- Afghan warlord Malim Jan is a man with split loyalties.
Once a Taliban commander in a central district, where he is accused of
torture and extortion, he is now paid by the US military to patrol the
rugged border with Pakistan.
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- He admits that he has two wives and "several boyfriends"
and has now taken a fancy to the Royal Marines who have visited his camp.
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- "Very handsome boys, much cleaner shaven and prettier
than the American special forces," he said of the Marines, with his
own fighters - whom he refers to as "beautiful young boys" -
smiling up at him.
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- Major Rich Stephens, commanding Zulu Company of the Marines'
45 Commando, said earlier that the "unusual affections" of Afghan
men had come as a complete surprise to his lads.
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- He put it down to a "possible cultural misunderstanding",
but Commander Jan said homosexuality was "a tradition here in these
mountains".
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- The commander, a muscular 35-year-old with two fingers
missing from his left hand, holds court at Zhawar Kili, a vast base including
nearly 100 underground bunkers, caves and tunnels.
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- It first served as a camp for the resistance to the Soviet
invasion and later as a training base for al-Qa'eda. The area has been
the focus of American activity for months.
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- Now 300 Marines are there on Operation Buzzard and a
dozen set out on patrol from the base yesterday. Commander Jan has been
hired by the Americans to guard the porous border in the same zone.
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- His 84 "enforcers" receive £110 a month
plus board from the US military, whose special forces approved his new
security role nearly two months ago.
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- But several Afghan officers and one leading warlord in
Khost have accused him of being a "mole", tipping off Taliban
and al-Qa'eda units in advance about the arrival of the Marines in the
area last week.
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- The Telegraph hired 10 Pathan fighters to check out a
story that the US military had not yet won over his loyalties. Our party
halted on a hillside near some tents.
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- Eight Afghan fighters sat around an old teapot, joking
loudly and giggling as they unwrapped sweets. The Marines had been by to
see the warlord a day earlier. As we began talking, a dozen Marines on
patrol in Land Rovers and other off-road vehicles passed our position.
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- Between 1998 and November 2001, Malim Jan was the Taliban's
commander in central Afghanistan with responsibility for repressing the
Hazara minority centred in Bamiyan, according to Afghan officials.
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- The Hazaras, believed to be descendants of Genghis Khan's
army, have expressed a particular bitterness towards the former Taliban
security chief who, they alleged in interviews, led an extortion ring.
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- They said he drove around Hazara communities demanding
that people produce "hidden Stinger missiles". If they could
not his men beat them and demanded huge payments.
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- Several months ago Commander Jan swore that he still
loved his Taliban superior, Jalaluddin Haqqani, a "holy warrior"
known to have links with Osama bin Laden.
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- He has been the target of numerous American raids and
is now believed to have fled to Pakistan. Residents of Khost insisted that
Malim Jan is a killer.
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- "He has a lot of enemies, he has killed a lot of
innocent people, whoever Haqqani wanted him to," said Qari Baberzai,
a shopkeeper who claims that his uncle was killed by Commander Jan before
the fall of the Taliban regime last year.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.
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- http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/
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