The Taliban, the extreme Islamic sect that holds about 95 percent of the people and territory of Afghanistan, has signaled that they are finally opening up to the world.
The Taliban, known recently for exploding giant ancient Buddhas, have announced that they are permitting CNN to open an office in Afghanistan's capital Kabul (pronounced Kawbl). According to a report of June 6 in the As-Sharq al-Ausat (ASAA), the Taliban decided to do so because "having seen the success other governments have transmitting their messages through television to the people, they are rethinking their belief that operating TV stations is a crime." The group has previously outlawed photography and television, believing that Islam forbids the making of images such as pictures or paintings of people.
It's not entirely clear why the Taliban have decided to do act now, but the Bush administration's new approach in the Middle East is one of the reasons. An example of this is the fact that the new administration has so far said little if anything about Osama Bin Laden. By contrast, the Clinton administration kept up a constant drumbeat about the man they considered the prime source of global terrorism in the world.
For the first time the Taliban were allowed to be present at the Doha (capital of the Gulf state Qatar) last May's meeting of foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Before then they were not even invited as observers because a rump government that rules over only some 5 percent of the country still holds Afghanistan's UN seat. But in an interview with the ASAA of the same date, the Taliban foreign minister Wakeel Ahmad al-Mutewakkil demanded that henceforth his government be given full rights at OIC's meetings.
Al-Mutawakkil blasted Arab and Muslim governments which, having promised to send aid to Afghanistan, never delivered. Arguably no country in the world, aside from the Sudan, has undergone such terrible suffering for so long a time (22 years). He said in the ASAA interview that today in his country you see only Red Cross insignias on medical vehicles and never Red Crescent ones.
He denied that Bin Laden is a fund-raiser for the Taliban. The Taliban are willing to work together with the Americans to have him tried in an Islamic court, but in another Islamic nation and not in the US. And when the reporter asked him about no access in Afghanistan to audio-visual foreign news, al-Mutewakkil said for now we don't interfere with satellite dishes that get news from abroad like BBC and CNN.
Three days later the same ASAA reporter, Muhammad Shaf'eh'i, interviewed an official in the Foreign Ministry, Maulawi Muhammad Qaasim al-Haleemi. He was pleased that al-Haleemi spoke to him in fluent Egyptian Arabic. The tone of the interview was different than with the Foreign Minister, personal rather than political. The interview took place in the Taliban's political capital Qandahar some 550 km southwest of Kabul.
Shaf'eh'i noted that the hotel he stayed in, the Intercontinental, had a sign saying it was a five star hotel. What it needed, however, was a "total overhaul." But the rooms were unusual for a five star hotel. There were no TVs or radios but plenty of prayer mats. Al-Haleemi spoke fondly of the years spent at Al-Azhar, one of the oldest Islamic universities in the world.
When Shaf'ehi asked him about other Arab visitors, Haleemi responded: "Arab and Gulf visitors did come. But they never listened about nor looked at the conditions of our country. It seemed as if they were unable to be encouraging to us because of pressure from the Americans."