Journalist Sebastian Junger

DATE March 7, 2001 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Thomas Gouttierre discusses his experiences living in
Afghanistan and how he believes the current conflict will end
BARBARA BOGAEV, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev, in for Terry Gross.

Last week, officials of the Taliban, the ruling government of Afghanistan,
issued a decree to demolish all pre-Islamic statues that represent the human
form. The Taliban reportedly began destroying ancient, sacred art last
Friday. Among their targets were two immense statues of Buddha, carved into
the side of a sandstone cliff some 1,400 years ago in Bamian.

Protest has rained down on the Taliban in the past week from all sides,
including from other Islamic nations. I spoke yesterday with Thomas
Gouttierre about the complicated political situation in Afghanistan.
Gouttierre is the director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the
University of Nebraska in Omaha. He lived in Afghanistan from 1964 to 1974,
and has been back many times to do research for his center and for the United
Nations. He's visited the Buddhist statues at Bamian many times.

Mr. THOMAS GOUTTIERRE (Director, Center for Afghanistan Studies): Well,
actually, I've always considered two places my favorite places in the whole
world. One, Tiger Stadium--my favorite baseball team used to play there--and
Bamian in Afghanistan. And in Bamian in Afghanistan, there was this
incredibly beautiful, pristine valley at around 9,000 feet. And here was a
fertile valley with a stream running through the whole expanse of it, and on
either side, major bluffs that were really eroded into cliffs. And into the
cliffs on the northern side of the valley were carved these Buddhas.

I used to love to sit on the bluffs above--you know, on the southern side of
the valley, and just look across this incredible valley where people are
working down below, farming, you know, harvesting, running through the town.
And maybe about, oh, four or five football fields' length away from where I
was sitting was where these Buddhas were located. So there was this
incredibly, you know, beautiful work of art across the way, and then there was
man down below, you know, living and working and going about his lifestyle,
much in the same way that man was going about working in his lifestyle during
the period when these Buddhas were constructed.

In the face of this cliff, which these two Buddhas, these very large statues,
were flanking, were a series--people have described as some five
kilometers--of caves that were very ornate, very deeply carved into the
sandstone cliffs that were kind of gathering halls, eating halls, dormitories
for the Buddhist monks and others who would be staying at this particular
religious site, or a monastery perhaps. But for me it was always my favorite
place 'cause I had spent 10 years in Afghanistan. And it was a spot of
uncommon calm and charm and beauty.

BOGAEV: I believe this site has already been compromised by war. Resistance
guerrilla fighters have been headquartered in these caves in Bamian, and there
are--there is a rumor that the statues themselves were used, at one point, for
target practice.

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Well, I've heard that, too, but I can tell you that I was
there as late as 1999, and none of that had occurred. And I was very pleased
to see that because there had been a lot of fighting in that valley, and it
was, you know, of great concern. Because these really are Afghanistan's
greatest treasure. These are the things that people would travel, you know,
thousands of miles from around the other side of the world to come to visit
because they are so spectacular.

They were layered with terra-cotta, which was, you know, at least 15 centuries
old. And they were--also, within the niche in which they were carved, there
were terra-cotta types of frescoes, the colors of which were still there
because it--and unlike the Sistine Chapel, they hadn't had any, you know,
reconstructive painting or anything. And it was just remarkable that all of
this was there yet to see.

BOGAEV: Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban supreme leader, is the main thrust
behind the campaign against the statues. What is his justification for the
destruction of the art?

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Well, of course, there can be no real justification. But his
justification is--he believes it is--is that all forms of humans should be
destroyed because that--it's improper for Muslims to represent the human form.
And this comes out of a decision that the prophet Mohammad and his followers
observed after the beginnings of Islam, in which idols of the kind of--oh, one
would call them the animistic religions around Mecca and Medina--were
destroyed by them. But they never did declare or suggest that works of art,
or things of that nature, should be included in that particular type of thing.

And through the centuries, Muslims have always exhibited a level of tolerance
in terms of preserving the art forms of other cultures over which they may
have gained sway. And it is, you know, very hard to understand from whence
Mullah Omar gains his extreme interpretation.

BOGAEV: In news reports, a number of Taliban officials have expressed dismay
and disagreement with the Mullah's decree to destroy the statuary. How strong
is his support even among the Taliban rank and file?

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Well, his support, particularly when he came into power in
the mid-'90s, was quite high because Afghanistan had just gone through a
period of nearly 20 years of war. Now it's a period that goes beyond 20 years
when you consider the coup that brought in the pro-Soviet government and then
the Soviet invasion and then the Soviet-Afghan war, which ended in 1989, and
then, thereafter, the kind of civil war that was going on in Afghanistan after
the fall of the pro-Soviet government. The Mujahadeen, who had been waging
war against the Soviet Union, fell amongst themselves to fighting in a kind of
warlord situation. And Mullah Omar kind of rose up as a vigilante character,
almost a Robin Hood character, in the Kandahar area in defense of the rights
of individuals who were having their rights violated by this very unfortunate,
anarchic period, which was going on in Afghanistan. But initially....

BOGAEV: So he was seen as a savior? Did you...

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: As a kind of savior, initially. And I think one of the
reasons why the Taliban were so successful moving from community to community
to gain, you know, the support of individuals without having even to fight,
was that people were so tired of the war, so tired of the corruption, so tired
of the rape and the pillaging that was going on between the rival groups, the
rival warlords, that they saw this Taliban movement--which kind of sprang up
from almost nowhere--as a source of, you know, emancipation.

And what, you know, most people are not aware of is that this group started
out kind of small, but then it grew very rapidly, and it grew rapidly with the
support of the Pakistanis, particularly the Pakistani military. And I think
what's happened is that since this time, Mullah Omar and his compatriots have
been unable to deliver the kinds of things that almost any citizen would
expect of a nation-state in terms of social services, public works and,
generally, a style of life in which they are not daily intimidated by some
religious whim or another. And so his popularity now, I think, is at an
all-time low within the country. But he still has a very substantial
praetorian guard of Pakistanis, Osama bin Laden and others who are with him
that helps to keep him in power.

BOGAEV: There is speculation that the push to destroy Afghanistan's
pre-Islamic heritage is in reaction to the United Nations sanctions imposed on
Afghanistan in January for not surrendering the Saudi militant leader Osama
bin Laden. What do you make of that theory?

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: I don't agree with it. This is an idea that has been
advanced by the Pakistanis, first, and it hasn't yet come out from either the
Taliban or other Afghans. I think that it helps to serve, again, the basic
foreign policy objective that the Pakistanis have in Afghanistan, so they can
blame these kinds of actions as a reaction against, you know, some type of
Western actions. And, in fact, what we have here is a situation which the
Pakistanis themselves are responsible for. In other words, they are, in many
ways, the creation of this particular type of--what has become a monster, in a
sense in terms of what the people of Afghanistan need.

And Mullah Omar has, I think, become kind of obsessed with his own particular
belief of him possessing some type of divine right or direct line of
communication with God. And I think with that kind of, you know, obsession,
he has started to lash out and do these kinds of things.

BOGAEV: I'm speaking with Thomas Gouttierre. He's the dean of international
studies and programs at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and director of
the Center for Afghanistan Studies there.

We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: If you're just joining us, my guest is Thomas Gouttierre. He was in
the Peace Corps in Afghanistan in the mid-'60s and '70s. He also headed the
Fulbright Foundation there. Now he directs the Center for Afghanistan Studies
at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

I'd like you to talk about the role of the United States in Afghanistan. I
think the United States funneled arms, millions of dollars of arms, and
training for soldiers during the war against the Soviets. And critics of US
foreign policy in Afghanistan argue that after the Soviets pulled out of the
nation, the US basically dropped out, also; leaving the country armed to the
teeth, full of landmines, CIA-trained terrorists and a civilian population
devastated by the war and by famine, and that that policy helped lead to the
ascent of the Taliban.

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Well, I'm one of those critics. I think that the United
States really has a moral obligation to help the Afghan people. They did
fight what many consider to be the last battle of the Cold War. They
encountered tremendous suffering. Many, many, many Afghans were killed. The
estimates usually, you know, focus around about a million and a half people
killed, but some estimates are even higher. And then there were other untold
millions who spent their lives living as refugees in either Iran or Pakistan
or in other countries.

And after the fall of the Soviet Union and, subsequently, the collapse of the
pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan, the United States really did not assume
the type of profile that was needed to encourage the more moderate,
traditional elements within Afghanistan as it needed to embark on its
reconstruction. I think in a situation like this, where you needed a Marshall
Plan style of reconstruction--Afghanistan today looks like Dresden after the
Second World War. In a situation like that, the United States kind of dropped
back. It didn't come forward.

And so all of the traditional, moderate and historically rich elements of
Afghanistan, upon which a reconstruction should have been built or based, had
no real allies. And the more extremist Islamist forms within Afghanistan,
groups within Afghanistan, had the support within this vacuum of the extremist
elements in Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. And that's what has proceeded from
our kind of exit of the area.

BOGAEV: You lived in Afghanistan from '64 to '74...

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Mm-hmm.

BOGAEV: ...where you worked--first, you worked in the Peace Corps. Later,
you worked for the Fulbright Foundation. What was it like living there then?

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Well, here I was, a young fellow from Maumee, Ohio, who had
never flown in an airplane or seen any foreign country until I flew to
Afghanistan. So I can tell you that the first day or two was quite a dramatic
change from anything that I had ever seen. And I found an exceedingly
hospitable people, very proud people, and a country so rich in history; people
like, you know, Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, Tamerlane, the Moguls, you
know. All of these famous waves of humanity that swept through Asia, you
know, all went through Afghanistan, leaving incredible riches in art and
traditions in history and great food and a place that one kind of would dream
of visiting, you know. And understand that the Afghans were not a rich
people. The king of Afghanistan, you know, did not live high off the hog, and
neither did any of the other really major elites compared to the way we live
in the West or in Europe, or whatever. But they had a rich life.

In fact, I took Bill Bradley when he was still an NBA basketball player.
After he and the Knicks won the championship in 1970, I took him to Bamian,
because he wanted to visit Afghanistan, and a part of Afghanistan that
reflected his favorite story of all time, "The Man Who Would Be King." Like,
I used to coach the Afghan national basketball team, and I also coached the
Afghan women's basketball team. And I would get invited, you know, into
people's homes to have tea. And so there was a really, I think, wonderful,
social ambience in the urban settings. In the rural areas, life went on
essentially as it had, but there was an egalitarianism in Afghan society which
now is missing under the Taliban.

BOGAEV: How did basketball come to be such a big sport in Afghanistan?

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Well, I'll tell you, I don't know, but it really was a break
for me. I was never a great basketball player, but I loved coaching
basketball. And I had done some of that in the United States before I went as
a Peace Corps volunteer. And while I was teaching it as a Peace
Corps volunteer--teaching English, as many of us did--a group of students came
up my second day in country, actually, and said, `Now we understand you coach
basketball.' Where they heard that I don't know. `We need a coach for our
team, and please help us out.'

So I started to coach the team Habibia Lisae(ph), where I was an English
teacher, and my teams did very well. As a result, I was asked then to coach
the Afghan national basketball team, which I did for the next 10 years. And
the Afghans were great athletes--they are great athletes. They're
tremendous--you know, their capacity to run at a high altitude is fantastic
because we were living at 6,000 feet. And they could, you know, learn the
jump shot. I even had Bill Bradley teaching them a jump shot when he came to
Afghanistan in 1970. Also, you know, how to do the moving hook.

And so it was a fantastic opportunity for me to get to meet a lot of young
people, to learn things about Afghanistan's culture, to learn a vocabulary
that I might not have learned otherwise. And it was--you know, I think the
competitive spirit of the Afghans ensured the success of a basketball program.
And friends of mine in the Peace Corps and I--we set up leagues in Kabul. We
did a similar thing in Herat and in Kandahar by going and setting up clinics.
And basketball started to become the most popular kind of sport in
Afghanistan. Not the most played. Soccer would be that, of course. But it
had high attendance because it was the type of thing that everybody could
watch. Girls could come and watch it as well as the boys. And boys started
to come to watch girls' basketball games. It was just a dynamic, athletic,
you know, environment.

BOGAEV: Do you see an end to the war, and what role would the US play in
that?

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: I don't, unfortunately. I wish. I'm known as a kind of
incurably optimistic person. But I don't see this coming to an end now. If,
for example, the Talibs were to gain control over the remaining parts of
Afghanistan, controlled now by Ahmed Shah Masood, I would still think that the
war would continue on in some type of guerrilla form. I think it's also
possible if that happened that within the Taliban movement there might become
a splintering that would, perhaps, project a continuing fighting there.

I don't see anything really moving towards resolution right now. Everything
that is being done by any influential, international group is being done to
promote the extension and the success of the war. And the real input is being
made by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and, to some degree, Iran and Russia into
providing weapons to either sides. And there's nothing, really, ongoing at
this moment to promote the resolution of this war in a peaceful way, to
promote any type of confidence building, which, you know, is so sorely needed
now.

The Afghans had a social fabric that, you know, was constructed over
centuries. Those types of social fabrics in multiethnic nations are very,
very fragile. That fabric has been ripped apart, and to reconstruct it--to
tie it, sew it back together is a monumental task that, you know, nobody has
begun and it will takes decades and decades. And so my, you know, read of
this is not very optimistic, Barbara.

BOGAEV: Thomas Gouttierre, thank you very much for joining us today on FRESH
AIR.

Mr. GOUTTIERRE: Nice to have been with you.

BOGAEV: Thomas Gouttierre is the director of the Center for Afghanistan
Studies at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

I'm Barbara Bogaev, and this FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BOGAEV: This is NPR, National Public Radio.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: Coming up, the guerrilla war against the Taliban. Journalist
Sebastian Junger traveled to Afghanistan to profile the legendary resistance
leader General Ahmed Shah Masood, who also led the fight against the Soviets.

(Soundbite of music)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Sebastian Junger talks about his experiences as an
Afghani general's shadow
BARBARA BOGAEV, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Barbara Bogaev.

Since the Taliban rose to power in 1994, a resistance movement known as the
Northern Alliance has pursued a guerrilla war in pockets throughout
Afghanistan. It now controls a small territory in the northeast mountains.
Their leader is General Ahmad Shah Masood, a near legendary figure in the
nation, credited with driving out the Soviets in the 1980s. Masood is an
educated warrior. He went to an elite French school in Kabul and received
special military training in Pakistan, where many Afghans were groomed to
counter the then-looming Soviet invasion. For five weeks this past November
and December, my guest, Sebastian Junger, shadowed Masood as he commanded his
troops in attacks on Taliban forces. Junger was accompanied by photographer
Reza Deghati. "Into the Forbidden Zone," a "National Geographic Explorer"
documentary about their journey, airs on CNBC this Friday and Saturday.
Junger's article about General Masood appears in the current issue of National
Geographic Adventure magazine. I asked Junger if Masood, in person, lived up
to his mythic reputation.

Mr. SEBASTIAN JUNGER (Journalist): I mean, it's a little bit like meeting
Che Guevara. You know, part of you thinks, `Oh, I can't wait to meet him.
Here's this hero, you know, this military hero, this guerrilla genius.' He
really is a very, very impressive man. What I liked about him was--I mean, he
really is a strategic genius. I mean, he--the Afghans were completely
outnumbered by the Soviets, completely outgunned. With 3,000 men, Masood kept
the Soviets out of the Panjshir Valley, which was sort of his homeland in the
center of Afghanistan. They attacked it nine times, I think, with artillery
and tanks and air force and 15,000 soldiers. With 3,000 men, he kept them
out. That's very impressive, but it doesn't mean he's necessarily a
particularly nice person.

And what I really loved about him, just was his very evident humanity.
He--there's a lot of talk, of course, of the living conditions in the Taliban
areas. You know, adulterers are stoned to death; women have to wear veils;
they can't leave the home without a male relative; very, very harsh Islamic
laws. There was none of that in evidence in Masood's territory. And women
worked; they didn't wear veils, if they didn't want to. For a traditional
Muslim society, it was very, very open. And, you know, in the evening he'd
read poetry. You know, he just had a very sweet, sort of gentle side to him,
which you don't very often see in a man who has fought for 20 years and who is
that strong and tough as a person. It's a very rare combination.

BOGAEV: Can you give us an idea of how he is in action, conducting his
guerrilla war? You sat in on some of his strategy sessions with commanders in
a bunker. Apparently he works for 36 hours straight when he needs to.

Mr. JUNGER: Oh, he's worth--I mean, he can sort of outlast everybody, as far
as I could tell. I mean, I had the feeling his commanders, by 3 in the
morning, were just begging him, you know, `Please let us go to sleep.' He sat
there with his commanders in a bunker--it was usually at night when they would
launch the offensives, the attacks. And he'd be there under a kerosene
lantern. You'd have to imagine the scene: you're under a kerosene lantern in
this bunker and you could hear the artillery going off around us. And he'd
have an old Soviet map of the area and a little plastic protractor like, you
know, a high school student might use. And he's just studying the map and
calculating angles and measuring distances and then, you know, continually on
and off the radio to his commanders in the field who are leading these attacks
on the ground, you know, in the night, you know, attacking these Taliban
positions. And you go outside the bunker and you just see this incredible
light show. They were attacking their bridge lines a couple of miles away.
And you could see it very clearly. Just this incredible, weird, sort of eerie
flashes of light and distant booms and thuds and all kinds of strange noises
that battles make--that war makes.

And at another time, he wanted to really check out the ground that his men
were going to attack over because he was afraid that they would attack in the
wrong place and, you know, get mowed down as they were trying to charge these
trenches. So we went with him into no man's land. We jumped into these Jeeps
and we just went tearing off into no man's land. And he went to the very,
very forward positions, incredibly dangerous place. He was just a few hundred
yards away from the Taliban positions to check out every boulder, I mean,
every little dip in the road. I mean, every foot of the terrain because,
basically, he didn't want his men to get killed needlessly. He was spotted up
there and a Taliban sniper shot at him and the bullet hit between his--almost
hit one commander and came to a stop in the dirt between his feet. You know,
this is--I mean, imagine General Schwarzkopf being in a position during the
Gulf War to be killed by a sniper's bullet. It just would never happen. And
I was tremendously impressed by that.

BOGAEV: You observed Masood organizing an offensive to cut off a Taliban
supply road. And once this offensive began, Masood was in communication with
his forces on the radio and you could hear those broadcasts. How did it go?
Was the offensive an orderly progression or chaos?

Mr. JUNGER: You know, I don't think there's ever been an orderly offensive
ever. You know, war is a very chaotic thing. His orders were not followed
exactly. His commanders were not up on the front line with the men when they
attacked. And as a result, they went through an area that they shouldn't have
and they went through a mine field and took a lot of casualties. And we saw
the results of that. Immediately afterwards we were in a field hospital when
these guys were brought back. You know, the fighting was just a mile away and
they were brought back at night in a flatbed truck. And it was really one of
the most horrifying things, you know, I've ever seen.

But there were several offenses that we saw and the first couple of ones,
particularity, you hear the calls come in from the commanders in the field,
just these panicked--I mean, it's in Persian so, you know, I can't repeat it.
I didn't understand it. It was translated to me. But, you know, begging for,
you know--`We need more ammunition. We need more ammunition.' Or, `Stop
your,' your know, `artillery fire, we've taken these Taliban positions and now
you're shooting at us. You know, you've got to change the elevations of your
guns.' And, you know, just frantic--sort of frantic calling back and forth.

Not as frantic as the Taliban, who were being defeated, who were loosing their
positions and retreating. And the panic in their voices was incredible. They
were screaming back and forth to each other just in real terror as their
positions crumbled and, you know, we were in a bunker and it was all happening
through these radios and you could hear it in their voices. You know, it was
all falling apart and they didn't know what to do. Very, very powerful scene.

BOGAEV: You also describe how Masood and his forces would take captured tanks
and helicopters from the Taliban and kind of recycle them. They'd repaint
them and parade them as new arms, make it look as though they're being
supplied with help from another country. It seems he has a brilliant PR mind.

Mr. JUNGER: Yes, in the expression, he sort of thinks out of the box. You
know, they're always salvaging bits and pieces of tanks. I mean, they can
build a tank out of anything. I mean, I saw some of the tanks that they were
going to repair and they're just these rusting hulks. You know, you would
have no idea what to do with them and he would put his mechanics to work and
they would fix these things up. During the Soviet times, they shot down a
Russian helicopter and some guy--it was just sitting there in a field--some
guy put wheels on it, put a truck transmission in it and turned it into a bus
and drove it around as a passenger bus around the Panjshir Valley. So,
basically, these Afghans can repair anything and they can make anything. The
electricity in that area all comes from water wheels, homemade water wheels
that they hook to gear--you know, truck transmissions into generators, all
homemade.

You know, one thing that really impressed me, there was a tank that was wedged
between some houses and they couldn't get it out. The engine had died, they
couldn't get it going. They couldn't get another tank in there to drag it out
and it was basically sitting there stuck. No one could figure out how to get
this thing out. When they told Masood about this, he said, `Well, buy the
houses from whoever lives there, destroy the houses and there's your tank,'
and no one had thought--you know, these houses are made of mud and no one had
thought of it. He paints these tanks new and purposely shows them in places
where the Taliban can see them so the Taliban will think, `Oh, my God, he's
just gotten a new shipment of tanks from the Russians.' You know, half of
it's a mind game.

BOGAEV: Sebastian Junger's profile of Afghan guerrilla leader Shah Ahmad
Masood appears in the current issue of National Geographic's Adventure
magazine. We'll talk more after the break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: My guest is journalist Sebastian Junger. He spent five week tracking
the Afghan resistance leader General Masood. His journey is the subject of a
"National Geographic Explorer" documentary on CNBC.

It's very small. It's described as only about 5 percent of Afghanistan. What
is his objective in the war? Is it not to win but to continue not to lose
long enough that he outlasts the Taliban?

Mr. JUNGER: Yeah, I mean, I should say that I'm not sure why it's always
reported as 5 percent. I mean, you know, we were there, we traveled--we were
on a lot of the front lines, and it really is closer to, I would say, about 20
percent in the northeast. If you draw it out on a map, it's quite a large
part of Afghanistan. This war would not be happening if the Taliban did not
have massive support from Pakistan. And not only support but direct
involvement. I mean, we interviewed Pakistani prisoners of war in Masood's
prison camps, Pakistani soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, tank battalions,
commandos--not indirect, direct involvement in the fighting. And I think,
eventually--you know, Pakistan is a poor country with a lot of problems. I
think they thought the war would be over. That Masood, who's outnumbered,
would have been dislodged from his enclave, you know, years ago. And I think,
eventually, they're going to have to make a choice, do they continue pouring
their resources, their men, their tanks, their generals into this fight that
is unwinnable? Or do they pull out their support? If they do that, I don't
think the Taliban would have a chance of defeating Masood. And I think they
would have to negotiate for some kind of coalition government.

Yeah, so that's the long answer. Yes, he's trying to outlast them. He's
trying to outlast Pakistan's resources. And there's a tremendous amount of
civil unrest under the Taliban regime. There are already uprisings and
resurrections that they have had to put down with soldiers. I think,
eventually, it's going to crack, and he's trying to last long enough to let
that happen, and I think it will. This summer, I think, should be a very,
very critical time over there.

BOGAEV: Did you talk with Masood about the support he's receiving, both
within the country, and internationally?

Mr. JUNGER: Yes, I did. And also with his foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah,
who is there as well. Internationally, he is supported by Russia--which, as I
said, is ironic since he fought them for 10 years. But I think they are so
worried about having the Taliban on their borders that they, you know, are
choosing to support someone who had been their enemy for 10 years. And Iran,
also, is supporting and sending in weapons to Masood. And India. On the
Taliban side, it is mainly Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates.

Although, I should say that in this prisoner of war camp, there were prisoners
from all over the Islamic world, from the Philippines, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia
and Algeria, even Chechnya. It has been sort of described by the Taliban as a
Jihad, you know, a fundamentalist Islamic movement, a fundamentalist fight to
spread true Islam throughout central Asia. And, of course, there is differing
opinions on what exactly true Islam is. A lot of people believe that the
Taliban do not--are not particularly practicing true Islam, just a very
extreme version of it.

BOGAEV: Could you help us understand why Iran would be supporting Masood and
his resistance forces? It seems more likely that they would support the
Taliban.

Mr. JUNGER: The--you--well, they--yeah, I mean, it's--I think, for
Westerners, it's very difficult to understand all the politics and the, sort
of, religious issues over there. Iran and the Taliban are at odds for several
reasons. One is that Afghanistan exports 70 percent of the world's opium.
Most of it, or a lot of it, goes out across the border, into Iran, and there's
a real low-level war going on between Afghan drug runners and Iranian border
patrol. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of people killed in--it's basically a
war. It's not even drug interdiction. It's basically a desert war. Just as
a side note, Iran really feels quite underappreciated by the world for trying
to stem this flow of drugs, and it is costing them a huge amount.

There are also--there's a major division in Islam of Shia and Sunni and the
Taliban in Iran, Persia, fall on separate sides of that division. And,
frankly, I think the rivalry between Iran and Pakistan also plays a part. You
know, Pakistan is supporting the Taliban, which leaves Iran on the other side
of the fence. I think a lot of things go into it.

BOGAEV: Does Masood have aspirations beyond fighting in politics?

Mr. JUNGER: No, as far as I can tell, he keeps insisting that he is--I mean,
he's been offered political positions over and over. His friends have said,
`Listen, you're the perfect leader for Afghanistan. You're more than just a
general.' His--and he has had some sort of figurehead positions. But he has
involved himself very, very little in the actual politics. And if you can
take him at his word, what he says is, `I want to win this war, I want to
bring peace to Afghanistan. It's been 20 years now. I want to retire and
read my books. I've got, you know, four children who I never get to see.'
They live in Dushanbic Tajikistan. `I want to bring them into the Panjshir
Valley. I want to finish building my home there. I'm 50 years old and I'm
exhausted.' And, frankly, I don't really think he wants to continue pouring
his life into Afghanistan. He says he wants to teach a little bit. I think
he feels he's served his country well enough and he wants this phase to be
over.

BOGAEV: Masood and his forces, though, have been cited in human rights watch
reports for committing war crimes, for perpetrating at least one massacre
during the time between the Soviet war and the rise of the Taliban.

Mr. JUNGER: Yeah, I mean, the Northern Alliance--the opposition to the
Taliban are called the Northern Alliance. And it's a very spotty collection
of commanders. I mean, some of them actually fought for the Soviets and
fought Masood because they were in league with the Soviets. And now Masood is
sort of forced to be partners with them against the Taliban. So it's a very,
sort of, at times, unsavory alliance. And one of the worst atrocities
happened at Masar-i-Sharif under a different commander. Masood really had
nothing to do with it. But, of course, they're all part of the same group
and, you know, he's not--he's basically in bed with some very unsavory people.

The one time, that it was--that I know of that--where atrocities were
committed by men directly under his command was the killing of several hundred
ethnic Hazaras in a neighborhood of Kabul. And Masood is Tajik and Hazaras
and the Tajiks have never gotten along very well. Just watching Masood's
treatment of prisoners and of civilians, for that matter, I find it very hard
to believe that he would have--that he knew about this massacre. I mean, it's
not just consistent with what I've seen of him in his territory, but it was
his men. So I never asked him about it but that's my understanding of the
situation.

BOGAEV: Sebastian Junger's profile of General Masood appears in the current
edition of National Geographic's Adventure magazine. More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BOGAEV: Sebastian Junger is my guest. For a period of about five weeks he
shadowed the guerrilla military commander General Ahmad Shah Masood, leading
the resistance forces against the Taliban in Afghanistan last November and
December.

When you traveled to the front lines of the fighting between the Taliban and
the guerrilla forces, you had to cross a kind of no man's land. Could you
describe that territory for us?

Mr. JUNGER: Yes, it was--we were in no man's land a couple of times, once
with Masood and once on our own. We--the more dramatic of the two times, we
had to cross--we went up front line towards the south to a little town whose
name translated in Persian to `tulip-filled,' was the name of the town, very
lovely name. And we went down to the river. It was the Kokcha River,
went--goes through a very narrow gorge there, and we crossed on a raft
that--it's a design that must be 1,000 years old. It's whole cow skins sewn
together into these sort of balloons and inflated with air and then stoppered
with a wood plug and tied to a wood frame and paddled across by these old
Afghan guys. Just an extraordinary thing. And we crossed over and we loaded
up the TV gear on some horses and walked for hours out across the desert, up
into these sort of rolling hills--just stark, barren, barren land--up to the
front line.

Just as we got there--I don't know if the Taliban spotted us approaching or if
this point of the front line was slated for an attack. I don't quite know
what happened. It was a position that had just been taken from the Taliban
two days earlier. Some of the guns were actually still pointing in the wrong
direction, pointing towards Masood's forces. They hadn't turned them around
yet. Right as we got up there, a rocket barrage started. And very, very,
frightening. I'd never been caught in a barrage like that. Very, very
frightening experience.

We were crouched in these trenches while we--the hilltop just got peppered
with these Russian-made rockets that the Taliban were shooting at us. And
what made it worse is that we knew they were coming. The commander on the
hilltop had a spotter on another hilltop who could see the Taliban position.
And they'd fire these things off in groups of three, and the spotter would
radio our hilltop, saying, `OK, they're coming.' We had 10 seconds. That's
how long it took for the rockets to hit. And the commander would shout, `OK,
everyone down.' Everyone would just disappear into their rabbit holes, and
you'd be sitting there waiting. You know, `One, two, three.' You started
counting the seconds in your mind. And then you'd just hear these things come
screaming in and hit the hilltop. And we sort of suffered through that for
about 45 minutes.

And then the commander found out that the Taliban were going to attack on the
ground, and he didn't know if he could hold that position, and he didn't want
to stay there to find out. And so we had to run. You know, in a trench,
you're really quite safe. How ever scary it is to get shelled, you're quite
safe. You're not safe if you're aboveground, running, and--which is what we
had to do to get out of there. And, you know, we--one of the horses was
killed but we all made it out OK.

BOGAEV: How much do you know about this kind of artillery? Was it going
through your mind, `If a bomb landed a few yards from me,' this is what would
happen? Or a few feet?

Mr. JUNGER: I don't know that much about artillery except that it's awfully
loud. You know? And, I mean, I knew that if you're flat on the ground or in
a trench and it hits above you, you're pretty much safe. I mean, it sort of
sprays outwards. And if you're really down in the dirt, it's quite hard to
get hit. But the hilltop was really getting peppered. And I just thought,
`God, if we're stuck here long enough, eventually these things are going to
start dropping in our foxholes.' Just by--you know, just statistically,
eventually they're going to start doing that. And the terrifying thing is
that you don't know, as when you hear these things screaming towards you, if
it does hit you, if it does drop into your little hole, you'll never know it.
I mean, you'll just cease to exist.

And that idea that I could somehow just stop existing and never, never know I
was even killed, that was just tormenting to me. It really was this weird
sort of existentialist experiment. You know, it's like, well, if I'm still
thinking three seconds from now, I'll still be alive, and if I'm not, I won't
know it. It's an awful thing. You really don't want to contemplate it for
too long.

BOGAEV: So when you're scared that badly, does the fear take a distinct form?
Are you not able to breathe?

Mr. JUNGER: Let's see, it--where--how do you experience the fear? It's sort
of--it's in your stomach. It's in your stomach. You get a--you get a very
selfish--you get into a very selfish state of mind. And, you know, where--the
kind of state of--there's no heroics, you know. And if there's someone lying
on top of you in a foxhole, your thought is, `Good, because if a shell lands
near us, he'll get killed, I won't.' It's a very embarrassing thing to think.
I mean, later, you're--you know, I was quite--you could feel quite ashamed
about it. But in that moment, shame, pride, all of those things don't matter
at all. You're really--you just want to get out of that alive. And, you
know, I think if I were with a dear friend, I would feel a little differently.
But these were guys, these were Afghans I didn't know. And they were being
very sweet to us, very protective of us and everything, and you just think,
`If it's him or me, it's him. I'll pick him any--without a second thought.'

BOGAEV: Sebastian Junger. "Into the Forbidden Zone," a "National Geographic
Explorer" documentary about Junger's journey into Afghanistan, airs this
Friday night at 8 and Saturday at 11 on CNBC.

(Credits)

BOGAEV: For Terry Gross, I'm Barbara Bogaev.
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