(AKI) - Since the Pakistani border city of Chaman and the Afghan city of Kandahar play a pivotal role in financing the Taliban's operations in southeastern Afghanistan, there is growing speculation that the Taliban is funnelling money through hawalas or money brokers in the United Arab Emirates where Chaman and Kandhari businessmen trade. Many Chaman businesses have offices in Dubai and the port city and free trade zone of Jebel Ali, and insiders say that the Taliban have convinced local businessmen to move their money through hawalas to Taliban leaders including Mullah Abdul Razaq, Mullah Abdul Rahim and Mullah Rozi, and several others.
Mullah Abdul Razaq, a resident of the Pakistani town of Chaman and former minister of interior affairs in the deposed Taliban regime, is considered a key player in the suspected money trail from the region to the Middle East.
After the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, Mullah Abdul Razaq was arrested by the Americans. Insiders say he was given conditional immunity when he agreed to play a role in talks between the CIA, Pakistan's ISI intelligence service and the Taliban.
The talks were reportedly over a truce and a proposal for the Taliban's participation in the political process in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, however, rejected the US offer which aimed to remove Mullah Omar from the Taliban leadership and Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan.
After the collapse of the talks in 2003, Mullah Abdul Razaq left for Dubai where the tribes of Chaman and neighbouring Kandahar in southern Afghanistan maintain offices.
Within the Afghan tribal system, the pro-Taliban Noorzai and Achakzai tribes dominate trade in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The tribes' region spans the southwest of Pakistan and the southern areas of Afghanistan. On the Pakistani side of the border, they control the Chaman markets and on the Afghan side, the Spin Boldak markets.
Both tribes dominate the business of salvaging and reconditioning cars and the distribution of the 555-brand of cigarettes throughout Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan through the markets of Dubai and Chaman.
Since Afghanistan does not have a properly functional banking system, the payments are often handled through various hawala agencies based in the UAE.
In 2005, the FBI investigated a prominent Pakistani hawala and his offices were closed across the country because his network was found to have been involved in money laundering for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
But since the money trail is so difficult to trace through the undocumented hawala transactions, the money changer was eventually cleared.
When Mullah Abdul Razaq returned to the Taliban's fold in 2005, he convinced businesses in Chaman to support the Taliban financially in order to spare their businesses from attacks when they transported goods through Afghanistan.
Over 3,500 importers and exporters in the Chaman market who transport their goods to the UAE were threatened with a wave of violence.
The Chaman businesses had faced the same problem from warlords in the mid-1990s and supported the Taliban to drive them out.
After 2005, the stakes were higher as the Noorzai and Ackzai tribes became involved in the construction of expensive hotels in Kandahar and needed protection from the Taliban.
The Taliban had struck a similar deal in 1993 when the student militia emerged from Kandahar's Islamic school as a reformist movement against the warlords and vandalism in Afghan society. Chaman businessmen financed the Taliban at that time in exchange for protection.
Mullah Abdul Razaq, once again convinced the businessmen of Chaman to support the Taliban financially so that their transport and hotel businesses would be spared from attacks.
The mullah's move also aimed to ensure that local warlords from the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak through Turkmenistan to Herat on the Iranian border, would not trouble them in any way.
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