Taliban

The Taliban (Pashto : ﻃﺎﻟﺒﺎﻥ nābilāṭ ,("stneduts" ylevitanretla delleps
nabelaT , hcihw srefer ot flesti sa eht
cimalsI etarimE fo natsinahgfA ‏( AEI ‏) , ‏[ 43 ‏] si a innuS cimalsI tsilatnemadnuf lacitilop tnemevom ni
natsinahgfA yltnerruc gnigaw raw ‏( na
ycnegrusni , ro dahij ‏) nihtiw taht .yrtnuoc ‏[ 53 ‏] ‏[ 63 ‏] ecniS ,6102 eht s'nabilaT redael si iwalwaM hallutabiH adazdnuhkA . ‏[ 73 ]
From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban held power over roughly three quarters of Afghanistan , and enforced there a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. The Taliban emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War [38] and largely consisted of students (talib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools, and fought during the Soviet–Afghan War . [39][40][41]
[42] Under the leadership of
Mohammed Omar , the movement spread throughout most of Afghanistan, sequestering power from the Mujahideen warlords. The
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was established in 1996 and the Afghan capital was transferred to Kandahar. It held control of most of the country until being overthrown after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001 following the
September 11 attacks . At its peak, formal diplomatic recognition of the Taliban's government was acknowledged by only three nations:
Pakistan , Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group later regrouped as an insurgency movement to fight the American-backed Karzai administration and the
NATO -led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan .
The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women.[43]
[44] During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth , burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. [45][46][47][48][49][50] According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan
civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012. [51][52][53][54]
[55][56]
The Taliban's ideology has been described as combining an "innovative form" of sharia Islamic law based on
Deobandi fundamentalism[57] and the
militant Islamism and Salafi jihadism of Osama bin Laden[57] with Pashtun social and cultural norms known as
Pashtunwali , [9][10][58] [ page needed ]
[59] as most Taliban are Pashtun tribesmen.
The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and military are widely alleged by the international community and the Afghan government to have provided support to the Taliban during their founding and time in power, and of continuing to support the Taliban during the insurgency. Pakistan states that it dropped all support for the group after the September 11 attacks .[60]
[61][62][63][64][65] In 2001, reportedly 2,500 Arabs under command of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden fought for the Taliban. [66]
Etymology
The word Taliban is Pashto , ﻃﺎﻟﺒﺎﻥ
ṭālibān, meaning "students", the plural of ṭālib. This is a loanword from
Arabic ﻃﺎﻟﺐ ṭālib, using the Persian plural ending -ān ﺍﻥ . In Arabic ﻃﺎﻟﺒﺎﻥ
ṭālibān means not "students" but "two students", as it is a "dual form", the Arabic plural being ﻃﻼﺏ ṭullāb—occasionally causing some confusion to Arabic speakers. Since becoming a loanword in English, Taliban , besides a plural noun referring to the group, has also been used as a singular noun referring to an individual. For example, John Walker Lindh has been referred to as "an American Taliban", rather than "an American Talib". In the English language newspapers of Pakistan, the word Talibans is often used when referring to more than one Taliban. The spelling Taliban has come to be predominant over Taleban in English. [67][68]
Background
Soviet intervention (1978–1992)
President Ronald Reagan meeting with Afghan Mujahideen leaders in the Oval Office in 1983
After the Soviet Union intervened and occupied Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic
mujahideen fighters engaged in war with those Soviet forces.
Pakistan 's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq feared that the Soviets were planning to invade also Balochistan , Pakistan, so he sent Akhtar Abdur Rahman to Saudi Arabia to garner support for the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation forces. A while later, the U.S. CIA and Saudi Arabic General Intelligence Directorate (GID) funneled funding and equipment through the Pakistan I
Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) to the Afghan mujahideen. [69]
About 90,000 Afghans, including
Mohammed Omar , were trained by Pakistan's ISI during the 1980s. [69] The renowned British Professor
Carole Hillenbrand concluded that the Taliban have arisen from those US-Saudi-Pakistan-supported mujahideen: "The West helped the Taliban to fight the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan". [70]
Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)
See also: Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)
After the fall of the Soviet-backed regime of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, many Afghan political parties, but not Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami , Hizb-e Wahdat, and Ittihad-i Islami , in April agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the
Peshawar Accord , which created the
Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a transitional period.
Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami party refused to recognize the interim government, and in April infiltrated Kabul to take power for itself, thus starting this civil war . In May, Hekmatyar started attacks against government forces and Kabul .[71] Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from Pakistan's ISI. [72] With that help, Hekmatyar's forces were able to destroy half of Kabul. [73] Iran assisted the Hizb-e Wahdat forces of
Abdul Ali Mazari . Saudi Arabia supported the Ittihad-i Islami faction. [71][73][74] The conflict between these militias also escalated into war.
The Taliban emerged in the southern Afghan city of
Kandahar around September 1994.
Due to this sudden initiation of civil war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Horrific crimes were committed by individuals inside different factions. Ceasefires, negotiated by representatives of the Islamic State's newly appointed Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud , President Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and later President
Burhanuddin Rabbani (the interim government), or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), commonly collapsed within days. [71] The countryside in northern Afghanistan, parts of which was under the control of Defense Minister Massoud remained calm and some reconstruction took place. The city of Herat under the rule of Islamic State ally Ismail Khan also witnessed relative calm.
Meanwhile, southern Afghanistan was neither under the control of foreign-backed militias nor the government in Kabul, but was ruled by local leaders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and their militias. The Taliban only first
emerged on the scene in August 1994 , announcing to liberate Afghanistan from its present corrupt leadership of warlords, and establish a pure Islamic society.
History
See also: Taliban's rise to power
1994
Further information: Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) § 1994
The Taliban are a movement of religious students (talib) from the
Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools in Pakistan .[39]
Mullah Mohammad Omar in September 1994 in his hometown of
Kandahar with 50 students founded the group. [75][76][77] Omar had since 1992 been studying in the Sang-i-Hisar
madrassa in Maiwand (northern
Kandahar Province ), was disappointed that Islamic law had not been installed in Afghanistan after the ousting of communist rule, and now with his group pledged to rid Afghanistan of warlords and criminals. [75]
Within months, 15,000 students, often Afghan refugees, from religious schools or madrasas – one source calls them Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run madrasas [76] – in Pakistan joined the group. Those early Taliban were motivated by the suffering among the Afghan people, which they believed resulted from power struggles between Afghan groups not adhering to the moral code of Islam; in their religious schools they had been taught a belief in strict Islamic law. [75][40][41]
But sources state that Pakistan was heavily involved, already in October 1994, in the "creating" of the Taliban. [78][79] Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), strongly supporting the Taliban in 1994, hoped for a new ruling power in Afghanistan favorable to Pakistan. [75]
On 3 November 1994, the Taliban in a surprise attack conquered Kandahar City .[75] Before 4 January 1995, they controlled 12 Afghan provinces. [75] Militias controlling the different areas often surrendered without a fight. Omar's commanders were a mixture of former small-unit military commanders and madrassa teachers. [80][81][82][83][84] At these stages, the Taliban were popular, because they stamped out corruption, curbed lawlessness, and made the roads and area safe.[75]
Late 1994, the Islamic State of Afghanistan initiated measures to restore law and order to the capital Kabul, and initiated a nationwide political process for national
democratic consolidation and democratic elections. Hoping for the Taliban to be allies in bringing stability to Afghanistan, the Islamic State's Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud invited the Taliban to join the consolidation process and contribute to stability. Unarmed, Massoud went to talk to Taliban leaders in Maidan Shar to convince them to join the initiated political process. [85][86][87]
[88][89][90] The Taliban declined to join such a political process. [citation needed]
1995 – September 1996
Further information: Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) § 1995
In a bid to establish their rule over all Afghanistan, the Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995. [87] The Taliban first suffered a devastating defeat against government forces of the Islamic State of Afghanistan under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Pakistan, however, started to provide stronger military support to the Taliban. On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia [citation needed] prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul to continue anti-Taliban resistance in the northeastern
Hindu Kush mountains instead of engaging in street battles in Kabul. The Taliban entered Kabul on September 27, 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan . Analysts described the Taliban then as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests. [73][82]
[87][91][92][93]
Map showing political control in Afghanistan in the fall of 1996, following the capture of Kabul by the Taliban.
Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001)
Main articles: Afghan Civil War (1996–2001) and Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
The military goal of the Taliban during the period 1995 to 2001 was to return the order of Abdur Rahman (the Iron
Emir ) by the re-establishment of a state with Pashtun dominance within the northern areas. [94]
By 1998, the Taliban's Emirate controlled 90% of Afghanistan. [75]
In December 2000, the UNSC in Resolution 1333 , recognizing humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, condemning the use of Taliban territory for training of "terrorists" and Taliban providing safehaven to Osama bin Laden, issued severe sanctions against Afghanistan under Taliban control. [95] In October 2001, the
United States, with allies including the Afghan Northern Alliance, invaded Afghanistan and routed the Taliban regime. The Taliban leadership fled into Pakistan. [75]
Afghanistan during Taliban rule
When the Taliban took power in 1996,
twenty years of continuous warfare had devastated Afghanistan's
infrastructure and economy. There was no running water, little electricity, few telephones, functioning roads or regular energy supplies. Basic necessities like water, food, housing and others were in desperately short supply. In addition, the clan and family structure that provided Afghans with a social/economic safety net was also badly damaged. Afghanistan's infant mortality was the highest in the world. A full quarter of all children died before they reached their fifth birthday, a rate several times higher than most other developing countries. [96][97][98]
International charitable and/or development organisations (non-governmental organizations or NGOs) were extremely important to the supply of food, employment, reconstruction, and other services, but the Taliban proved highly suspicious towards the 'help' those organizations offered (see § United Nations and NGOs ). With one million plus deaths during the years of war, the number of families headed by widows had reached 98,000 by 1998. In Kabul, where vast portions of the city had been devastated from rocket attacks, more than half of its 1.2 million people benefited in some way from NGO activities, even for water to drink. The civil war and its never-ending refugee stream continued throughout the Taliban's reign. The Mazar, Herat, and Shomali valley offensives displaced more than three-quarters of a million civilians, using "scorched earth " tactics to prevent them from supplying the enemy with aid. [99][100][101]
Taliban decision-makers, particularly Mullah Omar, seldom if ever talked directly to non-Muslim foreigners, so aid providers had to deal with intermediaries whose approvals and agreements were often reversed. [102] Around September 1997 the heads of three UN agencies in Kandahar were expelled from the country after protesting when a female attorney for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was forced to talk from behind a curtain so her face would not be visible. [103]
When the UN increased the number of Muslim women staff to satisfy Taliban demands, the Taliban then required all female Muslim UN staff traveling to Afghanistan to be chaperoned by a mahram or a blood relative. [104] In July 1998, the Taliban closed "all NGO offices" by force after those organizations refused to move to a bombed-out former
Polytechnic College as ordered. [105] One month later the UN offices were also shut down. [106] As food prices rose and conditions deteriorated, Planning Minister Qari Din Mohammed explained the Taliban's indifference to the loss of humanitarian aid:
Role of the Pakistani military
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) greatly supported and funded the Taliban during 1994, some sources even say ISI "created" the Taliban. The I.S.I. used the Taliban to establish a regime in Afghanistan which would be favorable to Pakistan, as they were trying to gain strategic depth . Since the creation of the Taliban, the ISI and the Pakistani military have given financial, logistical and military support. [60]
[108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115]
[116][117][118][119][120][121][122]
According to Pakistani Afghanistan expert Ahmed Rashid , "between 1994 and 1999, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan" on the side of the Taliban. Peter Tomsen stated that up until 9/11 Pakistani military and ISI officers along with thousands of regular Pakistani armed forces personnel had been involved in the fighting in Afghanistan. [123][124]
During 2001, according to several international sources, 28,000–30,000 Pakistani nationals, 14,000–15,000 Afghan Taliban and 2,000–3,000 Al-Qaeda militants were fighting against anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan as a roughly 45,000 strong military force. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf – then as Chief of Army Staff – was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud. Of the estimated 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting in Afghanistan, 8,000 were militants recruited in madrassas filling regular Taliban ranks. The document further states that the parents of those Pakistani nationals "know nothing regarding their child's military involvement with the Taliban until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan". A 1998 document by the
U.S. State Department confirms that "20–40 percent of [regular] Taliban soldiers are Pakistani." According to the U.S. State Department report and reports by Human Rights Watch, the other Pakistani nationals fighting in Afghanistan were regular Pakistani soldiers, especially from the Frontier Corps but also from the army providing direct combat support. [66]
[85][91][125][126][127][128]
Human Rights Watch wrote in 2000:
On 1 August 1997 the Taliban launched an attack on Sheberghan, the main military base of Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum has said the reason the attack was successful was due to 1500 Pakistani commandos taking part and that the Pakistani air force also gave support. [129]
In 1998, Iran accused Pakistan of sending its air force to bomb Mazar-i-Sharif in support of Taliban forces and directly accused Pakistani troops for "war crimes at Bamiyan ". The same year, Russia said Pakistan was responsible for the "military expansion" of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan by sending large numbers of Pakistani troops, some of whom had subsequently been taken as prisoners by the anti-Taliban United Front. [130][131]
During 2000, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo against military support to the Taliban, with UN officials explicitly singling out Pakistan. The UN secretary-general implicitly criticized Pakistan for its military support and the Security Council stated it was "deeply distress[ed] over reports of involvement in the fighting, on the Taliban side, of thousands of non-Afghan nationals". In July 2001, several countries, including the United States, accused Pakistan of being "in violation of U.N. sanctions because of its military aid to the Taliban". The Taliban also obtained financial resources from Pakistan. In 1997 alone, after the
capture of Kabul by the Taliban, Pakistan gave $30 million in aid and a further $10 million for government wages. [132][133][134]
During 2000, British Intelligence reported that the ISI was taking an active role in several Al-Qaeda training camps. The ISI helped with the construction of training camps for both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. From 1996 to 2001 the Al-Qaeda of
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within the Taliban state. Bin Laden sent Arab and Central Asian Al-Qaeda militants to join the fight against the United Front, among them his Brigade 055 .[135]
[136][137][138][139]
The role of the Pakistani military has been described by international observers as well as by the anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud as a "creeping invasion". [123]
Anti-Taliban resistance under Massoud
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance in the spring of 2000, when the Taliban was at the height of its power.
Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum , former enemies, created the United Front (Northern Alliance ) against the Taliban that were preparing offensives against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and those under the control of Dostum. The United Front included beside the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, Hazara troops led by Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq and
Haji Abdul Qadir . Notable politicians and diplomats of the United Front included Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai ,
Abdullah Abdullah and Massoud Khalili . From the Taliban conquest of Kabul in September 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa , Takhar and parts of Parwan , Kunar , Nuristan,
Laghman , Samangan , Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan.
After longstanding battles, especially for the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif , Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Junbish forces were defeated by the Taliban and their allies in 1998. Dostum subsequently went into exile. Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only major anti-Taliban leader inside Afghanistan who was able to defend vast parts of his territory against the Taliban.
In the areas under his control Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women's Rights Declaration. In the area of Massoud, women and girls did not have to wear the Afghan burqa. They were allowed to work and to go to school. In at least two known instances, Massoud personally intervened against cases of forced marriage.
Afghan traditions would need a generation or more to overcome and could only be challenged by education, he said. Humayun Tandar, who took part as an Afghan diplomat in the 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, said that "strictures of language, ethnicity, region were [also] stifling for Massoud. That is why ... he wanted to create a unity which could surpass the situation in which we found ourselves and still find ourselves to this day." This applied also to strictures of religion. Jean-José Puig describes how Massoud often led prayers before a meal or at times asked his fellow Muslims to lead the prayer but also did not hesitate to ask a Christian friend Jean-José Puig or the Jewish Princeton University Professor Michael Barry: "Jean-José, we believe in the same God. Please, tell us the prayer before lunch or dinner in your own language." [85]
Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001. 400,000 to one million Afghans fled from the Taliban to the area of Massoud. [128][141][142]
National Geographic concluded in its documentary Inside the Taliban: "The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud." [128]
The Taliban repeatedly offered Massoud a position of power to make him stop his resistance. Massoud declined. He explained in one interview:
The United Front in its Proposals for Peace demanded the Taliban to join a political process leading towards nationwide democratic elections. In early 2001, Massoud employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals. Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society, including the Pashtun areas. Massoud publicized their cause of "popular consensus, general elections and democracy" worldwide. At the same time he was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s. Already in 1999, he started the training of police forces which he trained specifically in order to keep order and protect the civilian population in case the United Front would be successful. [85][143][144] Massoud stated:
From 1999 onwards, a renewed process was set into motion by the Tajik Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Pashtun Abdul Haq to unite all the ethnicities of Afghanistan. While Massoud united the Tajiks, Hazara and Uzbeks as well as some Pashtun commanders under his United Front command, the famed Pashtun commander Abdul Haq received increasing numbers of defecting Pashtun Taliban as "Taliban popularity trended downward". Both agreed to work together with the exiled Afghan king Zahir Shah. International officials who met with representatives of the new alliance, which Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll referred to as the "grand Pashtun-Tajik alliance", said, "It's crazy that you have this today ... Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara ... They were all ready to buy in to the process ... to work under the king's banner for an ethnically balanced Afghanistan." Senior diplomat and Afghanistan expert Peter Tomsen wrote: "The 'Lion of Kabul' [Abdul Haq] and the 'Lion of Panjshir' [Ahmad Shah Massoud] ... Haq, Massoud, and Karzai, Afghanistan's three leading moderates, could transcend the Pashtun–non-Pashtun, north–south divide." The most senior Hazara and Uzbek leader were also part of the process. In late 2000, Massoud officially brought together this new alliance in a meeting in Northern Afghanistan to discuss, among other things, "a Loya Jirga, or a traditional council of elders, to settle political turmoil in Afghanistan". That part of the Pashtun–Tajik–Hazara–Uzbek peace plan did eventually materialize. An account of the meeting by author and journalist Sebastian Junger says: "In 2000, when I was there ... I happened to be there in a very interesting time. ... Massoud brought together Afghan leaders from all ethnic groups. They flew from London, Paris, the USA, all parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. He brought them all into the northern area where he was. He held a council of ... prominent Afghans from all over the world, brought there to discuss the Afghan government after the Taliban. ... we met all these men and interviewed them briefly. One was Hamid Karzai; I did not have any idea who he would end up being". [144][146]
[147][148][149]
In early 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud with ethnic leaders from all of Afghanistan addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the
international community to provide
humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan and Bin Laden the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. On this visit to Europe he also warned that his intelligence had gathered information about a large-scale attack on U.S. soil being imminent. The president of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, called him the "pole of liberty in Afghanistan". [150][151][152][153]
On 9 September 2001, Massoud, then aged 48, was the target of a suicide attack by two Arabs posing as journalists at Khwaja Bahauddin, in the Takhar Province of Afghanistan. Massoud, who had survived countless assassination attempts over a period of 26 years, died in a helicopter taking him to a hospital. The first attempt on Massoud's life had been carried out by Hekmatyar and two Pakistani ISI agents in 1975, when Massoud was only 22 years old. In early 2001, Al-Qaeda would-be assassins were captured by Massoud's forces while trying to enter his territory. [74][144][154][155] The funeral, though in a rather rural area, was attended by hundreds of thousands of mourning people.
The assassination of Massoud is believed to have a connection to the
September 11 attacks on U.S. soil, which killed nearly 3000 people, and which appeared to be the terrorist attack that Massoud had warned against in his speech to the European Parliament several months earlier.
John P. O'Neill was a counter-terrorism expert and the Assistant Director of the FBI until late 2001. He retired from the FBI and was offered the position of director of security at the World Trade Center (WTC). He took the job at the WTC two weeks before 9/11. On September 10, 2001, O'Neill told two of his friends, "We're due. And we're due for something big. ... Some things have happened in Afghanistan. [referring to the assassination of Massoud] I don't like the way things are lining up in Afghanistan. ... I sense a shift, and I think things are going to happen ... soon." O'Neill died on September 11, 2001, when the South Tower collapsed. [156][157]
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Massoud's United Front troops and United Front troops of Abdul Rashid Dostum (who returned from exile) ousted the Taliban from power in Kabul with American air support in Operation Enduring Freedom . From October to December 2001, the United Front gained control of much of the country and played a crucial role in establishing the post-Taliban interim government under Hamid Karzai.
U.S.-led overthrow of Taliban and further battle against Taliban
Main article: War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
Taliban border guard in 2001
Prelude
On 20 September 2001, U.S. president
George W. Bush , speaking to a joint session of Congress, tentatively blamed Al-Qaeda for the September 11 attacks; the president stated that the "leadership of Al Qaeda ha[d] great influence in Afghanistan and support[ed] the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country". Bush then said: "We condemn the Taliban regime", and went on to state, "Tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban", which he said were "not open to negotiation or discussion": [158][159]
The U.S. petitioned the international community to back a military campaign to overthrow the Taliban. The U.N. issued two resolutions on terrorism after the September 11 attacks. The resolutions called on all states to "[increase] cooperation and full implementation of the relevant international conventions relating to terrorism" and specified consensus recommendations for all countries. [160] [better source needed ]
[161] [better source needed ] According to a research briefing by the House of Commons Library, although the
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not authorize the U.S.-led military campaign , it was "widely (although not universally) perceived to be a legitimate form of self-defense under the UN Charter" and the council "moved quickly to authorize a military operation to stabilize the country" in the wake of the invasion. [162] Moreover, on 12 September 2001, NATO approved a campaign against Afghanistan as self-defense against armed attack. [163]
The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salem Zaeef, responded to the ultimatum by demanding "convincing evidence" that Bin Laden was involved in the attacks, stating "our position is that if America has evidence and proof, they should produce it". Additionally, the Taliban insisted that any trial of Bin Laden be held in an Afghan court. Zaeef also claimed that "4,000 Jews working in the Trade Center had prior knowledge of the suicide missions, and 'were absent on that day'." This response was generally dismissed as a delaying tactic, rather than a sincere attempt to cooperate with the ultimatum. [164]
[165][166][167][168][169]
On September 22, the United Arab Emirates, and later Saudi Arabia , withdrew recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan's legal government, leaving neighbouring Pakistan as the only remaining country with diplomatic ties. On 4 October, the Taliban agreed to turn bin Laden over to Pakistan for trial in an international tribunal that operated according to Islamic Sharia law, but Pakistan blocked the offer as it was not possible to guarantee his safety. On October 7, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan offered to detain bin Laden and try him under Islamic law if the U.S. made a formal request and presented the Taliban with evidence. A Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected the Taliban offer, and stated that the U.S. would not negotiate their demands. [170][171][172]
Coalition attack
The Taliban were removed from power in October 2001 by a unified effort of United Islamic Front (Northern Alliance) ground forces, small
U.S. Special Operations teams and U.S. air support .
On October 7, less than one month after the September 11 attacks, the U.S., aided by the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries including several from the NATO alliance, initiated military action , bombing Taliban and Al-Qaeda-related camps. [173][174] The stated intent of military operations was to remove the Taliban from power, and prevent the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations.[175]
The CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD) units were the first U.S. forces to enter Afghanistan (noting that many different countries' intelligence agencies were on the ground or operating within theatre before SAD, and that SAD are not technically military forces, but civilian paramilitaries). They joined with the Afghan United Front (Northern Alliance ) to prepare for the subsequent arrival of U.S. Special Operations forces. The United Front (Northern Alliance) and SAD and
Special Forces combined to overthrow the Taliban with minimal coalition casualties, and without the use of international conventional ground forces. The Washington Post stated in an editorial by John Lehman in 2006:
On October 14, the Taliban offered to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country in return for a bombing halt, but only if the Taliban were given evidence of bin Laden's involvement. [177] The U.S. rejected this offer, and continued military operations. Mazar-i-Sharif fell to United Front troops of Ustad Atta Mohammad Noor and Abdul Rashid Dostum on 9 November, triggering a cascade of provinces falling with minimal resistance.
In November 2001, before the capture of Kunduz by United Front troops under the command of Mohammad Daud Daud, thousands of top commanders and regular fighters of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agents and military personnel, and other volunteers and sympathizers in the
Kunduz airlift , dubbed the Airlift of Evil by US military forces around Kunduz and subsequently used as a term in media reports, were evacuated and airlifted out of Kunduz by Pakistan Army cargo aircraft to Pakistan Air Force air bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan's Northern Areas . [178][179][180][181][182][183]
On the night of November 12, the Taliban retreated south from Kabul. On November 15, they released eight Western aid workers after three months in captivity. By November 13, the Taliban had withdrawn from both Kabul and Jalalabad. Finally, in early December, the Taliban gave up
Kandahar, their last stronghold, dispersing without surrendering.
Targeted killings
Main article: Targeted killing
The United States has conducted
targeted killings against Taliban leaders, mainly using Special Forces, and sometimes unmanned aerial vehicles. British forces also used similar tactics, mostly in Helmand Province , Afghanistan. During
Operation Herrick , British special forces assassinated at least fifty high and local Taliban commanders in targeted killings in Helmand Province, which received both positive and negative coverage in the British media. [184]
The Taliban also used targeted killings. In 2011 alone, they killed notable anti-Taliban leaders, such as former Afghan President
Burhanuddin Rabbani , the police chief in northern Afghanistan, the commander of the elite anti-Taliban 303 Pamir Corps, Mohammad Daud Daud, and the police chief of Kunduz, Abdul Rahman Saidkhaili. All of them belonged to the Massoud faction of the United Front. According to Guantanamo Bay charge sheets, the
United States Department of Defense believes the Taliban may maintain a 40-man undercover unit called "Jihad Kandahar", which is used for
undercover operations, including targeted killings.[185]
Taliban resurgence after 2001
Main article: Taliban insurgency
Further information: War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
After the attacks of 11 September 2001 on the United States, Pakistan has been accused of continuing to support the Taliban, an allegation Pakistan denies. [63][186]
However, with the fall of Kabul to anti-Taliban forces in November 2001, ISI forces worked with and helped Taliban militias who were in full retreat. In November 2001, Taliban, Al-Qaeda combatants and ISI operatives were safely evacuated from Kunduz on Pakistan Army cargo aircraft to Pakistan Air Force bases in Chitral and Gilgit in Pakistan's
Northern Areas (see Kunduz airlift ). Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf wrote in his memoirs that
Richard Armitage, the former US deputy secretary of state, said Pakistan would be "bombed back to the stone-age" if it continued to support the Taliban, although Armitage has since denied using the "stone age" phrase. [187][188][189][178]
[190][191][192][193][194]
Development of a then-small Taliban insurgency in 2002 until 2006, the year which saw an escalation in Taliban attacks
In May and June 2003, high Taliban officials proclaimed the Taliban regrouped and ready for guerrilla war to expel US forces from Afghanistan. [195][196] In late 2004, the then hidden Taliban leader
Mohammed Omar announced an insurgency against "America and its puppets" (i.e. transitional Afghan government forces) to "regain the sovereignty of our country". [197]
On 29 May 2006, while according to American website The Spokesman-Review Afghanistan faced "a mounting threat from armed Taliban fighters in the countryside", a US military truck of a convoy in Kabul lost control and plowed into twelve civilian vehicles, killing one and injuring six people. The surrounding crowd got angry and a riot arose, lasting all day ending with 20 dead and 160 injured. When stone-throwing and gunfire had come from a crowd of some 400 men, the US troops had used their weapons "to defend themselves" while leaving the scene, a US military spokesman said. A correspondent for the Financial Times in Kabul suggested that this was the outbreak of "a ground swell of resentment" and "growing hostility to foreigners" that had been growing and building since 2004, and may also have been triggered by a US air strike a week earlier in southern Afghanistan killing 30 civilians, where she assumed that "the Taliban had been sheltering in civilian houses". [198][199]
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, indicated that Taliban forces and leaders were surviving. Suicide attacks and other terrorist methods not used in 2001 became more common. Observers suggested that
poppy eradication, which destroys the livelihoods of rural Afghans, and civilian deaths caused by airstrikes encouraged the resurgence. These observers maintained that policy should focus on "hearts and minds" and on economic reconstruction , which could profit from switching from interdicting to diverting poppy production—to make medicine. [200]
[201]
In September 2006, Pakistan recognized the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan , an association of
Waziristani chieftains with close ties to the Taliban, as the de facto security force for Waziristan. This recognition was part of the agreement to end the Waziristan War , which had exacted 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 U.S. distracted by the threat of looming crises in Iraq, Lebanon , and
Iran .[citation needed ]
Other commentators viewed Islamabad's shift from war to diplomacy as an effort to appease growing discontent. [202] Because of the Taliban's leadership structure, Mullah Dadullah's assassination in May 2007 did not have a significant effect, other than to damage incipient relations with Pakistan. [203]
On February 8, 2009, U.S. commander of operations in Afghanistan General
Stanley McChrystal and other officials said that the Taliban leadership was in Quetta , Pakistan. [204] By 2009, a strong
resistance was created, known as Operation Al Faath, the Arabic word for "victory" taken from the Koran, [205][206][207] in the form of a guerrilla war. The Pashtun tribal group , with over 40 million members (including Afghans and Pakistanis) had a long history of resistance to occupation forces, so the Taliban may have comprised only a part of the insurgency. Most post-invasion Taliban fighters were new recruits, mostly drawn from local madrasas.
In December 2009, Asia Times Online reported that the Taliban had offered to give the US "legal guarantees" that it would not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks on other countries, and that the US had given no response. [208]
As of July 2016, the US Time magazine estimated 20% of Afghanistan to be under Taliban control with southernmost Helmand Province as their stronghold, [209] while US and international Resolute Support coalition commanding General Nicholson in December 2016 likewise stated that 10% was in Taliban hands while another 26% of Afghanistan was contested between the Afghan government and various insurgency groups. [210]
In August 2017, reacting on a hostile speech of US President Trump , a Taliban spokesman retorted that the Taliban would keep fighting to free Afghanistan of "American invaders". [211]
Condemned Taliban practices
Massacre campaigns
According to a 55-page report by the
United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians. UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001. They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to
Mullah Omar himself." "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia and should be prosecuted in international courts", one UN official was quoted as saying. The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. Bin Laden's so-called
055 Brigade was responsible for mass-killings of Afghan civilians. The report by the United Nations quotes "eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people". The Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, in late 2011 stated that cruel behaviour under and by the Taliban had been "necessary". [46][47][66][212]
In 1998, the United Nations accused the Taliban of denying emergency food by the UN's World Food Programme to 160,000 hungry and starving people "for political and military reasons". [213] The UN said the Taliban were starving people for their military agenda and using humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war.
On August 8, 1998 the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i Sharif . Of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. Once in control the Taliban began to kill people indiscriminately. At first shooting people in the street, they soon began to target Hazaras. Women were raped, and thousands of people were locked in containers and left to suffocate. This ethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead. At this time ten Iranian diplomats and a journalist were killed. Iran assumed the Taliban had murdered them, and mobilized its army, deploying men along the border with Afghanistan. By the middle of September there were 250,000 Iranian personnel stationed on the border. Pakistan mediated and the bodies were returned to Tehran towards the end of the month. The killings of the Diplomats had been carried out by Sipah-e-Sahaba a Pakistani Sunni group with close ties to the ISI. They burned orchards, crops and destroyed irrigation systems, and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes with hundreds of men, women and children still unaccounted for. [214]
[215][216][217][218]
In a major effort to retake the Shomali plains from the United Front, the Taliban indiscriminately killed civilians, while uprooting and expelling the population. Among others, Kamal Hossein, a special reporter for the UN, reported on these and other war crimes . In Istalif, which was home to more than 45,000 people, the Taliban gave 24 hours' notice to the population to leave, then completely razed the town leaving the people destitute.[50][219]
In 1999 the town of Bamian was taken, hundreds of men, women and children were executed. Houses were razed and some were used for forced labor. There was a further massacre at the town of Yakaolang in January 2001. An estimated 300 people were murdered, along with two delegations of Hazara elders who had tried to intercede. [220][221]
By 1999, the Taliban had forced hundreds of thousands of people from the Shomali Plains and other regions conducting a policy of scorched earth burning homes, farm land and gardens.