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Tribal Elder To NY Times: ‘To Be Honest, The People Prefer The Taliban’

Almost unnoticed, this strategic northern province is slipping away from government control.

Baghlan Province contains two of the crucial north-south routes inAfghanistan. As night falls on this provincial capital, the city turns dark and silent. The Talibanhave decreed that the cellphone signals go down at night so the main cellphone companies switch off the signals from dusk to dawn.

Men with guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers guard illegal checkpoints just north of the capital, waiting for convoys of trucks or other lucrative prey. Shootings erupt almost every day across the province.

Deprived of jobs and local government services, people here are turning to Taliban courts for speedy justice and drifting toward those who will pay them — either local strongmen or the Taliban.

“The situation of Baghlan is very serious, and day by day it is getting worse and worse,” said Mohammed Rasool Mohsini, the chairman of the provincial council and a former commander.

READ MORE HERE

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 2:00 pm. It is filed under Blahg and tagged with Afghanistan, Taliban. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.