http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/tale+Taliban+commanders/5287141/story.html

Mullah Shamsullah sat on the black leather sofa and brought his feet up into a sort of half-lotus position. He looked right at home in the office of Haji Abdul Wahab, deputy director of the National Directorate of Security in Kandahar province.

The mullah sported a brand new light grey salwar kameez, silky and perfectly pressed. He also had a brand new turban with grey highlights. It was a departure from the usual jet-black turbans worn by the Taliban. Joining the peace and reconciliation program seemed to have given Mullah Shamsullah a new fashion sense.

My interpreter and I had spent half a day trying to negotiate the various lines of security into the inner sanctum of the NDS garrison - Mullah Shamsullah's new home.

After months of negotiations with the members of the Peace Council, the mullah had finally decided to come in from the cold - or in this case the blasting heat - to submit to interrogation and then, hopefully, a new, secure and peaceful future.

So far, he said, he was liking it. He had a courtyard garden to walk around in and his wife and four children were with him. Three weeks into his new life and for the first time in years he felt secure, he said.

Mullah Shamsullah is 36 and had been fighting Canadian and American troops for more than six years.

He said he was born a talib - a student of Islam - and so naturally became a Taliban member when they controlled Afghanistan. After their defeat, he returned to his native Sperwan village and his family farm. He had a business selling grapes from a stall. But when the Canadians and Americans bombed and bulldozed his farm and destroyed his business, he said he had no choice but to rejoin the Taliban.

"We see them as destroyers of our country bringing violence and definitely as invaders," he said.

Despite the fact that he is illiterate, he became the military commander for Sperwan, and Panjawyi villages and Zharay district, which is west of Kandahar City.

He said his main job was to direct his 12 teams of fighters, which during the fighting season in summer numbered 120 or more. In the winter, many fighters went home, reducing his ranks by half. Most were Afghans from Kandahar, but some were Pakistanis from the tribal area of Waziristan, he said.

His mode of transportation was a motorcycle. His mode of communication was a wireless radio.

He said villagers didn't like it when the Taliban fought in their areas. "They didn't like us planting IEDs (improvised explosive devices) but they would say nothing because they were afraid," he said.

He said the Taliban has buried a lot of the weapons during its retreat. The IEDs, he said, originally came from Pakistan. But later Pakistani trainers came to Afghanistan and taught him how to make them.

"We blew up many, many Canadian vehicles," he said. "When you tie three jerry cans together filled with explosives, you will not recognize the armoured vehicle (when it is blown up). It is that powerful."

He said that in recent years the Canadian and American troops had grown stronger and the Taliban could no longer confront them in pitched battles.

"Whenever they carried out operations, we were defeated. They are too powerful. That was respectable. We saw their power and we began to order our men to evacuate. When they left, we came back."

He said the International Security Assistance Force's most effective strategy is night raids. "When they locate someone, it is hard to survive," he said, pausing to check a message on his cellphone.

He counted 45 night raids against him personally in the last five years. In the last year, they became more frequent. He said he escaped because his spies gave him warning. Still, he said, he lost everything - his property, his money, all his possessions - because when the soldiers found his hideouts they destroyed everything.

He was constantly on the run.

He said he decided to surrender because he was exhausted, because village elders convinced him his fight was not helping the country and because he believed he could trust the government."I trust that they will protect me, provide shelter and not harm me anymore," he said. "I expect to return to my village when there is peace."

I wondered how he would feel in another six months, which is why I headed off to my second Taliban commander.

Mullah Toor Jan was an entirely different fish.

To locate him, we went through three police checkpoints, but none of them bothered to check our car or our papers or even stop us. We could have been Taliban assassins out to seek revenge on a rogue commander. They didn't seem to care.

We drove over rutted roads, past walls and homes of ancient brown mud and straw that were cracked and crumbling from the dry heat. We passed a burial ground for Soviet tanks. Eventually, we came upon a broad, open field where a scattering of children in ragged clothes played with homemade kites.

At the far end sat a lonely old mud hut under a few tired trees.

There we found the mullah hiding from the sun under a grass canopy. Seven months ago he had left his men to join the peace program because he was exhausted, saw no point in the war, and wanted a new life.

I sat opposite him on a worn red, gold and blue carpet.

The contrast between him and Mullah Shamsullah could not be more striking. He was dressed in brown clothing that had seen better days. His black turban cloth sat in a pile at his side. He smiled pleasantly but, as I soon found out, he was bitter and angry at his treatment, claiming the government has not lived up to its promises.

"This is not a place to live in," he said, gesturing toward the mud hut. "The security is bad. I have no job. I have no money. I have no drinking water. I have to go a long way to get water and I don't know where I'm going to get food for tonight.

"I'm confused what to do. My friends are in prison. I can't return to my village where I have land, a house and an orchard. So what can I do?

"I feel sorrow. I am in a condition where my hands and feet have been bound and I am blind. Now Taliban are trying to kill me and my friends because I know every tactic of Taliban and every district knows me."

He said other Taliban leaders are also exhausted and want to come in, but he is no longer willing to persuade them because the government cannot be trusted.

"I regret joining (the program). What promises they have made they did not fulfill even five per cent."

The mullah had been a major catch for the peace program. He was only 26, but he was literate and had risen to become the Taliban's military governor of Oruzgan province. Previously he had military and civil command in Ghorak, Shahwali Kot, Khakrez and Argandabad, where Canadians had fought in Kandahar province.

Like Mullah Shamsullah, he joined the Taliban, he said, because "the ISAF raided our houses and relatives and that influenced my anger. They were invaders."

He said his uncle and older brother had been mujahedeen fighters against the Soviet invaders, but nobody in his family had ever joined the Taliban before him. "One in the family is enough," he said.

He said the ISAF armies have grown too strong. "I just gave up and left everything behind."

He said the strength of the enemy has become so overwhelming that his only effective weapon was suicide bombers.

He sent nine suicide bombers to their deaths. "It was always their decision," he said. He claimed he never used children, only men 18 years or older.

He said he left behind 100 suicide bombers in Oruzgan when he joined the peace program.

(Late last month, about seven suicide bombers, possibly trained by Mullah Toor Jan, tried to kill the governor of Oruzgan while he met with elders in the provincial capital of Terin Kot. When the car they had loaded with explosives broke down, the bombers convinced 12 children to push it. It exploded, killing all the children, the bombers and at least 11 civilians. "There were casualties on both sides," the mullah shrugged.)

During the interview he kept returning to his unhappiness and "shame" over his treatment, ignoring my questions about the strategy of the Taliban, which he seemed to find pointless.

Finally I asked him how he persuaded a person to become a suicide bomber. He smiled and leaned forward, looking me right in the eye. "If I tried, I could make you a suicide bomber."

I paused to drink that in and then leaned forward and said: "Not a chance."

He gave me that look that says, "You don't understand anything."

I asked him if he would put on his turban for a picture.

That cheered him up. He gathered up the languid, shiny black cloth beside him and with a few dexterous flicks of his wrist fashioned a perfect Taliban warrior's headdress.

wmarsden@montrealgazette.com

Part 2 tomorrow: The Gazette's William Marsden reports that the program designed to persuade Taliban commanders to surrender their arms in return for amnesty and security is in disarray.