afghanistanThe usa, the Taliban and ’Osama bin LadenPakistan urged the usa and the European Union to accord diplomatic
recognition to the Taliban, claiming the militia had restored law and order
in the country and that it would suppress opium cultivation. Pakistan also
held out the prospect of American companies bidding for the proposed
trans-Asian oil and gas pipeline. Western nations, however, were not
prepared to recognize a movement that had been condemned by human
rights organizations and the media for its violation of human rights,
sectarian and ethnic massacres and harsh treatment of women. Iran and
Uzbekistan, worried that the Taliban might attempt to invade their coun-
tries, sent reinforcements to the Afghanistan frontier, while Iran even
threatened to attack Afghanistan and punish the Taliban for the deaths of
its embassy staff and in defence of the country’s Shi‘a population.
Despite the usa not having any formal diplomatic relations with the
Taliban government, unocal, a California-based company that was in
partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Delta Oil, opened offices in Kandahar and
Kabul and began to negotiate with the Taliban for the contract to build the
Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan (tap) oil and gas pipeline. bridas,
an Argentinian rival, which was the preferred option of Pakistan’s Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto, also set up shop in Kabul. Both the Taliban and
the Turkmenistan government made the most of this rivalry to play the
two competitors off against each other. In October 1995 Turkmenistan
signed Memoranda of Understanding with both bridas and unocal. Two
years later, however, unocal, under the banner of CentGas, the Central
Asia Gas Line Consortium, was formally registered in Turkmenistan and
effectively cut bridas out of any share in the pipeline project.
unocal’s success was due in part to its links with Saudi Arabia and
employing advisers who had links at the highest level with Washington
and the Taliban. They included Robert Oakley, a former u.s. Ambassador
to Pakistan, an ex-member of the un Special Mission to Afghanistan, the
Director of the University of Nebraska’s Center for Afghanistan Studies,
and Zalmay Khalizad, a Balkh-born monarchist with American citizen-
ship who had been an adviser to the State Department’s South Asia Desk.
Inside Afghanistan unocal employed Hamid Karzai as their linkman
with Mullah ‘Omar and the Taliban inner leadership. unocal gifted the
Taliban computers, faxes and other office equipment and trained some
of its officials. In December 1997 unocal organized a tour of America
for senior Taliban leaders that included a meeting with State Department
officials, while the head of unocal’s Kandahar office allegedly kept the