Taliban can easily get hired guns

By FETRAT ZERAK

FARAH, Afghanistan — Abdullah Jan and Abdul Khaleq are both from the Pushtrod district of Farah province in western Afghanistan. Both are young, unemployed and earn about $4 a day when they can find work.

But that’s where the similarity ends. Abdul Khaleq spends his day digging ditches or painting houses. Abdullah Jan’s job entails attacking police checkpoints.

Abdullah Jan works for the Taliban.

“I am the only breadwinner in our family of eight,” the 22-year-old said. “I went to Iran three times to try to find work, but I was expelled. Then two of my friends then suggested that I go to the local Taliban.”

“My first assignment was to attack the police checkpoint in Guakhan district,” he said. “We killed four policemen and we lost two of our own. The fight lasted for two hours. The real Taliban stayed behind the lines, shouting words of encouragement to us.

“When the fighting was over, a local commander paid me $8, “Abdullah Jan said. “Since then, I have participated in five more attacks, and I make about $20 per week.”

Abdullah Jan does not consider himself a member of the Taliban. There’s nothing about the young man that would mark him as an insurgent.

“I am just fighting for the money,” he said. “If I find another job, I’ll leave this one as soon as possible.”

Some estimate that up to 70 percent of those fighting with the Taliban are unemployed young men looking for a way to make a living. Many say that they have no other employment opportunities. Of course, it’s the very unrest they help to foster that prevents the local economy from developing.

Mohammad Omar Rassouli, the chief of police of Pushtrod district, said that Abdullah Jan’s story is a familiar one.

“Farah is now dominated by unemployment and poor living conditions,” he said. “This is what makes young men join the opposition.

“The number of attacks on checkpoints has risen lately, and the only reason I see for this is that young men are joining the opposition for very small amounts of money,” the police chief said. “The opposition is getting stronger, and we can do nothing. These young men are only armed while they are fighting. Other than that, they are just normal people in their homes, which makes it very difficult for us to identify them.”

Digging ditches

Some, like the day laborer Abdul Khaleq, say they’d rather dig ditches than risk getting killed.

But Abdullah Jan disagrees.

“There is no other job except stealing or kidnapping,” he said. “I think this is better than stealing. If we are killed, we are martyrs. This is what the mullahs say. They tell us we are doing jihad.”

Mullah Sadeq, the Taliban chief for Pushtrod and Khak Safed districts, defends the insurgent’s recruitment of unemployed youths.

“All young men should participate in the jihad and defend their country,” he said. “We will use any tool in our fight against the government and the foreign forces.”

According to Mullah Sadeq, there is a sliding scale of remuneration for Taliban fighters, but he declined to be more specific.

Local law enforcement officials estimate that more than 500 young men are working with the Taliban.

One village elder, who asked that his name not be used out of concern for his security, said he believed the Taliban were using these unemployed youths as cannon fodder.

“The Taliban do not want to lose their veteran fighters in these small skirmishes,” he said. The insurgents tend to deploy these gunmen-for-hire areas outside their home villages or districts, this elder said, to avoid the possibility that they might be recognized by those they are fighting, or that they might be asked to attack friends or relatives.

The more important Taliban activities, like laying mines or burning schools, are usually left to the more experienced and reliable Taliban regulars.

X Fetrat Zerak is a reporter in Afghanistan who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.