Taliban — The Birth
These days social media is abuzz with Afghanistan and the Taliban. Everyone is talking about them..about how the women will be affected, there are images of people cramming to get on planes, some even falling from them..all in an attempt to run away..
While it is awesome that we are talking about them, it is becoming increasing clear that not many are aware of who these guys are and how they came into power..
Keep in mind, I am not in support of their ultra conservative ideology, this article is simply to put forward the information that I have gathered after reading over 5 books on the Af-Pak region.
So to begin with it:
Post the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Americans moved in to support the Mujaheddin who were basically the local Afghans, who had taken up arms in defence of their country. The Americans themselves were more motivated to stop communism than really help the Afghan people. They therefore decided to arm the local Afghans with sophisticated weapons and money so that they fight the battle. The only catch here was that they were not doing this directly, they were routing the money and arms via ISI, the intelligence arm of Pakistan.
The ISI in turn had their own agenda, they wanted to protect their interests in the region, particularly against India. Their thought process was clear and later turned out to be true as well — Afghanistan has and will never be captured, therefore both these superpowers will leave the region post which Pakistan should be in a position to control the entire country. As a result of this strategy led by their then leader Zia-ul-Haq, they began supporting and routing the American funds only to organizations with fundamentalist views. Islamization of Pakistan and Afghanistan was happening at a furious rate and at the same point of time.
Support was offered by Saudi Arabia who matched dollar for dollar for American money coming in. In return they wanted their brand of hardline Islam to be taught in the country as opposed to the relatively easy going and soft Islam that the Afghanis followed. Often Arab fighters and Afghan fighters would avoid each other even in the battlefield with the major reason being the hardline Islam that the Arabs followed.
Finally when the Soviets withdrew, so did the Americans. Like I mentioned before they were there to fight against the Soviets, not really for the Afghan people. Benazir Bhutto had come to power in Pakistan by then; she pleaded with the Americans to stay behind and put in more money towards development and education for Afghanis. The Americans rather choose to leave thereby leaving behind millions of radicalized youth with no-where to go and depots of arms and weapons across the country.
Afghanistan fell into chaos, it has always been a country fraught with ethnic divisions, Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Hazaras and so on, each having their own warlords and each of these warlords having their own separate international backings. The country fell into civil strife soon with warlords fighting over their own dominions. Random pillaging, rapes and crime came to the fore. Every local warlord had checkpoints within kms of each other making trade and normal life unsustainable.
In this entire chaos, two things happened:
- In the southern Kandahar region, a young girl was kidnapped and raped by a local warlord. Infact that warlord was not willing to let her go despite repeated pleas by people around.
- Benazir Bhutto’s husband had some trade wherein his trucks had to pass through Afghanistan and given the number of check-points, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the trucks to even make it with the complete cargo.
As a response to the first incident of kidnapping and rape, people rallied and went to the house of the one-eyed Mullah Omar, (he was the leader of the Taliban, till he died) a former commander who had fought against the Soviets. He lived alone and was more occupied with religious studies till the group of people came to him asking for help. He went to the warlord and made pleas asking for the girl’s release, which did not materialise. He came back with 2–3 former mujaheddin, killed the commander and hung him from the village post.
People, who were sick and tired of the rape and pillaging saw hope in him and soon his group started drawing droves of people who wanted to put an end to the mayhem. They went around killing warlords who were indulging in such acts and soon they managed to clear off a large part of their immediate villages.
This daring act drew the attention of the Pakistani Interior Minister at that time, who suggested Benazir and her husband that the Taliban were probably the only force who were capable of securing their transport. Soon, the arms depots left behind by the Americans and in control of the Pakistanis were opened for them, allowing them to takeover the entire country within a short span of time. The only exception was the Northern Alliance led by the charismatic Ahmad Shah Masood who was assassinated days before 9/11. It would be the Northern Alliance who would be the first recipient of American arms and funds post 9/11 against the Taliban and Osama.
While the Americans along with some allies did take over Afghanistan, it was never really under their control. They only controlled pockets of the country with a large part always being run by locals, who are known to be fiercely independent. The local Afghan government was more of a rag-tag arrangement with the leader more or less being someone who had the powers in Washington behind him/her.
On the other side, the Taliban were always making in-roads and progress with their own case. They had set up their consulate in Qatar and had negotiations going on with multiple partners. On the ground level, they had started to wrestle back control from 2014 onwards.
They knew it was about holding on till Americans got tired and tired they got….all the Taliban had to do was move in.
