Taliban: Rise of the Emirate
- Pierre
- Aug 25, 2021
- 4 min read
Last week, the Taliban retook its place in Kabul, cementing themselves as the new de facto rulers of Afghanistan. The 20 year war in Afghanistan, whose initial goal was to “free” the Afghan people from the tyrannical government which also happened to be more favorably in support of Al-Qaeda, was all for nothing. Against all odds, the Taliban, which was seen as a collective of Islamic fundamentalist sheepherders to the public eye, managed to regain power from american trained and funded soldiers. Who are the Taliban? What is their history? And who supports them?
Source: IB times
The Taliban initially started as a branched out faction of the Mujahideen, an anti-communist movement in the region that was formed in response to the attempted soviet invasion and the establishment of a communist puppet state. This movement was initially supported by the US and Pakistan which was interested in establishing a Pro-Pakistani government. The Pakistanis wanted a Mujahideen government because of their religious cohesion with the group, as a majority of the population in Pakistan are Sunni Muslim Pashtuns,is also the main religious ideology of the resistance movement.
Source: Al Jazeera
The US sought to, as it has multiple times in other parts of the world, to counter the domino effect and to minimize and pulverize any communist threat that could be posed to the “free world” and the USA. The Pakistani ISI(Inter-Services Intelligence) trained nearly 83,000 Afghan Mujahideen by taking advantage of Soviet bombings which displaced many rural afghans, forcing them to migrate to neighboring Pakistan. Meanwhile, the US under Operation Cyclone, funded and armed the Mujahideen with the help of the CIA(Central Intelligence Agency). The CIA armed them with FIM-92 Stinger missiles, a weapon which some say was instrumental to the success of the group in Afghanistan as it was the only weapon that was able to effectively contest against aerial offensives made by soviet aircraft and helicopters.
Source: Wall Street Journal
The Taliban as aforementioned, was only a faction of the larger Mujahideen but was able to take the place of the newly installed interim government. While this would only last for 5 years, it formed the foundations of what was to come. During the brief period of the Mujahideen interim government, there was constant conflict between many camps of the group comparable to a civil war. Eventually a group would form under the guise of Mullah Mohammad Omar, called the “Students”, more commonly known as, the Taliban, in the fall of 1994. They gained notoriety after ousting many corrupt governors in the southern Afghan region of Kandahar, and had supporters from the ex-communists to other Mujahideen fighters.
Source: Wikimedia
However, their main appeal came from their resentment against the ethnically Tajik, Rabbinic government. Pakistan ended up being one of their major foreign backers. Hoping that the Taliban would let them have easier access to Central Asian Markets and also allow them to have the transportation of natural resources from said region back home. In 1996, after Massoud ordered a retreat from Kabul to the Hindu Kush, the Taliban entered the city and declared the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Source: The Disaster Tourist
However, this would be short lived as just a few years later, the US would invade Afghanistan with the help of NATO and the Northern Alliance, a group in opposition to the Taliban. This war was started over fears that Al-Qaeda was using the Taliban to train and indoctrinate more soldiers for their cause. On the 17th of December 2001, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was overthrown. On the 28th of December 2014, Operation Enduring Freedom, the first phase of the war which saw NATO soldiers fight against the Taliban, ended.
Source: Wikimedia
After the end of OEF, a Taliban threat was still present in the region and could threaten the US backed Islamic Republic. The US, obviously not wanting their efforts to go to waste, began training and funding the newly established army. This new army would be armed with US weapons and warfare technology. Despite all this funding and arming, they were still extremely weak due to issues within, these issues stem from not adequately paying police officers and often not giving water, food, and other necessities.
Source: Wikimedia
Thus, demoralizing troops and officers of the law, making them less likely to want to defend a country by not even willing to give them the necessities to live. This in turn made them extremely reliant on the US, which had a more disciplined and more reliable army for protection. This was the solution for a time, until the US wanted out. And we all know due to recent events, what that did. In less than a few months, Afghanistan returned to Taliban hands.
Source: India Times
In conclusion, the Taliban were an offshoot of a radical Islamic group that wanted to conciliate power for themselves after they saw their paternal organization, who would eventually turn against them, as their main incompetent enemy. They would fight against them and eventually win but were ignorant of the other side’s more powerful enemy, the United States. The US backed opposition would eventually lose against them as the enemy grew more reliant. The US’s and NATO’s pull out gave the Taliban an open window to retaliate and retake their perceived rightful throne. The US never directly supported the Taliban and wasn’t involved in their creation, however they have supported from other major nations such as Pakistan therefore indirectly supported the terrorist group
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