Here are Mullah Mohammed Omar’s La’iha (laws) for those of you in the DT audience ready for a rewarding career in the Taliban:
- - MMO is the supreme leader of the Taliban, or “Emir al Mu’manin” (“Leader of the Faithful”).
- - Taliban will constructively engage tribal leaders and seek to offer support to the local population.
- - Commanders should, when possible, be reassigned to their ancestral tribal areas.
- - Captured enemy personnel will be taken to provincial commanders immediately.
- - Spies cannot be executed without due process, which is also clearly defined.
- - No Taliban will take bribes.
- - No Taliban will steal.
- - No Taliban will kidnap for ransom inside Afghanistan.
- - No Taliban will use torture on captured persons.
- - No mutilation, even of corpses.
- - There will be no more beheadings, only firing squads.
- - No executions will be videotaped.
- - No suicide attack will be conducted unless approved by a higher authority.
- Any former government official seeking to join the Taliban must kill or capture a high-ranking enemy to prove himself loyal.
- Captured enemy money and items must be distributed fairly, not kept for personal gain.
- Provincial authorities will be established, creating standardized legal, political, and military structures.
- No smoking.
(As seen on the wall of the tactical operations center at Forward Operating Base Rushmore, Paktika Province, Afghanistan.)
-- Ward Carroll
