A new look at Mullah Omar

Bette Dam, a Dutch journalist, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 in her early twenties. She has since returned several times to obtain an understanding of that ancient, complex and fascinating country. This book is her investigation into the personal history of the mysterious leader of the Taliban — Mullah Omar.

In traditional Afghan society, Omar started with all the disadvantages — a humble family background in a small rural setting, an affiliation with a tribe that had lost much of its status, orphaned at a young age, poorly educated and barely articulate. Ms Dam describes Omar as tall — six feet, 5 inches, with greenish-blue eyes. He emerges as humble, self-effacing and uneasy when thrust into high-profile positions.

At the same time, he held firm convictions based on his religious faith, showed considerable courage in battle, and had a strong sense of national commitment. Among close friends, however, Omar was quite different — a comedian, a mimic and an irrepressible prankster.

Ms Dam’s account of the emergence of the Taliban rejects traditional accounts that give Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a central role. She has also found no evidence of influence on Omar of Pakistan’s jihad factories —  the Darul Uloom Haqqaniya at Akora Khattak or of Jamia Uloom ul-Islamia of Binori. What we learn is that, in 1994, an Afghan dignitary who was active in the drugs trade, encouraged Omar, already known for his piety and moral convictions, to mobilise a militia of Quran students, the Taliban, to attack the toll-collectors along major roads who disrupted the free movement of his goods and vehicles.

Omar viewed this confrontation with toll-collectors as a religious duty and soon had a formidable force under his command. Despite some military setbacks, by April 1996, with much of Afghanistan under his control, his followers conferred on him the caliphal title, Amir ul-Momineen, “Commander of the Faithful”.  Accepting the honour, Omar stated the goal of the Taliban “was to bring back the religion of Allah”.

Ms Dam points out that Mullah Omar was consistently suspicious of Pakistan, distrusted the ISI, and disliked outside interference in Afghan affairs. The Taliban, she asserts, was a home-grown movement — while they were willing to take assistance from Pakistan, they refused to accept its diktat.

Again, Omar was firmly opposed to tribal practices in his country, which pre-dated Islam, and insisted that personal and state actions be guided by Islamic precepts. Ms Dam points out that while Taliban rule in 1996-2001 was harsh, particularly for women, the atrocities of which they have been accused are exaggerated — contrary to reports of widespread stoning of women, she believes that just six such episodes took place in its five-year rule.

Again, despite the conviction among American officials and commentators, the Taliban and Al Qaeda had little affinity and there was hardly any personal rapport between Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden. Ms Dam describes in detail Omar’s discomfort at bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan and the valiant efforts he made to control his provocative activities. She, thus, challenges the erroneous view popularised by the CIA that “the Taliban and Al Qaeda were really the same”.

At the same time, Omar’s moral code demanded that acceptable proof be offered for bin Laden’s culpability before punishment could be considered — hence his refusal to hand over his unwelcome guest to the Saudis or the Americans. Ms Dam insists that neither Mullah Omar nor anyone else from the Taliban had any knowledge of the 9/11 attacks — in fact, Afghanistan was the first country to condemn the attacks and express grief for the victims. Hence, Omar was convinced that there would be no attacks on Afghanistan by the US.

Given the convoluted Afghan scenario, the principal insight that Dam offers is to correct the simplistic “us” versus “them” perception that has determined the US’ approach to the country. There were no binary conflicts, she says — what we had instead were a series of local conflicts among competing interest groups looking out for their own pecuniary interests, but invariably blaming the “Taliban” and even identifying their rivals as Taliban members and exposing them to harsh American justice. Ms Dam also points out that “Westerners in Afghanistan rather than insurgents … were increasingly falling victim to ‘drug interests’.”

On at least two occasions, officials dealing with Afghanistan have later regretted their earlier misjudgements: Recalling the hostility to Taliban rule in the 1990s, UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said many years later that Omar “was definitely not a terrorist … he was a patriot and deeply religious”. Again, after US attacks following 9/11, several Taliban leaders had tried to surrender to the Karzai government, but this was rejected by the Bush administration. Later, in 2019, US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad described this approach as a “historical blunder”.

Ms Dam’s research is a much-needed corrective to numerous self-seeking narratives surrounding various aspects of the Afghan tragedy. The difficulties that she faced in getting this book published in the West affirms that officials and commentators are not yet ready to give up their West-centric perceptions and accept their own culpability for the death and destruction visited upon that country for decades.

The reviewer is a former diplomat