The Asia Times has an interesting account from one Taliban concerning Kandahar, the Taliban and the Tehrik-i-Taliban.

The Taliban took over Kabul in 1996 and opened the country to al-Qaeda’s training camps, while Osama bin Laden settled in Kandahar. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan a few months later, the Taliban agreed to lose their government but, in the tradition of the Afghan code of honor of Pashtunwali, they refused to hand over their most wanted guests to the Americans.

Seven years after 9/11, the resurgent Taliban movement is exclusively led by Kandahari clans, which still boast of their sacrifices for the Islamic brotherhood in the name of Pashtunwali, but they maintain that the Taliban have never harbored – and never will – an aggressive agenda towards the world community …

“Our code of conduct is documented in the Asasi Qanoon [Basic Law of Afghanistan]. Under article 103, it is mentioned that we don’t want any disruptions in any country of the world. The Taliban are only a national resistance movement against foreign occupation forces in Afghanistan,” said Jalil …

Along with the Taliban’s foreign minister in 2001, Mullah Abdul Wakeel Muttawakil, Jalil was not comfortable with al-Qaeda being in the country, but when questioned on the matter he initially evaded answering with a smile, saying only that “it is unnecessary to open up controversies”.

However, he did then elaborate, “Arabs are different from the Taliban. If today they boost attacks on Western targets, they do so independently. We have nothing to do with their claims. We have always limited our battle to that against NATO and although we could work in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, China or Iran, we never had any role in these areas.

Jalil’s comments did not ring true. Several Taliban commanders, including the slain Mullah Dadullah and Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, besides scores of al-Qaeda members, have maintained that the only way to win the Afghan war against NATO is to attack Western targets in Europe and America. I cited some of their statements to Jalil and asked, “Are they lying, or are you?”

“Nobody is lying. There are issues here to understand. First, there were people like Mullah Dadullah [a senior military commander killed by NATO in 2007] . He was emotional and often engaged in rhetoric – many times – different from Taliban policies, so much so that on several occasions he was warned by the Taliban leadership about his statements to the media.

“Second, it is necessary to understand that there is a sea of difference between the people who call themselves the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban [led by Mehsud] and the Taliban. We have nothing to do with them. In fact, we oppose the policies they adhere to against the Pakistani security forces.

The journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, is probably pushing as hard as he can in this interview, but he probably knows that there is more to the story. Mullah Omar opposed the Tehrik-i-Taliban too (TTP – Tehrik-i-Taliban of Pakistan) – for a while – but Baitullah Mehsud is too powerful, and now al Qaeda is aligned with the TTP and Omar settled for saying that he doesn’t command Mehsud.

The TTP commands the youngest, most violent fighters in the region compared to the old line Taliban, and the TTP has a global focus just as al Qaeda. Broadly defined, the Taliban are people who either would offer refuge to globalists like al Qaeda just as they did before 9/11, or they are themselves globalists. Either way, they pose a threat to the West.

Continuing with the real revelation in this article:

“But don’t you think that in this long process of a guerrilla war, especially as the Taliban don’t have the latest weaponry, it would make the Afghan population sick and tired of the Taliban-led resistance?” I asked.

Jalil responded quickly, “Not at all. The Taliban emerged from Kandahar, which has a special dynamic in Afghanistan, and they have never accepted foreign occupation. The Taliban still draws its military leaders from Kandahar, and look at the history of Kandahar … when I say Kandahar I don’t mean the present divisions, it means the entire regions of Helmand, Urzgan and Zabul … it has always produced the best military leaders.

“The Taliban are not a stand-alone entity. Ninety percent of the present resistance in Kandahar survives because of the masses. They provide shelter to us in their homes, feed us and provide money for us to go back and fight against the foreign forces, and they never mind if in the course of this they suffer casualties because of aerial bombardments,” Jalil said. (At least 540 civilians have been killed in the conflict so far this year, a sharp increase over last year’s total of 321.)

And our Taliban has now described the Ramadi of Afghanistan. Just as with Ramadi in 2005 – 2007, unless the U.S. forces are numerous and logistically supported well enough to project force into Kandahar – the capital of the Taliban – we won’t be successful. Just as in Ramadi, Kandahar will require combat outposts, combined combat outposts / police precincts, dismounted patrols, intelligence gathering, contact with the population, intelligence-driven raids, and (as in Fallujah during Operation Alljah) biometrics and possibly even gated communities.  Without diminishing the brave contributions of so many U.S. warriors thus far in Operation Enduring Freedom, it may be observed that the real campaign for Afghanistan is yet to begin.