AFGHANISTAN - Driving to Taliban-controlled territory doesn't take long. Around 30 minutes from the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, passing large craters left by roadside bombs, we meet our host: Haji Hekmat, the Taliban's shadow mayor in Balkh district. He's a veteran member of the group, having first joined the militants in the 1990s when they ruled over the majority of the country.
The Taliban have arranged a display of force for us. Lined up on either side of the street are heavily armed men, one carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher, another an M4 assault rifle captured from US forces. Balkh was once one of the more stable parts of the country; now it's become one of the most violent.
Baryalai, a local military commander with a ferocious reputation, points down the road, "the government forces are just there by the main market, but they can't leave their bases. This territory belongs to the mujahideen". It's a similar picture across much of Afghanistan: the government controls the cities and bigger towns, but the Taliban are encircling them, with a presence in large parts of the countryside. The Taliban believe victory is theirs. Sitting over a cup of green tea, Haji Hekmat proclaims, "we have won the war and America has lost".
Back in 1984, Mr Armstrong warned:
“Yet we Americans and British feel WE, of our own superiority, produced this massive wealth. Since World War I and more so since the Second World War, we have DISOBEYED GOD in many ways. And GOD HAS ALREADY REDUCED THE BRITISH TO A COMPARATIVELY SMALL NATION – her Empire is gone – and the United States is going down and down, and is going to be conquered in the next war. WE HAVE WON OUR LAST WAR!” (Co-worker Letter 15/06/1984)
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Today we find the Church of God in a “wilderness of religious confusion!”
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