the americans also kid themselves that the taliban and other fundamentalists are techno-illiterate. they are not. i once met a mullah dressed in a mundu and a turban in a train in kerala, who was holding forth on womens' place according to their texts; but then he confided that he was about to buy a new laptop and asked me about the specs of my laptop. he was quite knowledgeable about computers.
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From:
Washington Post, Jan 23, 2012
Former Taliban officials find new role
By Kevin Sieff
KABUL — A Toyota Corolla full of former Taliban officials and armed guards stopped in front of Abdul Salam Zaeef’s home in western Kabul this month, awaiting the man who helped direct the Taliban from Pakistan before his capture and detention at Guantanamo Bay.
With Zaeef inside, the car sped off for President Hamid Karzai’s palace, where the once-fugitive Zaeef has lately become a frequent guest.
As Karzai weighs the prospect of talks with Taliban officials in Qatar, Afghanistan’s government has invited Zaeef and others with long-standing ties to the Taliban to offer guidance and help mediate.
Afghan leaders have been disappointed by their lack of access to Taliban negotiators who have been speaking directly to the United States. But they have found an alternative in former insurgents — many of them imprisoned and later reintegrated — who live only a few miles from the palace gates.
And so Zaeef — a broad-shouldered, bearded man who was once the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan — has seen an unlikely resurgence in his diplomatic career. This time, he’s trying to convince the government, and anyone else who will listen, that the Taliban is serious about peace if its preconditions can be met.
“They are ready to discuss peace,” he said in an interview. “They have received the message from their leadership, and they are ready.”
Attempting to bridge divide
Thousands of former Taliban members have put down their weapons in recent years. Most are low-level fighters whose peace deals with the government were unceremonious and of little political consequence. But a few, like Zaeef, were offered early release from prison if they agreed to work with the government rather than against it.
Members of this small group have been having occasional conversations with Karzai for several years. But with peace talks drawing closer, they are meeting with top Afghan officials much more often, according to the president’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi.
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His large home holds the religious paraphernalia that he amassed as a Taliban leader, but there are hints of a new, secular life in the capital: an Adobe Photoshop user guide, files from his nascent real estate business and a newly purchased iPhone that, every once in a while, lights up with an incoming call from Karzai’s palace and blasts his ringtone, the Muslim call to prayer.
“I’m proud of what I did before,” he said before answering a recent call, “and I’m proud of what I’m doing now.”
