Ahmed Rashid, Reporting on Islamist Groups

DATE August 24, 2006 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Journalist, author Ahmed Rashid talks about the
Islamic extremist groups in Waziristan, the Muslim world's
perception of the US, and the Iraq and Lebanon wars
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups have found a home in the border area between
Pakistan and Afghanistan. And that's one of the things we're going to talk
about with Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. He's been covering extremist
Islamic groups for years.

We're also going to talk about Pakistan's connections to the alleged plot to
blow up trans-Atlantic planes, the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
and how the wars in Lebanon and Iraq are affecting jihadi groups. Rashid is
the author of the book "Taliban," which was published in 2000 and became a
bestseller after September 11th. His 2002 book "Jihad" is about the rise of
militant Islam in central Asia. Rashid writes for English publications like
the International Herald Tribune and The Daily Telegraph of London.

Ahmed Rashid, welcome back to FRESH AIR. What are some of the connections
between Pakistan and the suspects in the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic
flights from London to the United States?

Mr. AHMED RASHID: Many of the suspects now under arrest and being charged by
the British government are British citizens, born in Britain, but they are of
Pakistani origin, and they have been traveling back and forth between Britain
and Pakistan, and it is in Pakistan that they probably got in touch with
either al-Qaeda or extremist groups who have trained them and have mobilized
them, in a sense. And of course this was also the same issue arose last year
when the bombings took place in the London underground, where Pakistani-born
suicide bombers detonated bombs and killed over 50 people.

GROSS: Is Pakistan now the place to get jihadi training or financial
assistance for jihadi plots?

Mr. RASHID: Well, unfortunately, it is. I mean, primarily because, you
know, the al-Qaeda leadership is, I think, very much present in Pakistan.
We've got now the even American authorities and British authorities saying
that Osama bin Laden and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are no longer what
they used to say, "on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border." Now they're saying
more categorically that they're in Pakistan.

Now this means that, if you are a potential jihadi and you want to go and
detonate a bomb somewhere and you want to get the blessing of Osama bin Laden
or even manual training from al-Qaeda, you come to Pakistan and make contact
with al-Qaeda through Pakistan's own large number of extremist groups, groups
who've been fighting in Kashmir, who've been fighting with the Taliban, and
who have been giving a logistical support and sanctuary to al-Qaeda. So there
is a huge network. I mean, in Pakistan right now you've got central Asian
groups, Chechen groups, Indonesian groups, the Arabs of course, plus
Pakistanis, Kashmiris, Afghan Taliban, and people from the Muslim areas of
China.

GROSS: Now, Pakistan's president, Musharraf, gave Britain information that
was crucial in disrupting this alleged plot and after 2001, he promised to
crack down on extremist Islamist groups in Pakistan. So how has he been doing
in delivering on that promise? Obviously, Pakistan was helpful in breaking
this plot. On the other hand, Pakistan helped the plot before that. Not
President Musharraf, but extremist groups in Pakistan did help the plotters.

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think there're two issues at stake here. The first is,
certainly Pakistan has been cooperating with Western intelligence agencies on
individual cases. We saw that last year with the London underground bombings.
We've seen it again this year. And certainly, there is, you know, very good
cooperation on this case-by-case issue.

Now, the problem is that the promises that Musharraf made to sort of clean up
Pakistan, as it were, to reign in the madrassas, the religious schools, to
disband and disarm some of these extremist groups in Pakistan, none of that
has really taken place. And five years have gone by and many Pakistanis are
very frustrated and, certainly, I think, you know, Western governments are
very frustrated. Musharraf does have an alliance with some of the Islamic
parties, the mainstream Islamic parties. And the danger is that that alliance
looks like being repeated. When he have elections in 2007, he will need
allies in order to remain as president. He may go back to allying himself
with these Islamic parties. And clearly, if he does so, that means his hands
will be tied. He won't be able to carry out any kind of reform agenda.

And so the real problem is that on a case-by-case basis, there is cooperation;
but on actually improving the situation in Pakistan, very little has been
done.

GROSS: Let me mention another problem that you've written about and I'll
quote you here. You wrote, "Pakistan is helpful on some cases. Then Western
intelligence agencies are seduced by the assistance and are reluctant to urge
Musharraf to carry out wider reforms that would slow down the spread of
extremism in Pakistan. What kind of reforms might Musharraf introduce that
could slow down extremism?

Mr. RASHID: Well, there was a huge commitment made by Musharraf and by the
Bush administration that they would support Musharraf in improving the
literacy levels and educational system in Pakistan and promoting the state
educational system, which is obviously a secular system. And also bring the
madrassas under control--that is, have them registered, improved their
curricula, eliminate any kind of a reference to, you know, militancy or abuse
to other religions like Christianity and Judaism, etc. Now none of this has
really been carried out.

The second major issue was to disarm and demobilize and perhaps retrain and
re-educate thousands of militants who had been fighting with the Taliban, who
had been fighting in Kashmir. Very little of this has happened, too. In
fact, what we're seeing in some areas of Pakistan has been a much worse
situation than existed before 9/11. And these extremist groups have been able
to encourage people like the London bombers to come to Pakistan, train them in
explosives or give them other kinds of training, and then send them back.
Now, clearly, that means, you know, terrorist camps are still in existence.

GROSS: Musharraf is facing elections next year. You write that his
popularity has hit an all-time low. Do you think it's in the West's best
interest for him to remain in power?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I really do think that there has to be a transition toward
some kind of democratic rule. I think we need free and fair elections.
Clearly, you know, given the very tense situation and the power of the
military, I'm certainly not advocating a situation where the military should
just totally abandon the fight against terrorism and just step back and sort
of hand over to the civilians. I don't think that's possible. But the
military has to accept that there has to be a genuine--but a
gradual--transition to democratic rule.

And certainly if you do get a properly-elected government in 2007, there
should be a partnership, perhaps, between the military and the government for
a certain period of time, in which both, you know, agree to take certain steps
to carry out these long-promised reforms. But the military has to accept that

it has to take a back seat towards a gradual democratization.

And unfortunately, the Americans are not backing it. After many promises made
by the Americans--we saw after President Bush's re-election, this commitment
to democracy in the Muslim world, in the Arab world, there has been a lot of
backtracking on that. We've seen that in Egypt, in other parts of the Arab
world, and certainly we've seen that in Pakistan where you had Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice making very strong statements in support of democracy
about a year ago, and now there's nothing like that kind of support any more.

GROSS: Do you think that it's a bit of a hypocritical policy, that it's, `We
support democracy unless an authoritarian regime is our ally, in which case
it's all right.'

Mr. RASHID: Exactly. I mean, I think, you know, I think many, many people,
and people in the Muslim world, see this advocacy of democracy by President
Bush at the beginning of his second term and then his backtracking on it as
being incredibly hypocritical. We've just had the war in Lebanon, where, you
know, for the first time in as long as I can remember, the US was not trying
to broker a cease-fire. It was, in fact, encouraging Israel to carry on the
war as long as possible so that Hezbollah could be wiped out.

Now, here you have a situation where people's trust in the US as being, if you
like, an honest broker in the Middle East, the US promoting democracy. I
think people's trust has been really shattered and there is now an enormous
amount of anti-Americanism sweeping through the Muslim world.

GROSS: My guest is Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the author of "Taliban"
and "Jihad: the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia." We'll talk more
after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ahmed Rashid. He's a
journalist based in Pakistan who writes for the International Herald Tribune
and the Daily Telegraph. He's the author of the bestseller "Taliban" and of
the book "Jihad," which is about Islamist groups in central Asia.

You write that Pakistan is now awash with far more dangerous forms of Islamic
extremism than ever existed before 9/11. What makes these groups more
dangerous and more extreme?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think the fact that they've lasted out five years of
promises of reform and repression by Musharraf, that they have become far more
sophisticated in staying underground, in not being caught, in being able to
train people from around the world still and send them back to their home
countries. They have been trying very hard to establish a kind of base area
in this tribal region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in at least one
area the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan, they have succeeded in
establishing a base area where literally there's a truce with the Pakistan
army and the Pakistan army does not interfere in what these people do.

And on the other frontier, of course, there was a lot of hope that the peace
process with India would bear fruit and the major fruit for Pakistan would be
its ability to disarm thousands of militants who had been fighting in Kashmir.
Now, unfortunately, after three years of this peace process, we haven't seen
much progress. The Pakistanis blame the Indians, the Indians blame the
Pakistanis--but certainly, one result has been that Pakistan has not been
willing or able to disarm the militants who have been fighting in Kashmir.

GROSS: So is there part of the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan that
is basically an independent Islamic state practicing Islamic law outside of
Pakistan's jurisdiction?

Mr. RASHID: Well, in the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan--this
is a kind of no man's land that existed between the two countries, and this is
the area where, initially, bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership escaped to
after escaping from Afghanistan in 2001. It is here that the Pashtun
tribesmen, who have been very close to the Taliban, have now become very close
to al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda spent a lot of money in wooing these Pashtun tribesmen
here. It is here that after a lot of American pressure, the Pakistan army
went into Waziristan in 2003 to try and to wipe out these pockets of
extremists in their camps. The extremists fought back; something like 600
Pakistani soldiers have been killed in this region. And now, in a sense,
there's a very tenuous truce in which both the army pledges not to attack the
extremists and the extremists say, `We will not attack the Pakistan army.'

But of course, what these extremists have been doing in the past and will
continue to do is to cross the border into Afghanistan and attack Afghan army
and American army units who are based just across the border. And I think,
you know, this is a very tenuous truce but it shows the weakness, really, of
the state of Pakistan as being unable to wipe out these militants. Having
suffered such grievous losses--600 troops dead--they've had little choice but
to strike some kind of truce which, frankly, according to most people is not
going to hold very long.

GROSS: But this also means that there's kind of a safe haven for jihadi
groups to practice and to do whatever it is they're doing.

Mr. RASHID: Well, exactly. I mean, they're called the Pakistani Taliban.
They're allied to al-Qaeda. They have imposed a completely Talibanized
political and social structure as what existed in Afghanistan before 9/11.
For example, TVs are banned, women can't appear, there's no education for
women, and they've imposed this structure in this area. They have completely
thrown out any semblance of the Pakistan state--that is, the local
administration, the local educational system, etc. And, at the same time,
they're still being able to bring in and out militants from around the world
and from Pakistan, give people training, indoctrinate them, send them back to
where they came from--and clearly it is from here that al-Qaeda has also been
able to make these videotapes that we're seeing.

Now clearly, there's a very sophisticated media setup now that they've got,
where these tapes are made, where they're distributed, where they're sent out
to the TV channels around the world. Now all this is happening from this part
of the world.

GROSS: Have you been to this area?

Mr. RASHID: Well, this area now is completely off limits. You can only go
in with the military, and they have these guided tours, they take people
around. You can't see very much, obviously, in these guided tours, but the
press is banned so really there's very little information coming out as
to--apart from the handouts the military gives or the handouts that the
Taliban gives--there's very little independent confirmation.

And you see, people--the other problem is that a lot of tribesmen have opposed
this Pakistani Talibani movement, and a lot of them have been killed or the
majority have been driven out.

So we've had a kind of ethnic cleansing where any opposition to this
Talibanization program, people opposing it have been literally been driven
out. They're now refugees in other parts of Pakistan. And this is something
that hasn't been highlighted, but what it means is simply that out in North
and South Waziristan, the Taliban will not tolerate anyone who does not
support them.

GROSS: So in this jihadi area, are there a number of different jihadi groups
working together?

Mr. RASHID: Yes, certainly. For example, I mean, we know the groups that
are operating there are the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda, and several other Afghan
groups opposed to the Americans and President Karzai, the group Hizb-i Islami,
which is led by a former guerilla commander, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Another
group, led by Jillalah du Mikani. There is the Islamic movement of
Uzbekistan, which is the main central Asian group fighting the regimes in
central Asia. There're several Chechen groups represented there, there are
representatives of Uighur militant groups--that is, the Uighurs are the Muslim
Chinese from Xinjiang province in western China. And of course there are
numerous Pakistani groups and Kashmiri groups.

GROSS: And they're there working in concert with each other, maybe in ways
that they haven't before? I mean, are they more unified than they've ever
been?

Mr. RASHID: I think they're very unified. I mean, they have their own
objectives, as it were. You know, the Chechens or the central Asians would be
concentrating on the promise of reunion. But I think where they're unified is
to be able to build up a base area, to be able to operate freely, to be able
to bring in their militants. We've also got reports, for example, that a
large number of Arabs now--several hundred Arabs--are coming back from the
fighting in Iraq. They're joining up with the Afghan Taliban and with other
militant groups in Waziristan to fight in Afghanistan. And that now there's
certainly this traffic between Iraq and the Afghan Taliban. And many of the
tactics we're seeing now in the war in southern Afghanistan are in fact
tactics that the Taliban have learned from Iraq.

GROSS: What do you think the options are for dealing with this no man's land
in the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where so many Islamic groups
have taken refuge?

Mr. RASHID: Well, Terry, I mean, it may be, you know, too late now, in a
sense, but I mean, initially, after 9/11, the fact is that this no man's land
really, there was a very--I went there several times in 2002, 2003, and there
was this very intense debate at that time amongst the tribesmen as to what
kind of status they wanted. And they had been living for the past 150 years
under a British demarcated areas and laws. And what they wanted was a more
modern political system and they wanted a referendum, if you like, should it
be held there, where they could decide whether they wanted to be part of the
northwest frontier province of Pakistan or they wanted to form a separate
province of Pakistan.

Basically, they needed a chance to be able to determine their own political
destiny. And that chance was not given them because, you know, we had a
military regime in Pakistan which did not have a free and fair election, and
was certainly not going to allow the tribal areas to have a referendum to
decide what they wanted.

Now, unfortunately, that--it was a golden opportunity. What was needed was a
political decision by the people of that area to decide what status they
wanted to live under. Now if that had happened, I don't think the extremists
and the fundamentalists would've been able to take over this region in the way
they have.

The fact that now, there's no political argument. Now the only argument is
jihad and we want a sharia state--that is, we want a state government by
Islamic law. There's no other debate on, you know, `Should we be part of this
province or that province or have an independent province or democracy.' Or
anything like that.

GROSS: So just one more thing about this no man's land: do you envision, in
the future, there will be an attack by the West on this land to try to drive
out or stop the Islamist groups? Do you think Pakistan will do something? Or
do you think it's just going to go on the way it is?

Mr. RASHID: Well, the reason why I think this truce that is there between
the militants and the Pakistan army is so tenuous is that it can be broken at
any time either by the militants or by the Americans. What happens if the
militants, you know, cross over and kill large numbers of Americans on the
other side? The Americans are going to respond. What happens if the
Americans discover through satellite surveillance or other means that Osama
bin Laden has suddenly arrived for a meeting there? They're going to bomb the
militant stronghold. And that, of course, is going to break the truce.

So, certainly, I don't think this is a long-term option. And eventually,
Pakistan, with the help of the West, is going to have to sort out this region.
And it will have to be done militarily, unfortunately, now.

GROSS: Ahmed Rashid is a journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan. His books
include "Taliban" and "Jihad." He writes for the International Herald Tribune
and The Daily Telegraph of London. We'll talk more in the second half of the
show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Ahmed Rashid, a
Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. He's written extensively about jihadi
groups. His books include the bestseller "Taliban" and "Jihad: the Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia." He writes for the International Herald
Tribune and The Daily Telegraph of London.

We've been talking about that no man's land in the border area of Pakistan and
Afghanistan in which Islamic extremist groups are living. Meanwhile, in
Afghanistan, how much power has the Taliban regained?

Mr. RASHID: Well, the second major area in Pakistan that is really very
unsafe is further south in the province of Baluchistan around the town of
Quetta, which borders southern Afghanistan, and it is here that you have the
remains of the Taliban. Now here there are no foreigners, there are no Arabs,
there's no al-Qaeda, this is a pure Afghan Taliban movement. It is to this
area where tens of thousands of Taliban retreated in 2001. Many of them set
up, you know, lived in refugee camps; others who were wealthy bought property,
they set up madrassas--religious schools. And it's from here that the old
Taliban leadership has been recruiting a new generation of fighters.

And what we've seen now in the last three or four months in southern
Afghanistan is that the Taliban have moved back into southern Afghanistan in a
very big way with a lot of new weapons, a lot of logistical support coming
from the Pakistan side of the border. And the reason is that the American
troops in the south, who are very small in number and are very limited, were
replaced by NATO troops in the spring--Canadians, British, Dutch, Australians.
And there has been a much more determined effort by NATO to get control of the
south from the Taliban, to begin reconstruction, and to try and eliminate the
drugs trade. Most of the poppy, which is turned into heroin, is grown in
these southern provinces in Afghanistan.

Now that replacement of the Americans by NATO troops has encouraged the
Taliban to launch this massive offensive. And what they are depending on is
that many of these countries who are giving troops to this deployment, there's
a lot of opposition at home...

GROSS: Why did the United States withdraw troops from Afghanistan?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think when this decision was made, about two years ago,
I mean, I think the US was looking at the upcoming congressional elections to
go--which is going to take place in November this year and perhaps looking
even to the next elections in the US. I think Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to
bring home American troops from somewhere. Clearly, it was not going to
happen in Iraq given that the insurgency was going full blast in Iraq. And I
think that there was a very strong need and desire, both militarily and
politically, to try and bring some troops back home.

And that just sent a very negative signal. It sent a very negative signal to
the Afghan government and to President Karzai, who has berated the Americans
ever since for even announcing such a thing, because, of course, what it shows
Afghans is that perhaps Americans are losing confidence in Karzai. And, of
course, it sent a very strong signal to the Taliban, saying, `Oh, we always
knew the Americans would run, they would never stay in Afghanistan. They
couldn't hack it. They haven't done reconstruction and now they're just going
to leave.' And that certainly encouraged this Taliban offensive.

GROSS: What condition is the Karzai government in now?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think, you know, that's the other part of the conundrum.
I mean, one side, you do have a Taliban insurgency which is partly being
fueled by their basis in Pakistan, the fact that they have support from all
these other groups--al-Qaeda, etc.--and the fact that there was very little
military presence in southern Afghanistan for the last five years.

Now the other part of this has been the failure of the government, quite
simply. Yes, the international community has not delivered money and
resources to reconstruct the country the way the Afghans wanted and the way it
should've been done. But given what resources were given to the Afghan
government, unfortunately they've not been used very well. There is massive
corruption, the drugs trade has exacerbated, Karzai has been striking tactical
deals with warlords, with corrupt officials and the police and the army and
with, you know, tribal leaders, in order to gain time for this or that
tactical advantage without really looking at the big picture and seeing how
grievously these tactical alliances of his are harming the big picture and
really aggravating the Afghan public, because what they're seeing is that
there'd be old, corrupt, discredited people from the past are still ruling
over them.

GROSS: One of the things that helped the Taliban come to power after the
Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan was that they were seen by the people as an
alternative to the anarchy in Afghanistan and to the corrupt and brutal local
rule of the warlords. Is that kind of thing in danger of happening again?
Like, if the Karzai government continues to lose popularity, might the Taliban
be seen as some kind of viable alternative?

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, six months ago, I would've said that even in
southern Afghanistan, the majority of Afghans--and by majority, I mean 80 or
90 percent of Afghans--would not support the return of the Taliban. Which is
why the Taliban, for the last two or three years, has remained a guerilla
movement without much mass support. But I think the situation has changed
very drastically in the last six to nine months. There is much greater public
support in the south.

But we have to also understand that this insurgency of the Taliban is within
the ethnic boundaries of the Taliban. The Taliban are drawn from the Pashtun
tribes, which is the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, but certainly it
does not have any sway in the west or the north. And the Taliban insurgency
remains confined to the south. Now, clearly, they are trying to send groups
up into the north. There's been attacks on NATO troops in western
Afghanistan, close to the border with Iran. But these are not their
traditional bases. So it's not that the Taliban aim really or possibility
that they could topple Karzai. What I think they're trying to do is to
literally cut off the south from the rest of the country and try to take
territory, hold it, and be able to set up a new kind of sharia state. In
other words, a repetition of what they were doing before 9/11.

GROSS: But just in a smaller, smaller level.

Mr. RASHID: In a smaller area. And clearly, you know, one of their messages
to the Pashtun population and to other Afghans is that, `We will bring law and
order. Karzai is corrupt, his regime is corrupt, there's no law and order.
These foreign forces are killing civilians, are bombing the wrong targets.
There is, you know, drug trafficking, etc.' And that's the kind of message
that the Taliban had before 9/11 and it's the kind of message they're still
giving.

GROSS: So if the Taliban succeed in setting up an independent area in the
south of Afghanistan, what would the consequences be?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think the consequences would be catastrophic for
Afghanistan. Clearly, the Karzai government, the ripple effect of that, would
really not allow Karzai to stay in power very long. I think there would be a
demand from other ethnic groups, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, for a much tougher
line. And god forbid, I mean, there could be talk of the division of
Afghanistan, which would be really catastrophic because, you know, Afghanistan
has stuck together for the past three, 400 years, but it is a patchwork of
ethnic groups. And many of these ethnic groups have their counterparts in
neighboring countries, just like the Pashtuns are in both Afghanistan and
Pakistan, the Uzbeks are in central Asia as well as in Afghanistan. So any
move like that would be very dangerous.

But I think, clearly, it would make the whole war on terrorism a defeat as far
as the Americans are concerned because the war on terrorism, despite the Bush
administration's desire to try and link it with Iraq and link it with
Hezbollah and Lebanon, the war on terrorism remains a very specific thing.
And we should remember that it is a war, it's a struggle against Islamic
extremism as expressed by al-Qaeda and its allies and the affiliate groups.
And these affiliate groups are very largely still based in the
Afghanistan-Pakistan region. And if they were given or allowed to operate
from a large base area, clearly, I think, you know, the world would be in very
serious danger.

GROSS: My guest is Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the author of "Taliban"
and "Jihad: the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia." We'll talk more
after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ahmed Rashid and he's a
journalist based in Pakistan who covers Pakistan, Afghanistan, and also writes
about Islamic extremist groups in central Asia. He writes for the
International Herald Tribune and The Daily Telegraph. He's the author of the
bestseller "Taliban" and of a book called "Jihad" about Islamist groups in
central Asia.

We've been talking primarily about the Islamic extremist groups based in that
border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. What impact do you think the
war in Lebanon has had on the jihadi groups?

Mr. RASHID: Well, unfortunately, I think the war in Lebanon has been an
enormously contributing factor to mobilization and many people believing that
Islamist forces are the only way to resist Israel and the United States. You
know, there've been two very serious repercussions, I think.

The first is that the traditional way of the United States since the second
World War to try and prevent war in the Middle East and to try and bring about
quick cease-fires so that the wars do not expand was abandoned by the Bush
administration in the war in Lebanon. And we saw the American administration,
in fact, allowing the Israelis to continue the war for something like 33 days
before a cease-fire took place.

Now, this has had an enormous impact in the wider Muslim world, I think, where
any kind of idea that the Americans would be an honest broker between Israel
and the Arab states or would try and broker a settlement over Israel in the
Palestinian issue, I think that hope is really gone. I don't foresee even
America's allies--for example, the Saudi kings or King Abdullah of Jordan, or
even the Egyptian president any time soon asking the United States now to
mediate in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I think any Arab ruler
who now goes to Washington and asks for American mediation would be shouted
down by his own people. And that is really unfortunate.

I think the second major impact of Lebanon, of course, has been the role of
Hezbollah. Now, Hezbollah, I think, is very disliked by many people in
Lebanon, by the Sunnis, by the Christians, by the Jews, because many people
inside Lebanon see Hezbollah's actions as causing the total destruction of
Lebanon: the bombing of Lebanon by the Israelis, the destruction of the
infrastructure, etc.

But outside Lebanon, in the broader Muslim world, there's no doubt that
Hezbollah is a hero. This is a guerilla force of a couple of thousand people
who--what has been coming out in the Islamic press--have stood up to Israel
for 33 days, has been able to inflict considerable damage on Israel, has not
been eliminated despite all the efforts of the traditionally victorious
Israeli army. And so outside Lebanon, the idea is that, you know, not only is
Hezbollah a hero, but the projection is that only Hezbollah being an Islamist
force, although it is a Shiite Islamist force, even in the Sunni world, the
fact that an Islamic force has stood up to Israel means that Islamic forces
everywhere have been boosted. The PLO was not able to stand up to Israel.
The PLO, the Palestinian al-Fatah organization, which is a secular
organization, a democratically-elected secular organization, has not been able
to stand up to Israel.

So I think, you know, the double message here is extremely dangerous for the
future of stability in the Muslim world.

GROSS: Part of the popularity of Hezbollah has to do with the fact that, in
addition to being an armed group, it also does a lot of social work, it sets
up charities and hospitals, and now it's taking a leading role in helping
people whose homes were bombed by Israel. Is this the wave of the future with
Islamist groups, do you think, that they have two faces--the military face,
but they also have that good Samaritan face and do genuinely helpful work?

Mr. RASHID: Yes, I mean, I, you know, I think it is. We saw even al-Qaeda,
I mean, for example, bin Laden used to personally write checks out to the
wives and children of those militants who died in al-Qaeda operations. So
certainly, you know, there's a long-standing attempt by these groups to have a
social side to them. But of course with Hezbollah, it's been very dependent
on the fact that they have had state support from Iran, which is loaded with
petro dollars at the moment, given the high price of oil, and can afford to
send large sums of money to Hezbollah; and by Syria. Now, you know, other
such militant groups don't have state support. Al-Qaeda clearly doesn't have
state support. It's been dependent on donations from wealthy sympathizers,
you know, around the world--but particularly from Saudi Arabia. Many of those
donations may be drying up now.

So I think that kind of face would--all these militant groups would like to
have the face--for example, in the recent earthquake in Pakistan last year, we
saw these militant Kashmiri groups making a big comeback by becoming relief
groups, by digging people out of the rubble, setting up camps, providing
medical aid, etc.

So certainly that is something that is going to be a growing part of, I think,
the Islamic movement.

GROSS: In terms of Iraq right now, there's debate in the United States about
what the next step for the United States should be. Should we be withdrawing
troops and handing things over more and more to Iraqi security and to the
Iraqi government, or should we make sure we stay until things are much more
safe and secure and to prevent any kind of civil war from worsening? Do you
have a sense of that?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think clearly the US cannot pull out. It cannot give a
date certain and just pull out. There would be horrendous repercussions. On
the other hand, what the Americans really need to do is to start a dialogue
with all the neighbors, including Iran and Syria, about the future of Iraq.

The big danger is, once the Americans pull out and if this government falls in
Baghdad, the neighbors are all going to come in and promote a kind of civil
war of the kind that we saw in Afghanistan in the 1990s. And what is needed
is a deal to be hammered out that, you know, the neighboring interference
would be reduced to a minimum. Now, you know, perhaps it's too late for that;
this is something that the Americans should've done a long time ago, certainly
two years ago. And of course what it means is that you have to talk to Iran,
because Iran is the state which has interfered the most, which is backing some
of the Shia militant groups in Iraq. And without a dialogue between the
Americans and the Iranians on the future of Iraq, there is no way that the
Americans can guarantee stability in Iraq.

GROSS: Well you mentioned that you think the Americans should be negotiating
with Iran and Syria about the future of Iraq. That does not seem like it's
about to happen any time in the near future.

Mr. RASHID: Well, unfortunately, if it doesn't happen, I mean, we're going
to see this continuing slide into civil war. I mean, we've already had a lot
of ethnic cleansing going on in some of the major cities in Baghdad, the
separation of Shia and Sunni populations, the arming of militias, and there's
very little, it seems, that the Iraqi government or the American forces are
able to do about the sectarian divide and about the militant resistance that
is coming, you know, to the government.

What I still feel is the biggest danger, and an even bigger danger, would be
direct foreign interference by the neighboring states. With the Sunnis being
backed up by perhaps Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and the Shias being certainly
backed up by Iran. And it's already happening at a clandestine, covert level,
probably, and certainly the Iranians are doing it. The danger is that this
happens overtly, publicly, in a very overt way, then we would really be
talking about the breakup of Iraq.

GROSS: My guest is Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid. He's the author of
"Taliban" and "Jihad: the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia." We'll talk
more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Ahmed Rashid. He's a
journalist based in Pakistan who covers particularly Pakistan, Afghanistan,
and central Asia. He writes for the International Herald Tribune and The

Daily Telegraph. He's the author of the bestseller "Taliban" and of the book
"Jihad," about Islamist terrorist groups in central Asia.

Let me divert your attention to Iran for a moment. Iran says it's willing to
resume talks but it didn't indicate whether it would agree to stop enriching
and reprocessing uranium. The United States says this falls short of UN
demands. And meanwhile, a new report from a House Intelligence Committee led
by Republican Peter Hoekstra portrayed Iran as a growing threat and criticized
American spy agencies for cautious assessments of Iran's weapons programs.
Give me like your sense of what's happening with Iran right now.

Mr. RASHID: Well, I think, certainly you do have a government in Tehran
which is trying to revive the spirit and the politics of the 1979 Iranian
revolution, which had certainly died down in the last eight to 10 years and,
under the former president, President Khatami--who was a moderate and who had
tried to start a dialogue with the United States--there were much more
political and social freedoms. And, clearly, the new regime is trying to roll
all that back, and one of the ways it has been able to roll it back is to have
a confrontation with the US, which is very reminiscent of what happened in
1979, if we remember those three or four very difficult years, the hostage
crisis, etc.

But the difference is, of course, that the US--as far as what people see in
the Muslim world--the US is much weaker now. The US is bogged down in Iraq.
And certainly in Iraq, you have the empowerment of the Shias, you have a
Shia-dominated government, and within that government you have people who are
very close to Iran. And really, a civil war, if it erupts, is going to force
the Americans to abandon Iraq, and the Iranians see that all to their
advantage. In Lebanon, you have a Shia group which has stood up to Israel.
The Hezbollah are seen as the heroes in Iran in the wider Muslim world. And
in a sense, Hezbollah have revived this idea that Shia Islamic militancy,
which had for a few years been overshadowed by al-Qaeda and Sunni Islamic
militancy, now Iran is seeing the Shia Islamic militancy is once again on the
rise. And if you like, is in a kind of kind of competition with al-Qaeda and
Sunni militancy. So Iran certainly sees itself on a roll.

GROSS: Ahmed Rashid, I don't know if you've heard this story or not, but
Henry Rollins, the former punk rocker and performance artist, was traveling by
plane in Australia. And on the plane, he was reading your book "Jihad," about
the rise of militant Islam in central Asia. Apparently, he says, the
passenger next to him noticed that he was reading the book "Jihad," reported
him to the authorities, and later Rollins was called by a member of the
Australian government asking what was going on. And he explained that he was
reading your book. The whole thing was dropped.

So I'm wondering, like, if you've heard that story and if you hear that kind
of thing happening a lot, if somebody's like reading one of your books and
because the word "jihad" or "Taliban" is in the title they're seen as being
suspicious.

Mr. RASHID: No, I must say I haven't heard that story. It's quite a
wonderful story. But, you know, just a few months ago, there was a story in
The New York Times about the American 10th Mountain Division, who were
preparing for deployment in Afghanistan and every single soldier had been
given a copy of my book "Taliban," and it was put on the top of their
rucksack. And The New York Times was describing how in Fort Drum, near New
York, these soldiers were sort of loading up their rucksacks and everybody had
the book right on the front as they were all being told to read it. And, of
course, you know, I mean it was gratifying in one sense. But of course, I
said, well, if the jihadists read this also, they're certainly going to see
that, you know, that this book is helping the Americans and they're not going
to like this very much.

So there is, you know, a plus side and a minus side.

GROSS: So in other words, you were concerned about your safety with the
American troops having your book strapped to their rucksacks?

Mr. RASHID: Well, sure, I mean, with, you know, that kind of publicity, it
was, you know--and especially with The New York Times sort of pointing it out
and, you know, writing two or three paragraphs about it--certainly, one was
concerned about safety and all.

GROSS: But were there no consequences, I hope?

Mr. RASHID: No, nothing more than usual.

GROSS: "More than usual"? What do you mean by "more than usual"?

Mr. RASHID: Well, I mean, certainly, you know, I mean, there have been
threats and things in the past, especially since 9/11.

GROSS: Right.

Mr. RASHID: As a result of my, you know, the "Taliban" book, for example,
came out in all the local languages, in Urdu in Pakistan, and in Pashto and
Dari, which are the two main languages in Afghanistan. So, you know, all the
Taliban have now read it in Pashto. And it's come out in Arabic as well, of
course, which means that all of al-Qaeda has read it, too.

GROSS: Ooh. Any feedback from them?

Mr. RASHID: Well, you know, you keep getting--they died down a lot, but
certainly after 9/11, there were a lot of threats made to me in the post, on
telephone, and, you know, I was, for a period, you know, quite concerned about
my family, etc.

GROSS: Well, listen, thank you so much for talking with us. Be well and
thank you.

Mr. RASHID: Thank you very much.

GROSS: Ahmed Rashid is a journalist based in Lahore, Pakistan. His books
include "Taliban" and "Jihad." He writes for the International Herald Tribune
and The Daily Telegraph of London.
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