3 Great Satans of the Empire

The deaths in Southeast Asia of three of the West’s ‘Great Satans’ were announced in recent weeks: Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani in Afghanistan; and Pakistan’s Lt. Gen.  Hamid Gul.

I never met Mullah Omar though I was present at the birth and expansion of his movement, Taliban.

Mullah Omar was a renowned combat veteran of the 1980’s great jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.  In 1989,   the Soviets wisely withdrew. Afghanistan was convulsed by civil war between the eleven mujahidin factions, many of whom were supported by CIA through Pakistani intelligence.Mossad.  This claim was widely believed across the Muslim world, though Gul never produced any evidence backing this claim.  The US claimed he was crazy.  But the US also claims the religious, anti drug, anti-Communist movement Taliban are terrorists.

Gul claimed Benazir Bhutto was a US stooge.  She had even less generous words for Gul.  “Eric, you just love your Pakistani generals,” she always chided me, ‘specially that SOB Gul.”

Mullah Omar, with millions of dollars of US bounties on his head, wisely stayed out of sight.  It now transpires that the Taliban leader may have died of natural causes in Karachi two years ago.  Unable to settle on a new leader, Taliban, which is a loose confederation of tribes, kept silent on his death until recently when a new, little-knows emir, Mullah Mansour,  was chosen.  The same subterfuge was used with the deceased medieval Spanish leader, El Cid.

Washington was delighted, hoping Taliban would splinter and cease challenging its latest efforts to keep control of strategic Afghanistan.  But I suspect most of the Pashtun will keep on fighting until Taliban’s goal of driving out all foreign occupation troops is achieved.