Conspiracy Theory Links U.S. With Afghan Militia

In this paradise of conspiracy theory, a country that has been the plaything of great powers for more than a century, a new rumor is making the rounds: The United States is behind the stunning rise of the fundamentalist Taliban.

From the halls of the Foreign Ministry to offices of internationally funded charities, among U.N. officials and the clientele of Kabul’s bazaars, many are sure that the Clinton administration is covertly supporting the Taliban, the victorious Islamic militia.

The reasons people give are many, even if hard proof, so far, is lacking.

The United States, they say, is especially driven by the desire to checkmate Iran, Afghanistan’s neighbor to the west and a country Washington considers one of the world’s leading exporters of terrorism.

Then there is Afghanistan itself, which, in the words of Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel, has been transformed after more than 4 1/2 years of ruinous civil warfare between rival Islamic forces into a “conduit for drugs, crime and terrorism.”

In Washington, though, U.S. officials on Thursday denied that they welcome the Taliban regime as a stabilizing force after years of bloody tribal and factional fighting.

“We’ve seen the Taliban just like we’ve see all the other factions to give them the same message--to negotiate a broad-based government where everyone participates to prevent disintegration of the country, to control the drug trade, to close the terrorist camps and to get on with reconstruction,” a ranking official said.

“We’re not choosing,” the official added. “These people walked into Kabul, and they are no more or less legitimate than those sitting there last week.”

The Talibs claim to oppose the drug trade that has made Afghanistan one of the leading suppliers of opium poppies, raw material for heroin reaching the West.

And a Taliban official, Shirmohammed Stanekzai, gave public assurances this week that under the Islamic militia’s rule, this country will no longer serve as a training ground or haven for foreign extremists.

“As the Islamic movement of Taliban, we don’t want to interfere in others’ affairs,” Stanekzai said. “We don’t want to send people to create problems in other countries.”

If foreign terrorists fall into the Taliban’s hands, he said, “we will punish them hard.”

Such words--uttered at a news conference for the foreign media, which have flocked to Kabul since the Taliban captured this capital last Friday--will be sweet music for officials in Washington. Combating terrorism and the global trade in narcotics are leading items on the U.S. foreign policy agenda.

The current conspiracy theories are understandable, even plausible, given the great mystery that still shrouds the Taliban’s rise and rapid advance.

How did a ragtag force that emerged in late 1994 among Muslim religious students in the southern region of Kandahar and adjacent areas of Pakistan grow so quickly that two years later, it has become master of three-quarters of Afghanistan?

Who paid for its weaponry, ammunition and vehicles? Who organized its training and logistics? Is intelligence or military assistance received from outside one of the reasons the Taliban has enjoyed astonishing, and relatively bloodless, successes over experienced moujahedeen commanders who, for nearly a decade, fought occupying Soviet troops?

Generous support for the Taliban from Pakistan, which wants to pacify its war-racked neighbor for its own strategic and economic motives, has been well documented.

But is Pakistan’s powerful ally, the United States, also involved in some way? Many in Kabul believe so, though again, their proof is circumstantial.

“I have heard this for the past year,” a ranking U.N. official in Kabul said. “I have no reason to believe the United States is not involved in some way, through Pakistan. The U.S. wants law and order in Afghanistan, and the Taliban now seem like the best bet.”

Although it could seem fantastic that the United States would support a band of avowed Islamic fundamentalists who have closed schools for girls, barred female office staff in Kabul from working--at least temporarily--and flogged women who venture into the street without being completely covered, many Afghans believe it is so.

“There are two different things--American state interests and human rights,” the local director of a foreign-funded charity said. “For the politicians running America, human rights take second place.”

In the 1980s, the director noted, the United States was ready to spend vast sums to train and outfit Muslim moujahedeen, including die-hard fundamentalists such as guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, because of the larger Cold War aim of bleeding and humiliating the Soviet Union.

The United States has moved swiftly to establish official contact with the new masters of the Afghan capital.

The very day Kabul fell, a senior Clinton administration official said an envoy would probably be sent here in the near future to consult with officials of the new government formed by the Taliban.

John Holzman, the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, had been expected to fly in Thursday morning at the head of a six-member delegation, Afghan government officials said. That trip was postponed but could happen as early as next week.

A high-ranking Afghan Foreign Ministry official said three items are on the agenda for the U.S.-Taliban talks: drugs, terrorism and human rights.

U.S. officials say they hope to persuade the Taliban to establish a broad-based alliance with rival Afghan factions as well as temper their decrees on human rights.

The United States has not had an ambassador in Kabul since 1979, when Adolph Dubs was murdered.

In 1989, the year of the pullout of Soviet forces, the U.S. Embassy was closed down, and successive American governments have considered Kabul too dangerous a place to post diplomats on a permanent basis.

To those numerous Afghans who see an American hand in the Taliban’s triumph, the relative speed with which the United States is now seeking to establish official contact with them is offered as further proof of collusion.

“How can your country want to deal with people who whip women for not conforming to their dress code?” asked a Kabul University graduate who works as a translator.

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.