February13, 2007:
Terrorists have to be careful that they don't do something that will
enrage, rather than terrify. A recent example of this can be found in
Afghanistan, where the Taliban attempt, to terrorize Afghans into shutting down
secular schools, backfired. Last year in southern Afghanistan, the
Taliban burned down 200 schools, and terrorized parents into shutting down
another 400. Those 600 schools meant 130,000 students were no longer able to
attend classes. Several million parents in the region demanded that the
government do something. Officials pointed out that the government, and foreign
aid agencies, were able to build thousands of schools, but did not have the
manpower to guard them. In response, last Fall, parents pressured their village
and tribal leaders into organizing a guard force for the schools. This was a
risky business. Most villages have fewer weapons (often mainly bolt action
rifles, pistols and shotguns), to use against up to a hundred heavily armed
(with AK-47s and RPGs) Taliban. But this action across the region was sending a
message to the Taliban; attack our schools and you'll have to fight the
parents. While many of the tribes in the region contain many pro-Taliban
members, the majority of the people wanted to protect their schools. The
Taliban responded in two ways. First, they said they would spend several
million dollars to build dozens of new, Taliban approved (mainly religious
subjects) schools, most of them in villages where schools had been burned down.
Second, the Taliban campaign against the schools withered. The number of
schools attacked each month declined by 90 percent. But the after effects of
this remain to be seen. For the moment, the Taliban are much less tolerated in
many parts of southern Afghanistan. But the fathers of children are not happy
about spending several nights a month taking their turn guarding an empty, and
usually unheated, school house. However, the police are being promised more cooperation
(that is, information about any Taliban activity in the neighborhood), when
Spring, and Taliban gunmen, begin roaming the hills again.