US mistakes help Taliban: cleric

Chris Sands, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: July 31. 2008 11:46PM UAE / July 31. 2008 7:46PM GMT

Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni, right, has warned that the international forces are heading for a defeat in Afghanistan. Chris Sands / The National

KABUL // International forces are heading for a defeat in Afghanistan that risks starting a new civil war, one of the country’s most influential Shiite clerics has warned.

Ayatollah Mohammad Asef Mohseni said in an interview with The National that crucial mistakes made by the United States and its allies have allowed the Taliban to regroup and strengthen in the years following the 2001 invasion.

“The Americans fought in Vietnam and they didn’t have success there because they did not know the psychology of the people,” he said.

“Now they are fighting in Afghanistan and it’s the same. When they first came they did not know the psychology of the people and they still don’t.

“It’s impossible for them to use planes and jets against this guerrilla fighting.”

Afghanistan is a predominantly Sunni country, but 20 per cent of the population is estimated to be Shiite. They faced persecution under the former Taliban regime, which carried out campaigns of ethnic and religious cleansing against them.

Despite acknowledging that his followers had benefited from the presence of the US and Nato-led coalitions, Ayatollah Mohseni was reluctant to pledge his support to the occupation.

Speaking at the madrasa he runs in the west of Kabul city, he warned the insurgency was growing.

“This is the problem caused by the foreign soldiers and the international community. Their mistakes have made the Taliban stronger,” he said.

Few Afghans would disagree. This summer is turning out to be the bloodiest since the invasion, with troops dying at record levels and violence spreading to new areas of the country.

Ayatollah Mohseni blamed the growing unrest on a series of errors that began when the US failed to wholeheartedly pursue the Taliban once it had removed them from power. The mistakes have continued ever since, he said.

Different countries that have soldiers here are split over such issues as basic tactics and troop deployments, while an influx of anti-Islamic culture – including prostitution and alcohol – has boosted support for the rebels.

Asked if he wanted the foreign troops to stay, the cleric said “if they do a good job”.

Ayatollah Mohseni comes from Kandahar, but he has spent significant parts of his life outside Afghanistan, studying in Iraq and setting up an Iranian-backed group to fight the Soviet occupation.

He served in the mujahideen government of the early 1990s, then moved to Pakistan. He returned to live in his homeland again following the 2001 invasion.

During his last few years in exile, Afghanistan’s Shiite community experienced what he describes as the worst time in its history.

Under the Sunni-fundamentalist Taliban regime, they were persecuted and, most notoriously in the central province of Bamiyan and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, massacred.

Some Afghans now believe that the only way to bring peace is via negotiations with the militants.

Ayatollah Mohseni, though, was adamant that his community would vehemently oppose any kind of deal.

“I don’t want the Taliban to join the government and I don’t believe they ever will.” He said if the insurgency continued to get stronger and the international forces failed to learn from their mistakes, another civil war could be on the horizon.

“The Shia are not involved in the fighting right now, but I don’t know what will happen in the future,” he said.

csands@thenational.ae