Security forces on the streets of Quetta, where armed separatists are waging war against government security forces. Colin Freeman for The National
Security forces on the streets of Quetta, where armed separatists are waging war against government security forces. Colin Freeman for The National
Security forces on the streets of Quetta, where armed separatists are waging war against government security forces. Colin Freeman for The National
Security forces on the streets of Quetta, where armed separatists are waging war against government security forces. Colin Freeman for The National

Quetta: Symbol of Pakistan’s war on militants or Taliban haven?


  • English
  • Arabic

QUETTA, PAKISTAN // Ever since becoming leader of the Taliban in 2015, Mullah Akhtar Mansour knew he was at the very top of the CIA’s kill list. Aware of the prospect of a missile with his name on it, he stayed on the move and often travelled incognito.

Yet on the day last May when a drone strike hit the battered taxi he was travelling in, he might have been forgiven for feeling more relaxed than usual.

It happened not as he was driving through the Taliban heartlands of southern Afghanistan, but near Quetta in neighbouring Pakistan – long considered a haven for the Taliban leadership.

In Quetta, a dusty frontier town ringed by mountains, such accusations have swirled since 2001, when the late Mullah Omar – Mansour’s predecessor as Taliban leader – was said to have fled there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

In 2009, the then commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stan McChrystal, said the Taliban’s Quetta Shura, or council, “conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Omar announces his guidance and intent for the coming year”.

These days, such criticisms upset Pakistan rather more than they used to, given Islamabad’s newly-proclaimed position as an enemy of Islamic radicals.

Over the past three years, Pakistani security forces have arrested and killed thousands of militants, galvanised by escalating terrorism on its home soil, including the massacre two years ago of 132 children at a military school in Peshawar.

Responsibility for that atrocity was claimed by the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, a domestic offshoot that Islamabad has long regarded purely as terrorist. But today the government insists that there are no “havens” for the Afghan Taliban either – including Quetta.

And with that in mind, officials took the rare step of inviting journalists on a government-chaperoned tour of the city.

“It’s a blatant lie to suggest that the Taliban are based here,” said Anwar ul Haq Kakar, Quetta’s senior government spokesman, over dinner in Quetta’s heavily-guarded Serena Hotel.

“After all, they control more than half of Afghanistan as it is. Why come here to plan things when they can attack the heart of Kabul?”

All the same, for most of the past decade, the government has been notably reluctant to let journalists near Quetta at all.

Permits to go to the city were almost always denied – possibly because of widespread accounts that the Taliban operated openly here. According to one report in 2011, landlords in Quetta’s Kharotabad neighbourhood were renting out so many homes to Taliban fighters on combat leave from Afghanistan that locals feared the area would attract US drone strikes.

“There’s no doubt that some of the Taliban we were fighting were trained in Pakistan, and got resupplied there,” said James Glancy, a British army captain who fought in Sangin in Helmand province, which the Taliban recaptured from Afghan forces last month.

“The biggest indicator that Pakistan was calling the shots was the way the Taliban fighting season was always from spring to the end of autumn, because traditionally the mountain passes to Pakistan freeze up at that time and make access difficult.”

True, on the streets of Quetta itself, the only thing to remind the visitor of the Taliban are the large numbers of Afghan refugees, including Mullah Omar lookalikes sporting the same black beards, turbans and white robes.

“We’ve heard claims about the Taliban being here,” said Mohammed Waseem, 40, a gunsmith, to nods from customers in his shop. “But we’ve never met any.”

Other locals, though, claim that certain neighbourhoods – including Kharotabad, Pashtunabad, and the outlying town of Kuchlak – remain Taliban strongholds.

According to a Reuters report in September, Hibatullah Akhundzada, who succeeded Mullah Mansour as Taliban leader, spent the previous 15 years in Kuchlak as a preacher. He also spoke at a public rally in Quetta commemorating the death of an Afghan Taliban commander.

One local, who asked not to be named, said: “In neighbourhoods like Pashtunabad, even ordinary people from Quetta aren’t allowed in. If we go in ourselves, we’ll get asked what we’re doing there and told to leave.”

Keen to prove otherwise, Mr Kakar, the government spokesman, agreed to act as a tour guide to Pashtunabad, driving there himself with reporters in tow. It looked no different to anywhere else – but within minutes of arriving, the government bodyguards accompanying the delegation decided it was not safe, claiming to have detected hostile looks from passers-by.

Just what had unnerved our escorts was never made clear. But while Mr Kakar stuck rigidly to the government line, other Pakistani officials have begun to openly acknowledge the Taliban’s presence.

Speaking in Washington last year, Sartaj Aziz, a senior government adviser, said Islamabad had hosted Afghan militants ever since the 1980s, when it helped America train them for the anti-Soviet jihad. But these days, he said, Pakistan was using its contacts with the Taliban to promote peace rather than war.

“We have restricted their movements, restricted their access to hospitals, and threatened them that ‘If you don’t come forward and talk, we will at least expel you’,” he said. “[We told the Taliban leaders that] we can’t do it anymore because the whole world is blaming us just by their presence here.”

Indeed, Islamabad was reported to have hosted seven senior Taliban figures late last month to press them into a new round of peace talks – this time backed by Russia, which is now trying to increase its influence in Afghanistan.

However, no other rounds of talks have yielded fruit, and Islamabad has not made it clear what sanctions the Taliban on its soil will face if the latest round fails. Quetta’s Taliban landlords, it seems, will not be short of tenants for some time.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae

Results

2-15pm: Commercial Bank Of Dubai – Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (Dirt) 1,400m; Winner: Al Habash, Patrick Cosgrave (jockey), Bhupat Seemar (trainer)

2.45pm: Al Shafar Investment – Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: Day Approach, Ray Dawson, Ahmad bin Harmash

3.15pm: Dubai Real estate Centre – Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Celtic Prince, Richard Mullen, Rashed Bouresly

3.45pm: Jebel Ali Sprint by ARM Holding – Listed (TB) Dh500,000 (D) 1,000m; Winner: Khuzaam, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson

4.15pm: Shadwell – Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Tenbury Wells, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer

4.45pm: Jebel Ali Stakes by ARM Holding – Listed (TB) Dh500,000 (D) 1,950m; Winner: Lost Eden, Andrea Atzeni, Doug Watson

5.15pm: Jebel Ali Racecourse – Handicap (TB) Dh76,000 (D) 1,950m; Winner: Rougher, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson

Most F1 world titles

7 — Michael Schumacher (1994, ’95, 2000, ’01 ’02, ’03, ’04)

7 — Lewis Hamilton (2008, ’14,’15, ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20)

5 — Juan Manuel Fangio (1951, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57)

4 — Alain Prost (1985, ’86, ’89, ’93)

4 — Sebastian Vettel (2010, ’11, ’12, ’13)

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Fines for littering

In Dubai:

Dh200 for littering or spitting in the Dubai Metro

Dh500 for throwing cigarette butts or chewing gum on the floor, or littering from a vehicle. 
Dh1,000 for littering on a beach, spitting in public places, throwing a cigarette butt from a vehicle

In Sharjah and other emirates
Dh500 for littering - including cigarette butts and chewing gum - in public places and beaches in Sharjah
Dh2,000 for littering in Sharjah deserts
Dh500 for littering from a vehicle in Ras Al Khaimah
Dh1,000 for littering from a car in Abu Dhabi
Dh1,000 to Dh100,000 for dumping waste in residential or public areas in Al Ain
Dh10,000 for littering at Ajman's beaches 

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Two products to make at home

Toilet cleaner

1 cup baking soda 

1 cup castile soap

10-20 drops of lemon essential oil (or another oil of your choice) 

Method:

1. Mix the baking soda and castile soap until you get a nice consistency.

2. Add the essential oil to the mix.

Air Freshener

100ml water 

5 drops of the essential oil of your choice (note: lavender is a nice one for this) 

Method:

1. Add water and oil to spray bottle to store.

2. Shake well before use. 

The specs

Engine: 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6

Power: 380hp at 5,800rpm

Torque: 530Nm at 1,300-4,500rpm

Transmission: Eight-speed auto

Price: From Dh299,000 ($81,415)

On sale: Now

What are the main cyber security threats?

Cyber crime - This includes fraud, impersonation, scams and deepfake technology, tactics that are increasingly targeting infrastructure and exploiting human vulnerabilities.
Cyber terrorism - Social media platforms are used to spread radical ideologies, misinformation and disinformation, often with the aim of disrupting critical infrastructure such as power grids.
Cyber warfare - Shaped by geopolitical tension, hostile actors seek to infiltrate and compromise national infrastructure, using one country’s systems as a springboard to launch attacks on others.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company Profile

Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million

The Orwell Prize for Political Writing

Twelve books were longlisted for The Orwell Prize for Political Writing. The non-fiction works cover various themes from education, gender bias, and the environment to surveillance and political power. Some of the books that made it to the non-fiction longlist include: 

  • Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie
  • Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me by Kate Clanchy
  • Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
  • Follow Me, Akhi: The Online World of British Muslims by Hussein Kesvani
  • Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS by Azadeh Moaveni
The specs

Engine: 2.9-litre, V6 twin-turbo

Transmission: seven-speed PDK dual clutch automatic

Power: 375bhp

Torque: 520Nm

Price: Dh332,800

On sale: now

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