Afghans turn to Taliban justice as insurgents set up shadow government

When Habiba's elderly husband was badly beaten in a village brawl there was only one place, she said, that she could turn to for help and justice. Barefoot and weeping, the farmer's wife, 50, trekked for four hours through Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains to meet the local Taliban commander. "My feet were bleeding and I cried the whole way but I didn't care about my safety," she said. "We are poor people. We know the Government doesn't help people like us." Corruption and incompetence in President Karzai's Government–particularly at local level–have forced a growing number of people to seek the services of the Taliban. The shadow government is not limited to justice. In Helmand, in August, Taliban commanders issued printed travel permits on headed notepaper from the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" to let people through checkpoints on the roads in and out of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.