Taliban Terror I: Rise of an Emirate

How the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan.

The following is the first of three articles titled “Taliban Terror.”

In the first weeks after the fall of Kabul, Afghans were adjusting to the new situation. The war was over, but no one knew what to expect next. The Taliban rolled into the capital on August 15, 2021, and quickly seized total control. Scenes of panic and mass evacuation were displayed by the media across the world. Two days after their victory, the Taliban hosted their first press conference. They promised not to permit al-Qaeda and its allies to operate on Afghan soil. They also pledged new protections for Afghan women.

Origins of the Taliban

The Taliban first emerged in 1996, after years of civil war. It was established by jihadist troops from the anti-Soviet war of the 1980s. After a decade of fighting the Soviets, Afghanistan was left in ruins. There are two major factions of the Taliban. One is centered in Kandahar, the other along the Pakistani border. The Kandahar faction was led by a reclusive young mullah named Muhammad Omar Mujahid. Omar was a distinguished fighter against the Soviets, and lost his right eye during a Russian attack. Omar was a religious fundamentalist, who imposed his extremist ideology on the Afghan populace. He forbade any imagery depicting humans, which is regarded as idolatrous in Islam. He ordered the destruction of the giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan, a priceless archeological treasure nearly a millennium and a half old. He cracked down ruthlessly on alcohol, music, and movies. Those deemed sinners were publicly executed. Omar’s regime gave shelter to a rich Saudi fugitive. His name was Osama bin Laden. He also aided an Egyptian jihadist, named Ayman al Zawahiri. From their base of operations in Afghanistan, the two terrorist masterminds began plotting against the West. They bombed two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and assaulted the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen.

Invading Afghanistan

When al-Qaeda orchestrated the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, bin Laden continued to be protected by the Taliban. The Taliban regime refused all American requests for extradition. So within month of 9/11, the US launched Operation Enduring Freedom. With aid from Britain and other Western allies, the American invasion was a staggering success. The Taliban was quickly deposed, and Omar forced into hiding. A $10 million bounty was placed on his head. With the Taliban ousted from power, the US and its allies now had to fill the vacuum. In late November of 2001, at a large hotel outside Bonn, the UN sponsored a conference to determine who would rule a post-war Afghanistan. Various Afghan factions were invited, including the Northern Alliance, Pashtun allies, and Afghans with ties to Iran. The Taliban was completely excluded from the process. The conference selected Hamid Karzai, a charismatic English-speaking Afghan politician with connections to the CIA. But Taliban loyalists held out, still hoping to negotiate a settlement. The US resolutely refused their offers. Bounties were placed on their leaders, who were hunted down. What the US did not understand, was that the Taliban enjoyed legitimacy in Afghanistan. Their support was strong in the remote Pashtun areas of the south and east. The Pashtuns refused to educate their women. An anti-American insurgency was already in the works.

Insurgency

By 2002, the Taliban had been all but defeated. The Bush administration prepared to fight another war, this time in Iraq. With the Americans distracted in Iraq, the Taliban was able to quietly organize in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar’s forces crossed over just the border into Pakistan. In the subsequent years, the reconstituted Taliban mounted a fierce offensive against the US and NATO forces. Thousands of fighters were better disciplined and better equipped than ever before. Most of their activity was relegated to the south, in Helmand and Kandahar. Roadside bombs, IEDs, and explosive devices were used to harass the Coalition occupiers. The Afghanistan War sprawled out of control. New resources were needed. To make matters worse, the Haqqani network was terrorizing the east of the country. Their namesake and leader was Jalaladdin Haqqani, another seasoned terrorist from the Soviet-Afghan War. During the Soviet invasion, Haqqani had received millions of dollars and tons of armament from the CIA. Now, he had turned against his former American ally. The Haqqani branch was among the most virulent of the Taliban troops. They maintained close ties to other jihadist militants, including bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He also had a close connection to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who attempted to manipulate him for their own purposes. Pakistan bet that the US presence would be short-lived, and so was afraid to rupture their ties with the former Taliban regime. Karzai was irritated by Pakistan’s apparent lack of cooperation, even threatening to invade the country. But the new Afghan government was unable to effectively crack down on the Taliban zealots, who relied heavily on suicide bombers.

Petraeus’ war

In Washington, a new president took office. It appeared Bush’s war was a failure, and Obama ordered a review of its policies. Within a few months of his inauguration, he ordered a surge of 21,000 more troops. Among the chief architects of the new strategy was General David Petraeus. According to the general, the war was failing because of an over-reliance on drone strikes and Delta Forces. Petraeus urged a new strategy, called counter-insurgency, or COIN for short. The general outlined his new strategy at a security conference in Washington. He explained that US forces needed to secure the civilian population. To do this, American soldiers had to do much more than simply clear out the terrorists. They also needed to jumpstart the economy, rebuild damages, and restore vital infrastructure. The US turned its attention to training up Afghanistan’s security forces. However, Karzai’s government suffered from corruption, which undermined its legitimacy among the Afghan populace. Obama adopted some of Petraeus’ counterinsurgency tactics, but his force of 20,000 soldiers was far less than what was needed to secure the country. The real number needed would have been about 300,000 to 500,000 Americans. So to maximize the effectiveness of the 20,000, US planners targeted the worst areas in the south. In July of 2009, the Marines were sent in to seize Helmand province. Ten years after the Twin Towers were attacked, the war in Afghanistan was in full swing. Over the subsequent years, 350 Marines died to secure those areas. In late 2009, the Pentagon requested an additional 30,000 troops, which Obama obliged. But despite the controversial surge of supplies and manpower, counter-insurgency did not diffuse the Taliban insurgency.

Seizure of power

Fast forward to 2022. Kandahar is the capital of an Afghanistan under the Taliban’s totalitarian grip. Despite their empty assurances to the international community, the jihadist regime continues to rule with an iron fist. Barbers are prohibited from shaving beards. Women are banned from the workplace. Girls are not allowed to attend school beyond the sixth grade. Higher education is not permitted for women. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been repurposed as the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The justification for their barbarism derives from the putative revelations of the Quran, which imposes death by stoning to adulteresses and the amputation of limbs for theft. Shaken badly by the Taliban’s virulence, Afghanistan remains feeble and sickly under the yoke of their tyrannical regime.

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