God’s punishment for the people’s discontent with Taliban rule, and neglect of their religious duties. Children were deliberately killed in their homes by members of warring factions who suspected their parents supported rival factions. Thousands of Afghan refugees, some of whom had been reduced to eating grass. Today, a group of more than 200 mujahideen (holy warriors) from Afghanistan have joined our (Lashkar-I Tayyaba’s) forces in the Kargil-Batalik sectors. The idea of Afghanistan forming an autonomous province of Pakistan is not an unfamiliar or impractical one. The letter ‘alif’ in the Urdu (or ‘A’ in English) word ‘Pakistan’ stands for Afghans. Pakistani aircraft assisted with troop rotations of Taliban forces during combat operations in late 2000 and senior members of Pakistan’s intelligence agency and army were involved in planning major Taliban military operations. (March 2001). Recruitment of volunteer fighters is organized by several Pakistani political parties that use the madrasas as natural recruiting centres. Boys under eighteen are among the recruits. Why is it today that every ordinary Afghan you speak to has not a kind word to say about Pakistan? Ever since 1947, successive Afghan governments have demanded that Pakistan cede all their Pushtun inhabited regions to form Pushtunistan, or a Greater Afghanistan. Could the stalemate in Afghanistan be but a prelude to the collapse of Pakistan? The most heart-rending aspect of this whole grim affair is that all the war-mongering factions regard themselves as the truest among the Muslims and are obsessed with the zeal to enforce their brand of Islam on the rest of the country. Islamist extremists from around the world continued to use Afghanistan as a training ground and base of operations for their worldwide terrorist activities in 1999….those waging jihads in Checknya, Lebanon, Kosovo, Kashmir, and elsewhere. International terrorism once threatened Americans only when they were outside the country. Today international terrorists attack us on our own soil. (said in May 2000). A resident (in Riyadh) compared the mood there to that of Iran before the overthrow of the Shah. Should the Taliban succeed in Afghanistan, their impact will be felt not just in neighbouring Pakistan but in Tajikistan, Russia and India, where the vast majority of Muslims are also Sunnis.