[Austin-ghetto-list] Kabul being looted

[Roger Baker]

Hey maybe we won already? This from 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001320012-2001330450,00.html

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 22 2001

Afghanistan
 
Kabul looted as order disintegrates

BY STEPHEN FARRELL

AS THOUSANDS of nervous Afghans flee Kabul and other big towns, reports
have emerged of looting in the capital as law and order begins to break
down. 

Kabul residents have for months complained that armed robbers posing as
members of the Taleban’s religious police, the Ministry for the
Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, have raided their houses
with impunity, carrying off banned television sets and other valuables.
 
Aid agencies also fear that the evacuation of their foreign staff after
last week’s attacks on America will provide the opportunity for the
Taleban to seize their four-wheel drive vehicles and two-way radios left
behind in the rush. Some had already taken precautions in recent weeks,
putting away crucial equipment for safekeeping as relations with the
regime began to deteriorate. 

One Kabul resident said that a home in his suburb was raided by six
armed men on Tuesday. “A car with at least six armed men parked outside
our neighbour’s house, but we thought they were probably relatives,” he
said. “There was a big shout after the robbers’ car disappeared. My
neighbour said they took all their valuables. We could not have helped
them even if we knew that the men were thieves because they were armed.” 
Away from the prying eyes of minders who accompany all foreign
journalists around Afghanistan, Afghans have been sidling up to visitors
in recent months complaining that security has broken down in suburbs of
the capital, with armed men arriving in four-wheel drive vehicles and
making off with possessions. 

Many Afghans are convinced the robbers are themselves Taleban, because
they alone are allowed to carry weapons, and it is unlikely that rival
Mujahidin groups could penetrate so far into the suburbs of the capital
without the omnipresent security services finding out. “We know they are
Taleban. When we go to report them to officials they simply tell us to
find out the names of the suspects so that they can arrest them. That is
their job, but no one is going to argue with them,” one said.
 
One experienced international worker said it was a sign that Taleban
internal discipline had begun breaking down. “In the beginning they
recruited zealots who believed in the cause, but as time went on and
they took casualties in the fight against the Northern Alliance their
need for manpower meant they became less choosy and began taking people
who are essentially no more than gangsters,” he said. 

Another said last night that a senior Taleban figure confided to him
recently: “The Taleban have not become thieves. Thieves have become Taleban.”