A major military offensive two years later following the Peshawar school massacre greatly reduced the group's influence in Pakistan though.
At least three key figures of the Pakistani Taliban had been killed in US drone strikes in , including the group's leader, Hakimullah Mehsud. The Taliban were accused of providing a sanctuary for the prime suspects - Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda movement. On October 7, , a US-led military coalition launched attacks in Afghanistan, and by the first week of December the Taliban regime had collapsed.
The group's then-leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and other senior figures, including Bin Laden, evaded capture despite one of the largest manhunts in the world. Many senior Taliban leaders reportedly took refuge in the Pakistani city of Quetta, from where they guided the Taliban.
But the existence of what was dubbed the "Quetta Shura" was denied by Islamabad. Despite ever higher numbers of foreign troops, the Taliban gradually regained and then extended their influence in Afghanistan, rendering vast tracts of the country insecure, and violence in the country returned to levels not seen since There were numerous Taliban attacks on Kabul and, in September , the group carried out a high-profile raid on Nato's Camp Bastion base. Hopes of a negotiated peace were raised in , when the Taliban announced plans to open an office in Qatar.
But mistrust on all sides remained high and the violence went on. In August , the Taliban admitted they had covered up Mullah Omar's death - reportedly of health problems at a hospital in Pakistan - for more than two years.
The following month, the group said it had put aside weeks of infighting and rallied around a new leader in the form of Mullah Mansour, who had been the deputy of Mullah Omar. At around the same time, the Taliban seized control of a provincial capital for the first time since their defeat in , taking control of the strategically important city of Kunduz. Mullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in May and replaced by his deputy Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, who remains in control of the group.
In the year following the US-Taliban peace deal of February - which was the culmination of a long spell of direct talks - the Taliban appeared to shift their tactics from complex attacks in cities and on military outposts to a wave of targeted assassinations that terrorised Afghan civilians. The targets - journalists, judges, peace activists, women in positions of power - suggested that the Taliban had not changed their extremist ideology, only their strategy.
Despite grave concerns from Afghan officials over the government's vulnerability to the Taliban without international support, the new US president, Joe Biden, announced in April that all American forces would leave the country by 11 September - two decades to the day since the felling of the World Trade Center. Having outlasted a superpower through two decades of war, the Taliban began seizing vast swathes of territory, before once again toppling a government in Kabul in the wake of a foreign power withdrawing.
They swept across Afghanistan in just 10 days, taking their first provincial capital on 6 August. By 15 August, they were at the gates of Kabul. In a comical incident that features in Sabour Bradley's documentary series The Extreme Tourist , the Taliban saw a poster of Rambo with a machine-gun in the home of an Afghan bodybuilder fan of the Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone. Ignorant of the world beyond the sharia law, the Taliban assumed that Rambo was a family member and told the bodybuilder: "Tell your cousin that he must hand over his machine gun to us.
The Taliban were exceedingly ignorant — which made them cruel — but there's no doubt that they saw jihad as a means to establish a state rather than legitimacy to pillage a conquered territory. Building a state was of utmost importance to the Taliban because without it the sharia law could not be enforced. If the mujahideen struggled over resources, the Taliban were concerned with religiosity.
The Taliban's choice of their capital city, Kandahar, was further evidence of their radically new approach to conquest. As already mentioned, historically Kabul drew its importance from the fact that the nation's wealth and the foreign embassies were concentrated there. The mujahideen's vicious fight over the city, which resulted in thousands of dead, and their disregard for public buildings, which they indiscriminately destroyed in rocket attacks, was rooted in the view that the capital city was there to be pillaged by whichever party that came out victorious.
The Taliban, in contrast, disregarded Kabul, moving their capital to the much poorer city of Kandahar. Accounts of Afghans who met Taliban officials all reveal a lack of interest in material goods or symbols of social hierarchy.
Meetings would be held seated on the floor in a circle, erasing all signs of hierarchy that traditionally has been part of Afghan court etiquette. Ironically, such egalitarianism was what the communists had dreamed of in But in such a deeply religious society, it is not surprising that egalitarianism had to come as part of a religious doctrine.
In the autumn of about fifty people gathered at a mosque in Sangisar and formally founded the Taliban movement with Mawlawi Abdul Samad as Amir and Mullah Omar as the Taliban commander This is not the first time the term Taliban was used.
During the Soviet war these Taliban participated in the jihad. The Taliban were known for their skillful fighting capabilities, discipline and the galvanizing effect their religious convictions had on their morale The Taliban swept through Kandahar, cleansing the city of the vicious warlords.
They dismantled many checkpoints and roadblocks that exploited traveling Afghans and they imposed a traditional tribal code of behavior, as well as Sharia based civic order Crews Soon, they expanded to other provinces and took control of Kabul in September of By , the Taliban controlled ninety percent of Afghanistan excluding sections of the north Crews As discussed, the Taliban sought to fix Afghanistan; they had a local perspective, limited horizons, and immediate concerns.
The plights of the Palestinians, Kashmiris, Chechnyans or Muslims elsewhere did not interest the Taliban; in fact, some may have not had any knowledge of those conflicts Crews They restricted their jihad only to Afghanistan.
In their view, if other foreign militant groups declared jihad against their own governments or western countries, then fine, but it did not concern Afghanistan and did not involve them Barfield Historically, Afghanistan was different from the Middle East and South Asia in that there was no particular tradition of anti-Westernism, excluding the disdain for the British Crews The founder of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, first became involved in the jihad in Afghanistan when he opened a half way house in Saudi Arabia for recruits travelling to Afghanistan to fight in the jihad.
He provided very basic military training to high school and college students, as well as fundraised for the jihad. Wealthy individuals, including members of the Saudi royal family, contributed to the cause and the Saudi government offered great discounts for airlines to Pakistan. When Bin Laden finally went to Pakistan and entered Afghanistan, he saw that the Afghan Arabs were not trained properly, so he suggested that he and Palestinian scholar and mystic Abdullah Azzam take on the responsibility of the Afghan Arabs and create a formal role for them.
They created the Services Bureau in Peshawar that provided housing and services to incoming Arabs to fight in the jihad However, the Afghan Arabs were not a significant force in the war against the Soviets and the numbers of Afghan Arabs fighting at any one time were estimated at two thousand, compared to the , Afghan mujadhideen.
Despite the disapproval of other leaders, Bin Laden created the first all-Arab camp in Jaji in , as part of a grander plan to wage jihad after the Soviet war by creating an Arab legion that could defend Muslim causes everywhere They complemented each other quite well, filling in where the other lacked. Zawahiri needed money and contacts, which Bin Laden could provide handsomely.
Bin Laden needed direction and Zawahiri, a veteran propagandist, provided it. As the war started to die down in , tension began to rise between Azzam and Zawahiri, since they both had different goals for after the war and both wanted to use Bin Laden to accomplish those goals. Azzam purported to be against the intentional killing of civilians and wanted to focus on the liberation of Palestine, followed by liberating oppressed Muslims in other regions; whereas, Zawahiri wanted to start revolutions in Muslim countries Bin Laden had slightly different goals from both men.
He wanted to carry the struggle to the Philippines, Kashmir and especially the Central Asian republics where the jihad against the Soviet Union could continue At a meeting in Peshawar on August 11, the leaders of the Arab legion convened to discuss the future of the jihad. As a result of a vote, they formed a new organization assigned the task of continuing the jihad after the Soviets left Afghanistan.
For most of those present at this meeting, this was the first time they heard the name Al-Qaeda, which means base in Arabic. Limited duration determined that the Afghan Arabs be trained and placed with the mujahideen for the remainder of the war. Open duration determined that after the war, the Arabs are to be tested and the best of them be chosen to become members Al-Qaeda The group chose Bin Laden to lead the organization.
When the Soviets left Afghanistan in , the mujahideen turned their guns on each other. As shown, Al-Qaeda was formed to continue the jihad after the Soviet war and make it into a global struggle. Contrasted to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda had a global perspective, expanded horizons, and long term goals. The plights of the Palestinians, Kashmiris, Chechnyans, and Muslims everywhere were of ultimate concern.
The attack on Islam in Afghanistan was just one instance of oppression of Muslims, but they did not have a vested interest in Afghanistan beyond expelling the atheist invaders. It is of crucial importance to understand the geographic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds and sources of recruits of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to discern between the two groups. Both of the most influential founders of Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri and Bin Laden, came from notable families and both were very well educated.
The backgrounds of the Arabs who went to fight in the jihad against the Soviets varied. Some were ostracized renegades in their home countries who were deemed religious fanatics.
Death and martyrdom particularly attracted those who experienced government repression and economic deprivation. Martyrdom and paradise seemed a lot more appealing than the pains of life While another group of Afghan Arabs included those who were curious about the jihad, longed for adventure, and wanted an exciting way to spend their break.
Many came from wealthy families and going to fight in the jihad provided a deeper meaning for their otherwise frivolous or mundane lives Bin Laden and some Al-Qaeda operatives returned to Afghanistan in , after spending time in Sudan.
During their stay, the Al-Qaeda operatives were not popular with the Taliban or other Afghans because Al-Qaeda members were wealthy, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan. Additionally, they were quite racist and viewed the Afghans as uneducated barbarians. The Afghans resented the arrogance with which they drove their air-conditioned, shiny new vehicles that had blacked out windows and Dubai license plates Fergusson The jihad expanded in the years following the Soviet war and became a truly globalized movement.
Al-Qaeda does not institute any formal procedure of indoctrination or recruitment; instead they rely on attracting a wide array of volunteers who join for diverse reasons. Al-Qaeda recruits do not share a uniform practice of religious or political mobilization Landscapes of the Jihad No cultic, ideological, ethnic, class, or personal background commonality unites them In fact, most Al-Qaeda militants receive a secular education, instead of a religious education and many attend American universities Al-Qaeda leaders do not control or own their operatives; instead they network the operatives through the provision of information, contacts, training, and finances This lack of prescribed uniformity explains how Egyptian citizen and German resident, Muhammad Atta, who lead the hijackings, was known to be very pious, while some of his comrades drank alcohol, gambled, and enjoyed strip clubs.
As discussed earlier, many Al-Qaeda members are highly educated and some can speak many different languages. Most of those Afghans, who would make-up the recruits of the Taliban, were orphans who grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan. A solution for these orphaned boys was to enroll them in Islamic madrasas, which followed the curriculum of the Deobandi Sunni Hanafi Islam school of thought, since they were the only institutions that could care for them because they provided, room, board, and an education.
The Deobandi fostered intense mental and moral discipline through an iron regulation of personal conduct Fergusson Two Pakistani religious parties, the Association of the Ulama of Islam and the Islamic Party, created and managed the extensive networks of madrasas that dotted the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.
The founders of the Taliban predominantly came from the Association of the Ulama of Islam. Although too young to take on prominent or leadership roles in the jihad, students of these madrasas still participated in the war against the Soviets and Najibullah regime Crews During the Soviet war and the civil war that followed, the madrasas shut down classes and sent the students to war whenever the mujahideen needed reinforcements. Because girls did not attend these madrasas, these boys lived in a solely male dominated world.
This lack of knowledge or interaction with women can partly explain the oppressive policies and practices of the future Taliban regime.
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