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Rise to power The Taliban originated around 1993-1994. The Taliban received arms, ammunition and training from the C.I.A.. Babar struck a deal with exiled Afghan communist general Shahnawaz Tanai to break the chaos that had engulfed Afghanistan with the fall of its communist government (ironically as a result of Pakistan's sponsorhip of Tanai's failed coup to gain control of the floundering communist regime). The first recorded appearance of the Taliban was as an escort to a "trade delegation" sent by Babar from Quetta to Kabul. This escort was able to defeat all warlord opposition it encountered in its path. The Taliban then quickly swept across Afghanistan, absorbing or eliminating most rivals. The lone holdouts who refused to accept the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban were Northern resistance leader Ahmad Shah Masoud and General Abdul Rashid Dostum from the communist regime that had collapsed due to the coup attempt. A protracted battle then ensued between Taliban and the Northern Alliance, primarily around the northern outskirts of Kabul, but also raging far and wide across the North, including Herat and Kunduz. With its attempt to break the impasse in Afghanistan and reach the resource wealth of Central Asia beyond, Pakistan soon received endorsement from the USA, Saudi Arabia and United Kingdom to aid, mobilize and expand the Taliban. A steady outflux of graduates from Pakistani madrassas, gave the Taliban an steady supply of new recruits. As their ranks swelled, the original core component of Pakistan and Afghan soldiers assumed more specialized roles. Pakistan supported Mullah Omar, in order to put a more public face on what, up until then, had been a largely faceless movement. The mullah-ization of the Taliban became Pakistan's means of ensuring total control of the militia, with independent-thinking non-fundamentalists quickly being subordinated or marginalized. Ironically, as more and more fundamentalists swelled Taliban's ranks, the more the group with Mullah Omar at its apex began to go out of even Pakistan's ability to control. Mullah Omar, who was proclaimed the "Amir-ul-Momineen", was proud of the fact that he had only spoken with two western journalists in his whole life period. Many people claim that Pakistan chose Mullah Omar because they knew he could easily be influenced and controlled and that his own Islamic education was very limited making him easily swayed by the state-funded mufti's of Pakistan. In the early stages around 1996-1997, General Malik (Dostom’s second general in command), overthrew Dostum and took over Mazar-e-sharif and temporarily sided with the Taliban. Soon afterwards, he switched sides again only to betray the Talibs and participate in the killings of 6 to 8 thousand Talibs. The Talibs were in the territory of Abdul Malik and were easily captured by Hezbe-Wahdat. According to some, many Talibs were butchered alive on the grave of the Hezbe-Wahdat ex-leader Mr. Mazari. Later the Taliban captured Mazar-e-sharif and killed scores of people to avenge themselves. In 1997, Ahmad Shah Masood devised a guerrilla tactic in the Shamali plains to defeat the Taliban advances. Masood was very successful in propagating an ethnic war and making the ethnic Tajiks of the north believe that the Taliban (who were Pashtun dominated) would slaughter them if the Taliban gained control of the north. In collaboration with the locals, Masood had deployed his forces to be stationed at people’s houses and other hidden places. Upon the arrival of the Taliban, some locals, who had vowed pacts of peace with the Taliban, as well as Masood’s forces came out of hiding and in a surprise attack killed thousands of Talibs. Soon after, the Taliban put a major effort into taking control of the Shamali plains and attacking and revenging themselves on all the people of Shamali. They destroyed the farms and produce, indiscriminately killed many young men, uprooted everyone from their homes, and forced them to become refugees. Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, had written a full report on these and other war crimes that further insinuated and inflamed the issue of ethnicity. Some have concluded that Pakistan’s government was successful in obtaining the support of the US by posing the Taliban as a temporary solution to rid the “Jihadi” groups out of the picture. The United States had come to believe that the Taliban would bring back the old monarch Zahir Shah of Afghanistan to power upon their success in gaining control of Afghanistan. Some members of the Taliban, mainly Mullah Rabbani, (not to be confused with B. Rabbani from the Northern Alliance faction) and a few others were actually active supporters of Zahir Shah and wanted to bring back the old monarch into power after they had taken control of Kabul. According to analysts, Washington was sold on the idea that the old monarch would eventually return to Afghanistan due to powerful lobbying by Unocal (American Oil Company) and Pakistan. With the funding of Saudi Arabia, the intelligence of UK and US, and the hand picked Talibs by Pakistan, a successful force emerged and gained control of an estimated 80% of Afghanistan in less than 2 years. However, soon after the conquest of Kabul, it became evident that the Taliban would under no circumstances transfer power and control to Zahir Shah. The question arises as to why foreign governments supported and aided the Taliban; as we have only briefly touched upon this topic, it definitely needs further elaboration. As always, it boiled down to at least two motives: financial (energy) and power (land). The first motive to be discussed is the financial one. Billions of dollars lay at stake for foreign nations and companies. Pakistan, America, and other western nations wanted to exploit the natural resources of Central Asia. A proposed gas pipeline from Turkmenistan and Khazakistan via Afghanistan, towards South Asia (Indian Ocean) was envisioned. This project was heavily endorsed by Pakistan, Unocal, Delta (a Saudi oil company), and a number of other small investors. An investment of 3 billion dollars had been accumulated for the development of the pipeline. Thus an extremely strong financial motive existed to support a puppet government in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Rabbani (Masood) government had made a fundamental flaw while in power. They also dealt with the pipeline option, only to reject the proposal of Unicol, which many suspect was heavily endorsed by Pakistan, and opted instead for the Argentinean oil company Bridas. Bridas was most likely the more lucrative choice for the Rabbani government but far less lucrative politically. Thus there existed a strong financial reason to support and aid a new group. The second motive was the boundary issue resulting from the Durand Treaty between Afghanistan and the British, imposed by Great Britain in 1893. The treaty had a life span of 100 years and expired in 1993, and the lost territory would have had to be dealt with once again, which was now part of Pakistan. In 1919, Afghanistan went to its third war with the British, to regain lost territory and gain complete sovereignty over its foreign Affair engagements. Afghanistan has been given credit for winning the war, but lost on making a beneficial treaty with the British to regain back Pashtoonistan (NWFP, current day Pakistan). Zahir Shah’s government in the past had contended for the lost territory and in 1947 had objected to the creation of Pakistan in the United Nations. Furthermore, in 1955, all diplomatic ties with Pakistan and Afghanistan had been severed and the two nations stood strongly against each other. Thus according to many supporters of Zahir Shah, Pakistan coerced Washington into believing that the Taliban were acting on their own when they refused to transfer power back to the old monarch as envisioned by Washington initially. The Taliban made some progress in three areas: centralizing the government, national security, and a de-weaponized Afghanistan. Another issue the Taliban addressed was drug issues. Some Afghanis supported the Taliban because they brought peace and subdued the ferocious people of Afghanistan. The Taliban were unfortunately extremely callous when it came to successfully running a country. They overlooked the fact that the nation was starving and were more worried about people having beards than the fact that they were dying by the thousands. In 1996, the Taliban were in discussion with UNOCAL in the USA and with Bridas in Argentina regarding a proposal to build a gas pipeline to run from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. In 1997, a delegation from the Taliban spent several days at the UNOCAL headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas. Culture Through certain Pakistani madrassas, the Taliban may have also been influenced by the Deobandi School of thought which emphasizes piety, austerity, and the family obligations of men. They emerged from the ethnically Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. Many of the Taliban grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan. Islamic law Once in power, the Taliban instituted a form of Shari'ah (Islamic law) which closely followed the traditionalist Deobandi school of Islam. Among the laws applied were Islamic punishments, administered by a religious police force, including amputation of one or both hands for theft and stoning for adultery. The Taliban banned all forms of television, imagery, music and sports. In response to this ban, the International Olympic Committee suspended Afghanistan from participation in the 2000 Summer Olympics. Men were required to keep their beards at a specified length: women were obliged to wear the burqa (a long cloak-like piece of clothing) when appearing in public, and failure to do so could attract a public beating . Drugs Afghanistan had been producing opium for a number of years, and with the war shattering other sectors of the economy, it became the number one export of the country. Opium cultivation continued to thrive during most of the Taliban period, despite attempts to ban it. From 2000, however, a concerted crackdown led to a dramatic drop in production. No other regime in recent times has come as close as the Taliban to rid the country of this vice. The Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in late 1997. But by 2000, Afghanistan's opium production still accounted for 75% of the world's supply. On July 27, 2000, the Taliban again issued a decree banning opium poppy cultivation. By February 2001, production had been reduced by 98%. Following the fall of the Taliban regime, the areas controlled by the Northern Alliance resumed opium production and by 2005 production was 87% of the world's opium supply. Women The Taliban government has been severely criticised for not respecting the rights of women. Women were forced to wear Burqa of a specified length, and even minor deviations could result in punishment in public. Quite often, women were beaten with thin sticks at the ankles for wearing burqas that were "too short". Women were prohibited from leaving their homes, unless they were completely covered. No part of their faces, hair or body was to be shown out in the public. The education of women suffered too. Girls were deprived of basic education, and their higher education was next to none in the Taliban rule. member of the Taliban's Mutaween|religious police beating a woman in Kabul on August 26, 2001; photograph taken from footage filmed by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) http://www.rawa.org/beating.htm. The footage can be seen http://www.rawa.us/movies/beating.mpg here. Buddhas of Bamiyan In March 2001, the Taliban ordered the demolition of two statues of Buddha carved into cliffsides at Bamiyan, one 38 metres tall and about 1800 years old, the other 53 metres tall and about 1500 years old. The act was condemned by UNESCO and many countries around the world. The intentions of the destruction remain unclear. Mullah Omar initially supported the preservation of Afghanistan's heritage, and Japan offered to pay for the preservation of the statues. However, after a few years, a decree was issued claiming all idols must be destroyed as per Islamic law which prohibits any form of idol worship as shirk (i.e., a sin). Locals claim that Pakistani and Saudi engineers were on site as volunteers to help with the statues' destruction, and that Afghanistan's treasures were ferried across the border to be plundered by private collectors. The government of Pakistan (itself host to one of the richest and most antiquated collections of Buddhist art) implored the Taliban to spare the statues. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates later denounced the act as savage. The destruction of these priceless historical monuments made the Taliban look barbarous in the eyes of many in both the West and the East. During a visit to the US in March, 2000, Syed Rahmatullah Hashemi, a senior representative (at the age of 24 however) of the Taliban designated as the roving Ambassador, projected the Taliban's action not as an act of irrationality, but as an act of rage over the refusal of the UNESCO and some Western Governments to permit the Taliban to use for drought relief the funds sanctioned by them for repairing the war-damaged statues of the Buddha. Relationship with Osama bin Laden In 1996, Osama bin Laden moved to Afghanistan from Sudan. When the Taliban came to power, bin Laden was able to forge an alliance between the Taliban and his Al-Qaeda organization. It is understood that al-Qaeda-trained fighters known as the 055 Brigade in NATO built camps, and these were integrated with the Taliban army between 1997 and 2001. The Taliban and bin Laden had very close connections, which were formalized by a marriage of one of bin Laden's sons to Omar's daughter. During Osama bin Laden's stay in Afghanistan, he had helped finance the Taliban . After the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, Osama Bin Laden and several Al Qaeda members were indicted in U.S. criminal court . The Taliban protected Osama bin Laden from extradition requests by the U.S., variously claiming that Bin Laden had "gone missing" in Afghanistan or that Washington “cannot provide any evidence or any proof” that bin Laden is involved in terrorist activities and that “Without any evidence, bin Laden is a man without sin... he is a free man” . Evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony and satellite phone records but no physical 'proof' to date links bin Laden to allegations made by US intelligence and Government channels . The Taliban continued to harbor bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks, protesting his innocence , yet also offering to hand him over to a third nation. In 2004 bin Laden took personal responsibility for ordering the attacks on New York and Washington in a videotape broadcast on Al Jazeera. U.S.-led invasion and displacement of the Taliban On September 20, 2001 after an investigation by the FBI the U.S. concluded that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. The U.S. made a five point ultimatum to the Taliban: The Taliban rejected this ultimatum on September 21, 2001, stating there was no evidence in their possession linking Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks . On September 22, 2001, the United Arab Emirates and later Saudi Arabia withdrew their recognition of the Taliban as the legal government of Afghanistan, leaving neighboring Pakistan as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties. On October 4, 2001, it is believed that the Taliban covertly offered to turn bin Laden over to Pakistan for trial in an international tribunal that operated according to Islamic shar'ia law . Pakistan is believed to have rejected the offer. On October 7, 2001, before the onset of military operations, the Taliban made an open offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan in an Islamic court. This counter offer was immediately rejected by the U.S. as insufficient. Shortly afterward, on October 7, 2001, the United States, aided by the United Kingdom and supported by a coalition of other countries including several from the NATO alliance, initiated military actions, code named Operation Enduring Freedom, and bombed Taliban and Al Qaeda related camps. The stated intent of military operations was to remove the Taliban from power because of the Taliban's refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden for his involvement in the September 11 attacks, and disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations. On October 14 the Taliban openly counteroffered to hand bin Laden over to a third country for trial, but only if the Taliban were given evidence of bin Laden's involvement in 9/11. The U.S. rejected this offer as an insufficient public relations ploy and continued military operations. The ground war was mainly fought by the Northern Alliance, the remaining elements of the anti-Taliban forces which the Taliban had routed over the previous years but had never been able to entirely destroy. Mazari Sharif fell to U.S.-Northern Alliance forces on November 9, leading to a cascade of provinces falling with minimal resistance, and many local forces switching loyalties from the Taliban to the Northern Alliance. On the night of November 12, the Taliban retreated south in an orderly fashion from Kabul. This was sufficiently orderly, that on November 15, they released eight Western aid workers after three months in captivity (see Attacks on humanitarian workers). By November 13 the Taliban had withdrawn from both Kabul and Jalalabad. Finally, in early December, the Taliban gave up their last city stronghold of Kandahar and retired to the hilly wilderness along the Afghanistan - Pakistan border, where they remain today as a guerilla warfare operation, drawing new recruits and developing plans for a restoration of power. Resurgence of Taliban Most of the post-invasion Taliban fighters are new recruits, drawn again from that region's madrassahs. The more traditional Qur'anic schools are the primary source of the new fighters. The insurgency, in the form of a Taliban guerrilla war, continues. However, the Pashtun tribal group, with over 40 million members, has a long history of resistance to occupation forces in the region so the Taliban themselves may comprise only a part of the insurgency. By June 2006, the unrest was sufficiently notable that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, had taken the extraordinary measure of publicly criticizing the methods of western powers who worked to place him in power: "And for two years I have systematically, consistently and on a daily basis warned the international community of what was developing in Afghanistan and of the need for a change of approach in this regard." He added, “The international community must reassess the manner in which this war against terror is conducted”. Before the summer 2006 offensive began, indications existed that NATO peacekeepers in Afghanistan had lost influence and power to other groups, including potentially the Taliban. The most notable sign was the rioting in May after a street accident in the city of Kabul. The continued support from tribal and other groups in Pakistan, the drug trade and the small number of NATO forces, combined with the long history of resistance and isolation, lead to the observation that Taliban forces and leaders are surviving and will have some influence over the future of Afghanistan. A new introduction is suicide and terrorist methods not used in 2001. Russia designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization in July 2006. In September 2006, the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, an association of Wazirstani cheiftains with close ties to the Taliban, were recognized by the Government of Pakistan as the de facto security force in charge of North and South Waziristan. This recognition was part of the agreement to end the Waziristan War which had extracted a heavy toll on the Pakistan Army since early 2004. Some commentators viewed Islamabad's shift from war to diplomacy as implicit recognition of the growing power of the resurgent Taliban relative to American influence, with the US distracted by the threat of looming crises in Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran. •. See also Footnotes | |||||||||
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