Taliban

Template:TOC-right The modern Taliban movement, or the Taleban Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (TIMA), took control of Afghanistan in 1994, imposing a strict Salafist rule, as or more conservative than the Wahhabi movement of Saudi Arabia. Both featured a "Department for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice." They argued they were creating a stable Islamic state that the leaders of the jihad against the Soviets could not create.

They connected a current Islamist trend with traditions of the Durrani Pashtun, whose traditional stronghold was Kandahar. The term can be translated as "seeker" or "student" of Islam. The traditional Taliban go back at least two centuries in Afghn history, to Ahmad Shah Durrani, a king who died in 1773 and established an Islamic identity. The classic Taliban had been a "loose Islamic civil service", returning to villages as teachers and religious leaders. They speak Pashtun, as opposed to Dari, the other major language of Afghanistan.

The modern Taliban movement unquestionably abrogated the human rights of citizens, especially women, and also provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They were ousted from power in the Afghanistan War (2001)-, but continued to fight as guerrillas even after the formation of an interim Afghan government. The question remains open if having a Taliban faction in a new coalition would increase stabilility.

TIMA takes power

The resurgent TIMA was made up principally of graduates of the Haqqania madrassa near Peshawar. That religious school's teachings drew from a 19th century Indian Muslim movement called Deobandism, which argued against modernization and believed that Muslims needed to live in the same way as the Prophet and his Companions.

Under Mullah Mohammad Omar, they advocated an Islamic revolution, under Sharia and without the foreign mujahedin. Most of their members were Pashtun that had fought the Soviets. Ma'soum Afghani said "Arabs fulfilled their role in Jihad in Afghanistan against Communism. We have relationships with some of them but not all of them are under our control or on our land. They live in Afghanistan as guests, but the land of Afghanistan will not be used against any other Islamic country."

In late 1994, Hashmat Ghani Azmadzai, leader of the Ahmadzai tribe, accepted what he considered a fair offer by the Taliban, to restore the king, hold a loya jirga (great council), and bring order to what was warlord anarchy. Supporting the Taliban, at this time, was seen as defending against enemies of the Pashtun. So did the Karzai family, who were the descendants of Ahmad Shah Durrani.

Another faction came from the Amadzai's brother Ashraf has served as Finance Minister in the interim administration, but some Dari-speaking factions see him, and his Afghan Mellat party, as an authoritarian who wants to "Pashtunize" the other ethnic groups: Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmen, etc. See government evolution below.

Taking control

On 11 September 1996 the Taleban captured Jalalabad, the eastern city bordering Pakistan and on 27 September 1996 they captured Kabul, ousting the government. They captured former President Najibullah and his brother and killed them, hanging them from lamposts in the city center. As of the beginning of June 1997, the Taleban effectively controled two-thirds of the country.

Rule under the Taliban

There was a six-member ruling council in Kabul but ultimate authority for Taliban rule rested in the Taliban's inner Shura (Council), located in the southern city of Kandahar, and in Mullah Omar.

Taliban searched everywhere for acts practices they deemed inconsistent with the Qu'ran and Sunna. In an interview with Mullah Muhammad Hassan, "We cannot say this or that is permitted becasue it is allowed in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Iran. We have studied many religious books and in all of them, the things we have prohibited are prohibited. So while we may say that what these countries do are their business, just as what we do is ours, we also say nothing they say or do allow them to escape from the basic fact: They are permitting things that are prohibited in Islam." It is worth noting that only three countries, all Islamic, ever gave the Taliban diplomatic recognition: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); the UAE later withdrew it.

On a personal basis, they required all men to grow beards of specified characteristics, and banned women from working outside the home, requiring them to wear the face and body cover of the chador. Gender restrictions interfered with the delivery of humanitarian and medical assistance to women and girls.

In October 1997 the Taliban changed the name of the country to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with Mullah Muhammad Omar, who had previously assumed the religious title of Emir of the Faithful, as head of state.

Civil war

The country was effectively partitioned between areas controlled by Pashtun and non-Pashtun forces, as the Taleban now controlled all the predominantly Pashtun areas of the country (as well as Herat and Kabul), while non-Pashtun organizations controlled the areas bordering on the Central Asian republics whose populations are ethnically non-Pashtun, such as Uzbeks and Tajiks. Reconstruction continued in Herat, Kandahar, and Ghazni, areas which were under firm Taliban control.

9-11, demands, and overthrow

Osama bin Laden had helped fund the Taliban take power, and turning him over to the West, in Mullah Omar's belief, would violate the tradition of protecting guests with no guarantees of western protection for his regime. According to a Time reporter, Omar said "Did we invite him in?" said Omar of bin Laden. "He was already here. But we don't know how to get rid of him or where to send him." Eventually, Omar decided to deny the recommendation of a 600-man body of senior clerics last Thursday to "encourage" bin Laden to leave Afghanistan "in his own free will" at a time and to a place of his choosing. Now, said the Taliban, Afghanistan is ready for a "showdown of might."

Not all the foreign fighters in Afghanistan, on 9/11, were loyal to bin Laden, but to the Taliban idea a strict Islam through the Muslim world. According to Time', Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates show there have been thousands of graduates from Afghan terrorist training camps, but only 3,000 are loyal to al-Qaeda. Still, Omar and bin Laden have intertwined interests and the Taliban is seen by the west as supporting al-Qaeda and in need of destruction.

Initial combat operations

Beginning on October 7, conventional combat operations against Afghanistan did not target the bulk of the Taliban, to encourage defections. The first stage was against critical command & control, air defense, and other direct barriers to Western operations. The second was against daylight raids carried out by jet fighters against ‘targets of opportunity’ such as military vehicles, and by bombers against defence emplacements, but not against troop concentrations. appeared to have been delayed in the hope that elements of the Taliban could be persuaded to defect.

Ground drive against the Taliban

At the beginning of November the Pentagon moved to set the stage for a ground offensive by Alliance forces by intensifying bombing of Taliban and al-Qaeda ground forces on the frontlines around Mazar-e-Sharif and north of Kabul. Heavy bombing by AC-130 and B-52 bombers increased to 100 sorties per day in November, coupled with efforts to encourage defection. This would leave hard-core Taliban units unprotected when the Northern Alliane advance began.

At a press conference on 5 November, Rear Admiral Stufflebeem stated that the previous day: coalition efforts focused on supporting opposition group forces and preparing the battlefield for future offensive actions by those forces; continued to degrade and destroy al Qaeda and Taliban command and control, particularly caves and tunnels; struck Taliban and foreign forces where we found them…8 In addition to the air bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaeda ground forces, Donald Rumsfeld confirmed on 30 October that a “very modest” number of ground troops were providing a liaison and targeting role for Alliance forces in northern Afghanistan. On 6 November Mr Rumsfeld stated that these forces had been reinforced in recent days: The forces on the ground have gone up, since I made that comment, about twoand- a-half times. And there are others prepared to go in as soon as weather and circumstances on the ground permit. And I continue to be of the same mind, that it is a – helpful to the United States to have Special Forces involved on the ground to assist with communications, liaison, resupply, humanitarian activities, as well as targeting, and that is their goal and their purpose…9

Later in the press conference General Pace confirmed that the US was supplying the Northern Alliance with munitions and facilitating the delivery of weapons supplied by other states, including Russia. US intelligence operatives and special forces and anti- Taliban tribal leaders were also reported to be engaged in negotiations with disaffected Taliban commanders in central and southern Afghanistan.

On 7 November, one month into the military campaign, General Pace provided this assessment of how the operation had gone: … we’ve flown over 2,000 sorties since 7 October, in support of the campaign. And in the process of doing that, we have taken down their air defense systems, we have taken their command and control communications equipment, we have disrupted their lines of communication, we have provided support for the opposition forces on the ground. […] We do know that during the course of this month, that there have been significant military effort applied against the Taliban.

Military collapse

In addition to the heavy damage inflicted on Taliban forces by the air campaign, analysts have pointed to a series of factors that contributed to the sudden collapse of Taliban control. Firstly, as several commentators pointed out at the start of the US-led campaign, the movement had become highly dependent on manpower drawn from a variety of local militia and mujaheddin groups, which had tenuous loyalty to the Taliban. The extensive efforts made by anti-Taliban forces and US special forces to encourage defections from these groups proved beneficial once the Northern Alliance advance began, leaving core Taliban units exposed and unable to mount an effective defence.

A second, related factor behind the Taliban’s decline has been the role played by the significant numbers of foreign fighters linked to Mr bin Laden, whose presence has generated considerable resentment among ordinary Afghans and within Taliban ranks. In the eyes of many Afghans, the foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda are seen as the cause of many of their country’s ills. The decision to deploy al-Qaeda fighters and leaders to bolster ‘suspect’ Afghan Taliban units also served to increase resentment and create the impression that Afghan independence was under threat.13

Thirdly, the Taliban apparently took a strategic decision once military action began to continue to occupy all the territory under its control, rather than fall back to its core areas in the south and east. A large part of the Taliban’s order of battle was committed to the defence of the northern frontline around Mazar-e-Sharif and Taloqan. These forces were dependent on tortuous and exposed supply lines via Herat through areas populated by ethnic groups that were hostile to the presence of southern Pashtuns. The success of the anti-Soviet mujaheddin had rested on their fighters’ greater mobility and knowledge of the terrain and a recognition that attempting to hold territory in the face of a militarily superior enemy was bound to fail. The Taliban, by contrast, was caught in static defensive positions, which could be bombarded from a safe distance by US air power. Once the Northern Alliance had broken through the frontline, large numbers of men – including several thousand Pakistani and al-Qaeda fighters – were cut off in a pocket around Taloqan and Kunduz, resulting in the loss of a significant part of the Taliban’s combat strength.

Government evolution

According to the Web-published Afghan Mirror, one of the well-known members of the Afghan Mellat party is Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and as stated before, it will prove hazardous to have someone like Ashraf Ghani underestimated. While Hamed Karzai nominated him to succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the United Nations, a post won by Ban-Ki Moon, the Mirror claims he is "fascistic" and unable to operate in a multipolar country.

New coalition?

Unquestionably, Taliban units still are in active combat with Western forces and the Afghan government. A warning came from Mula Birather, leading at least 12 Taliban military groups in Afghanistan. There is an open issue, however, if the Taliban are monolithic.

While the Obama Administration has made Afghanistan the focus of new large-scale efforts against terrorism, John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, argues that the Taliban was a reluctantly provided a home al Qaeda in the 1990s, violated agreements to refrain from issuing inflammatory statements and fomenting violence abroad, and then, with the 9-11 attacks where the Taliban had no official role, brought down the Taliban government. "Given the Taliban’s limited interest in issues outside the "AfPak" region, if they came to power again now, they would be highly unlikely to host provocative terrorist groups whose actions could lead to another outside intervention."

The Administration has suggested reaching out to "moderate Taliban." While Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the idea, others were dubious.Some analysts suggest no such thing exists outside fantasy. "Obama's comment resemble a dream more than reality," "Where are the so-called moderate Taiban? Who are the moderate Taliban?" said Waheed Mozhdah, an official in both the Taliban and the Karzai governments. A different Taliban said this could not work in the presence of a planned troop surge. Mullah Abdul Salem Zaeef, who spent nearly four years in Guantanamo Bay detention camp, said a mostly American surge

...was likely to act as a magnet to foreign fighters...All the people were optimistic when Obama became president. I was a little optimistic that he would stop the war, but when he declared the strategy, especially sending more troops and sending a military man as the ambassador, these strategies are war strategies, not a peace strategy and it's increasing the problem..."The Saudis wanted to be the interpreter between the Taliban and the government and they did something, but increasing more troops is destroying this process...The problem is not between Taliban and Afghans, everything is possible by Afghans. The Taliban are sitting with them, I know that, they respect each other."

A western diplomat replied to Zaeef, that his claims of Taliban unity were "wishful thinking". He said: "There is plenty of empirical evidence that the insurgents are pulled in different directions and not all are prepared to drag the country into perpetual war."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed reaching out to moderate Taliban, who need to be identified and protected from their more extreme brethren.

Not all opposition to the Karzai government are Taliban. Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban, has met with both Taliban and non-Taliban opposition.

Non-Taliban power blocs

In December 2008, there were negotiations between the government and Taliban that included other individuals with their own power base, such as former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has hundreds of his own fighters Eastern Afghanistan. Like Taliban leaders, there is a bounty on Hekmatyar, whose representatives met, in Dubai, with the government. Rahmani, a former Taliban minister and the current mediator between the Taliban and the government also said he was in contact with Mullah Jalaluddin Haqqani, who served as Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs in Mullah Omar's government, as well as the Taliban military leader in southern Afghanistan.

Taliban leaders=

Former Afghan Minister of Information, Sheik Mohamed Tashkiri, revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat the names of 44 Taliban leaders who are wanted by American forces. This list includes; Mullah Omar, leader of the former regime who has a 10 million dollar bounty on his head, his aide Mohammed Tayyib Agha, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, in addition to opposition leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

On suggested "moderate" is Maulavi Mohammad Qasim Halimi, Chief of Protocol under Mullah Omar, who was held in Bagram Prison for over a year, and who first met Halimi in 2001, before the collapse of the Talibani. a graduate from Al-Azhar UniversityIn the Karzai government, he is chief of the investigation branch of the Supreme Court, and is a deputy to Afghan Chief Justice, Dr. Abdul Salam Azimi.

Halimi had given up wearing the black Pakul mujahedeen turban and had trimmed, but did not shave, his beard. Halimi enjoys more freedom than other former Taliban leaders who have reconciled with the government, including freedom of movement. Halimi is in contact with old friends [from the Taliban movement] such as former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Muttawakil with whom he shared a prison cell in Bagram Prison for over one year. Halimi is also in contact with Abdul Salam Zaeef, former Taliban Ambassador to Afghanistan, who spent four years variously in Bagram Prison, Kandahar Prison, and Guantanamo Bay. Both currently reside in the same town of Khushal Khan, west of Kabul. Halimi said "I was the first person to know that Mullah Zaeef had reached Bagram Prison by [recognizing] his voice. The Americans used to cover our faces with masks so that we would not recognize one another. Zaeef urgently called out for some water while I was sitting next to him, although I did not realize this [at the time], he said Bismillah [invoking the name of God] prior to drinking the water and that is when I recognized his voice. I whispered his name 'Mullah Abdul Salem? He said to me, who are you? And I answered, Halimi. But then the prison guard shouted to us saying that we should not speak."