The Bard of Blood Page 6

  Soon enough, a man roughly Kabir’s height and stature walked out, sporting a polite, formal smile. He had mousy features, a receding hairline, and sloping eyebrows set above droopy eyes. He was in his mid-forties, not much older than Kabir. He wore an expensive suit, probably Savile Row, judging by the cut. Kabir got up from the sofa, with his version of a formal smile. They shook hands firmly, one intelligence agent with another.

  He got right to the point. ‘Mr Joshi told me about the current situation, Mr Anand. I wouldn’t say I’m surprised.’

  He pronounced his Ts flat, with the tongue touching the roof of his mouth. He spoke slowly, as Kabir took the seat opposite him.

  ‘Yes, Mr Saleh,’ Kabir replied. ‘He’s asked me to meet you to get a better understanding of what I’m getting into.’

  Arifullah Umar Saleh had last served as the head of the Afghan intelligence service—the National Directorate of Security or NDS. Earlier, while in his twenties, he had caught Afghan political and military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud’s eye for his uncanny knack of gathering intelligence. The charismatic Massoud—‘The Lion of Panjshir’—appointed Saleh to lead the Northern Alliance liaison and intelligence outfit. At a young age, Saleh had had the weight of responsibility thrust upon his sturdy shoulders, as he led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Massoud had strongly opposed the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. He was assassinated in a suicide bombing by al-Qaeda two days before the September 11 attacks in 2001.

  Saleh had been broken to see someone he admired so much meet such a tragic end. But that only encouraged him to grow even more upright and committed to his cause. Soon enough, after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2004, he was appointed the head of the NDS by President Hamid Karzai. However, a spate of differences that arose during Karzai’s re-election and in the days that followed, led Saleh to quit his position in 2010. Soon, Karzai and Saleh couldn’t stand each other. Saleh was a man reputed to be upright and honest, who loved his country to a fault. He went on to create the strongest pro-democracy and anti-Taliban movement soon after, mobilizing more than 20,000 supporters. Kabir admired few men, but Arifullah Saleh was everything that epitomized nationalism and patriotism. And this appealed to Kabir the most.

  ‘What you’re getting into is certainly not an easy task, Mr Anand. But then, again, that is what men like us are used to.’ He got up swiftly and went over to the large flat-screen television, proceeding to pull out a pen-drive from the breast-pocket of his coat and plug it in. He switched it on and fiddled with the remote a bit, before a large flow-chart appeared on the screen. He then shuffled back to the sofa opposite Kabir and sat down.

  ‘The Quetta Shura is nothing but the Afghan Taliban that has set itself up in Balochistan, Mr Anand. It should not be confused with the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban. You do know what the word talib means, don’t you?’

  ‘Student,’ said Kabir. He felt slightly insulted. But then he realized Saleh wouldn’t be expected to know much about his past either. He must be assuming that this was the first time Kabir was entering Pakistan on a mission and therefore was explaining everything like he would to a newbie. But Kabir respected Saleh too much to interrupt him and nudged him on. Besides, Saleh would definitely have a better read of the situation than the entire machinery within the Indian intelligence.

  ‘Exactly. They both have common traits and common interests at times, but they are separate entities. And, of course, they are primarily funded, directly or indirectly, by those bloodhounds, the ISI.’

  Saleh let the words linger as he poured a cup of coffee for Kabir and a cup of tea for himself.

  He smiled, and answered the question before Kabir asked. ‘You’re a coffee person, I can tell. Your eyes look tired, but your mind and body seem alert.’

  Kabir smiled as he thanked him and took his cup.

  Saleh continued on to the more important topic. ‘As I said earlier, it came as no surprise to me when Mullah Omar made his demands to you. I like to call Omar the one-eyed puppet of the ISI. He dances at their whim, and even though he’d like to project it otherwise, he is no spring chicken. At roughly fifty-seven, his reflexes have died down and he isn’t the capable warrior he once was. He requires constant health care, which the ISI provides.’

  ‘He is their spiritual leader,’ Kabir contributed. ‘Even though he may not be physically able any more, he is highly capable of destruction.’

  ‘Yes,’ Saleh conceded. ‘But his day-to-day activities are overseen by his rumoured brother-in-law and great friend, Mullah Abdul Ghani, popularly known as Mullah Baradar.’

  ‘Mullah Brother.’ Kabir shook his head, and sipped the coffee. Saleh was right. While Mullah Omar was certainly still the figurehead and spiritual leader of the Quetta Shura Taliban, his operational expertise, as it stood now, was limited. Moreover, his relative isolation due to fear of capture and his advanced age made it difficult for him to be actively involved in operational work.

  ‘Baradar and Omar fought side by side against the Soviets,’ Saleh went on, as he took a large gulp of tea. He waited as the warmth spread along his throat and continued, ‘But you cannot discount Mullah Omar. All enemy groups operating in the country have sworn their allegiance, in varying degrees, to him.’

  ‘Amir al-Mu’minin,’ Kabir scoffed.

  Saleh flinched as he heard the words. ‘He is trying to represent a religion as pure as Islam.’ The Sunni Muslim in him overpowered Saleh. His voice rose substantially. ‘Does Islam promote sodomy? Does Islam support child abuse? Does Islam ask its followers to kill each other? Or kill anyone at all? That bastard is misrepresenting an institution that has its very basis in the purity of one’s soul.’

  He waited, his face turned a veritable red from his otherwise distinctly pink Afghan complexion. The rage made his cup tremble in his hand. He kept it down and folded his arms.

  ‘Take a moment,’ Kabir said with a smile. ‘We have fifteen days to get my colleagues back.’

  Saleh let out a slight laugh. Kabir refilled his cup of coffee, and poured Saleh another cup of tea. Despite the air conditioning, beads of sweat had formed on Saleh’s hairline.

  ‘The post-9/11 Taliban, in a nutshell, is largely supported by the Pakistani Army and the ISI,’ Kabir said. ‘And then, of course, there is the booming narcotics trade.’

  ‘Having said that, they gain a large amount of money through taxes on livestock and agriculture as well.’

  Kabir raised an eyebrow. He knew of the money they made through narcotics from regions like Helmand and Kandahar, but taxation on livestock and agriculture was rather new to him.

  ‘Taxation?’

  ‘Yes.’ Saleh smiled disappointedly. He waited a brief while, the smile still on his face. ‘This is the part nobody understands, my friend. The West, especially. The Taliban is still in Afghanistan. It’s just that it doesn’t have Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. The Taliban has its elements inside the government itself. We are a poor Third World country. A country which has been fucked over again and again. First, by the Russians. Then the Americans, too. And then by our own people. And to crown it all, by Pakistan.’

  Kabir began to understand. ‘Is this why you quit? Because Karzai is spineless?’

  ‘Spineless would be an understatement. Don’t even get me started on Karzai,’ he spluttered sardonically. ‘Yes, one of the innumerable reasons I quit is that I didn’t want to be working under the Taliban indirectly. And I didn’t want to be looked upon as a fool for working under a man who faked the existence of ballots, which got him more votes than the turnout itself!’

  Kabir scratched his beard thoughtfully on hearing this sadly amusing piece of news. It was true, the actual voter turnout in some regions like the Pashtun south was around 5 to 10 per cent. But the ballot stuffing done for Karzai at some polling stations, which didn’t even exist as such, recorded more than a 100 per cent turnout!

  ‘So Karzai’s presidency has run its course now,’ Kabir replied. ‘Will you go back?�
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  ‘If Abdullah Abdullah wins, I might. He was a friend of Ahmad Shah Massoud. He believes in fighting fire with fire and won’t hesitate to take action against the Taliban,’ Saleh said. ‘I don’t agree with some of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai’s policies, on the other hand. With Abdullah there’s still a ray of hope for Afghanistan. He might just be the saviour we need. Having said that, Ghani is a smart man, too.’

  Saleh paused. And then as if remembering something important, he spoke again. ‘Karzai had very smartly asked Omar to run for presidency too! He made a public announcement of the same just recently. He made it look as though he’s asking Omar to leave the gun and run Afghanistan peacefully. Omar obviously declined. He wasn’t going to fall for this. He has his aims, both short and long term, in place. And he wants to achieve them violently.’

  ‘What you’re saying is the Taliban initially wanted fragmentation in a government they wanted to overthrow eventually anyway,’ he said.

  Saleh nodded, adding, ‘In many ways, this situation is similar to the Hezbollah in Lebanon. And to top it all, since Mullah Omar and bin Laden had forged forces early on, a government with the Taliban at its helm will mean a government with elements of al-Qaeda itself.’

  Kabir took a while to process this. He let out a deep breath. It had been so long since he had been part of a discussion as heavy as this. He instantly recalled an apt Shakespearean line. Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

  ‘I thought Karzai was anti-Taliban, and that they weren’t too particularly fond of him either,’ Kabir said. ‘But he’s played a smart political game thus far. President Obama had made it clear through his actions that he wanted little to do with Karzai on the personal front, unlike Bush. I believe Bush and Karzai used to chat regularly over videoconferencing.’

  ‘The rest of the world thought Karzai is anti-Taliban too. Till he started his slimy appeasement policies. He tried to keep America happy. He tried to keep India happy. He tried to keep Pakistan happy. And to top it all, he tried to keep the Taliban happy! I don’t know about the others, but he succeeded in keeping the Taliban happy. And since he’s kept them happy, Pakistan seems content. As for me, I’m happy there will be a change soon.’

  Kabir countered, ‘But then there are innocent Pakistanis being killed in the tribal regions, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas! What’s worse is that the Pakistani government encourages it.’

  ‘Yes, but let me explain it this way. The tribal areas are the servants’ quarters of a palace. If a fire breaks out in the servants’ quarters, the rest of the palace will take notice of it for certain, but be thankful that the fire didn’t break out under their asses. The FATA are the servants’ quarters. Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi are the royal quarters of the palace.’

  ‘Hardly, if the palace is a place like Pakistan,’ Kabir said sarcastically.

  A pregnant silence followed. Both men lost in deep thoughts of their own. Kabir had learnt more by looking at the situation from Saleh’s point of view. Saleh, himself, began to reminisce about how his short-lived dream of a perfect Afghanistan had been realized under Ahmad Shah Massoud and then subsequently shattered after his assassination. Their thoughts converged simultaneously to the point that had triggered off this discussion. The four Indian agents held captive in Quetta.

  ‘Now see this,’ Saleh continued, pointing to the TV screen that had had a static image on it for the past half hour.

  Kabir looked at the screen and saw the hierarchy, in the form of a flow chart, of the Quetta Shura that Saleh had produced. It was an image that he had used consistently even during his days at the NDS.

  ‘The Quetta Shura leadership structure has two main bodies . . .’ he began. Kabir completed his sentence for him, ‘The Rahbari Shura and the Majlis-al-Shura. The Rahbari Shura, which translates to “leadership gathering”, is where Omar feeds his ideological spiel from. The latter is based more on the strategy of the Taliban.’

  ‘The Quetta Shura is the intellectual underpinning of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan’ read a caption, as Saleh flipped to the next screen with the remote. It had maps, obtained through drone imagery, tiled up along with photographs.

  ‘This is the Madrasa Fayyaz-ul-Uloom that Mullah Baradar has set up. It’s nothing short of a fortress, but then it does have entry and exit points that are unguarded.’ He then flipped to another image. It was a large compound with high walls, with the hills around it forming natural barriers on three sides. Impossible had just gotten tougher.

  ‘This is where Omar’s training camp, where he operates from, is,’ Saleh said. ‘He resides here as well. If by any chance your compatriots are held captive here, you can forget about rescuing them.’

  Kabir took in a deep breath. There were four of them in all, he recalled. To infiltrate this and get his people out would be a tactical nightmare. In a Hollywood film, the four of them would’ve come out unscathed with their spoils, but in reality, Saleh was right. This was mission impossible.

  Saleh then flipped to another image. Another madrasa. ‘Dar-ul-Islam’, the caption below the picture read. ‘This one is where Omar works his magic with young boys,’ Saleh said, spewing contempt. ‘It is run by the Haqqani Network.’

  The Haqqani Network, which, rather unsurprisingly, has the backing of the ISI and the Pakistani Army, was undoubtedly Afghanistan’s most sophisticated insurgency organization and terror syndicate. Needless to say, it’s now the most dreaded outfit in the world, since the death of Osama bin Laden. The Haqqani Network operates from their safe haven in North Waziristan. It is run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of the famous anti-Soviet fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani. Siraj is more ruthless than his father, and openly supports anti-India operations. Kabir wouldn’t be surprised if the captives were held in this madrasa, since Siraj would openly support and take responsibility for the ISI’s nefarious and extremist anti-India activities.

  ‘Technically, the Haqqani Network falls under the Quetta Shura umbrella,’ Saleh chipped in. ‘But they maintain a distinct command and control.’

  Kabir swallowed. His throat had gone dry. So many elements, all coalescing to disrupt the peace amongst humanity. The coffee was over, even in the pot. Kabir got up to stretch, and walked up to the refrigerator. ‘Can I have a Coke?’

  ‘Of course,’ Saleh said with a chiding smile. ‘Too much caffeine, Mr Anand?’

  Kabir smiled and glugged down a mouthful. He enjoyed the slight bite of the drink in his dry throat.

  ‘The Haqqanis,’ Saleh continued, ‘are the most vicious sons of bitches you’re ever likely to find. The Shura is relatively weaker than them at this stage. And with their momentum building and the Shura’s power diminishing, they may begin to co-opt the Shura.’

  Kabir finished the Coke and crushed the can. Saleh moved to the next slide.

  ‘Should Omar die,’ Kabir said solemnly, ‘the Haqqanis will seize the overall leadership of the Quetta Shura. Omar, all said and done, was ideologically driven—unlike the Haqqanis, who are just power-hungry. Afghanistan will then be left to a terror network at the height of its power.’

  Saleh shut his eyes and nodded. The thought always sent a chill down his spine. The inevitability of it seemed to trouble him even more.

  He pointed at the screen that showed a vast expanse of relatively less hilly terrain. ‘The HQ of the Shura training camp,’ he said simply. He pulled out the pen-drive and tossed it to Kabir.

  ‘This is a relatively new training camp. The previous one was in another large madrasa,’ Kabir said, pocketing the pen-drive.

  ‘Yes, the one the ISI blew up themselves.’

  Kabir was impressed at Saleh’s knowledge on this point. Kabir himself had been at the site when it had happened. It was where he had lost his friend Vikramjit Singh.

  ‘There is a lot more useful information in there.’ Saleh pointed at the pen-drive, indicating that he was done talking for a while. ‘I hope I’ve been of help to you.’

  Kabir thanked him.
They began walking out towards the door.

  ‘I have spoken to my friends at Al Jazeera,’ Saleh said. ‘I hold seminars at Doha often, and they’re well-wishers. Once you’re in Balochistan, your team will have the official cover of being reporters. And remember, the local Balochis tend to be a hostile bunch. There is a lot of infighting. But play your cards right, and they can be of help to you.’

  ‘This means a lot, Mr Saleh.’

  ‘People like you and I are few, Mr Anand. We need to make each one count,’ Saleh replied matter-of-factly.

  ‘I don’t know what Mr Joshi has told you about me, Mr Saleh, but I was in Balochistan myself when India was a part of the Northern Alliance. In many ways, I fought for the same cause as you and Ahmad Shah Massoud. That is one honour I’ll take to my grave.’

  ‘I remember my interactions with Lieutenant General Sadiq Sheikh. He was a good man. I’m told he’s the only reason you’re willing to go to Balochistan.’ Saleh smiled, as he opened the door for Kabir.

  ‘How much did Mr Joshi tell you?’

  ‘Not much,’ he replied. ‘But if there’s anyone who understands your situation, it’s me. For you, the driving force is Sadiq Sheikh. For me, it’s Ahmad Shah Massoud.’

  7

  1 September 2014

  Quetta, Balochistan

  ‘It is very simple, my friends. I will not ask you any questions.’

  Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar’s voice echoed as he entered the dark cell. A blinding white light came on and two of the four prisoners looked up. They had their hands chained to their legs in an awkward position that limited their movement. They blinked hard as they saw an unfamiliar silhouette walk towards them. The other two were reeling between consciousness and unconsciousness.

  The cell where the four prisoners were holed up wasn’t the typical dark dungeon with rats and cockroaches scampering all around the place. On the contrary, it was a surprisingly neat underground structure. It looked well-thought-out, and it was. Mullah Omar had insisted that they model their interrogation techniques on those of the United States, where the surroundings permitted them to. He had enough men who had experienced torture at the hands of the US to tell him what it was like, and he quickly issued orders to his men to construct similar cells in every madrasa and camp he ran in Quetta. Even though they lacked the infrastructure, they came as close to recreating the torturous experiences the US meted out. His directive was simple. We break them the way they break us—except much harder.