The Taliban seems to have the upper hand in the intense fighting with Afghanistan forces following the withdrawal of US and NATO from the country, as it captured several districts of Afghanistan, including Takhar — the country’s northeastern province. According to Afghan watchers, as many as 28 incidents have taken place in the last 24 hours, with the United Nations pegging the number of civilians dead at 40.
Families abandoned their homes in droves, air strikes rained down on neighbourhoods and bodies filled the streets as the Taliban took their fight to Afghanistan’s cities over the weekend, starting a new bloody chapter in the country’s long war.
As the war rages, News18 takes a look at the genesis, current situation and what lies ahead for Afghanistan as it is ravaged by Taliban.
Who are the Taliban?
The Taliban, which means “students” in the Arabic language, fought along the Afghan rebels called the mujahideen against Soviet occupation for nine years. The US provided weapons and money to the mujahideen as part of its policy against the Cold War foe, the erstwhile USSR. At the time, the Soviets were backing the communist leaders who had staged a bloody coup against the nation’s first president, Mohammad Daoud Khan, in 1978.
After the Soviets pulled out in 1989, things turned chaotic, and by 1992, there was a full-blown civil war with mujahideen commanders fighting for power and dividing the capital city of Kabul, which would be showered with hundreds of rockets each day coming from different directions.
The Taliban militia emerged as a substantial player in 1994. Many of its members had studied in conservative religious schools in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.
By 1996, the Taliban had seized the capital and hanged the nation’s last communist president, Najibullah Ahmadzai, from a Kabul square. They declared Afghanistan an Islamic emirate and started imposing their own strict interpretation of Islamic law. They were recognised by only three countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Pakistan.
The Afghan group was able to bring a semblance of normalcy and took the decision to tackle endemic corruption, which won them some initial popularity.
Their six-year rule was marked by abuse of ethnic and religious minorities and curb on seemingly innocuous activities and pastimes such as music and television. Even sports were highly regulated, as male athletes were told what to wear and matches were paused during the five daily prayers, reports the Al Jazeera.
The US invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, after the Taliban refused to hand over al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Afghanistan after being initially invited back to the country by former mujahideen commander Abdul Rab Rassool Sayyaf. The Taliban were forced out of power within a couple of months as the US and its allies began a bombing campaign.
However, the group has gradually regained strength, carrying out numerous attacks on foreign as well as Afghan forces in the past 20 years.
Why is the us pulling out suddenly?
US President Joe Biden has defended his decision to withdraw military forces from Afghanistan, saying that US operations will end on August 31. The fourth US president to oversee the war also defended the speed of the US withdrawal, saying it saved lives. Donald Trump had agreed with the Taliban to pull out US troops by May 2021, but that deadline was pushed back by Biden after he took office in January.
“Just one more year of fighting in Afghanistan is not a solution,” Biden said in a White House speech, “but a recipe for fighting there indefinitely.” He also denied that a Taliban takeover is “inevitable,” saying that the Taliban force of approximately 75,000 fighters is no match for the 300,000 Afghan security forces.
Even after the total pull out is complete, the US is expected to keep 650 to 1,000 troops in Afghanistan to guard the US embassy, Kabul airport, and other key government installations.
Biden said that the U.S. was not in Afghanistan for nation-building purposes and that it was for the Afghans to decide their future.
The manner and speed with which the U.S. military is pulling out after a twenty year presence in the country has been criticised , with looming concerns about whether the current Afghan government can withstand the Taliban and the consequences for the peace, security, and the future of women and girls.
President Ashraf Ghani insists that Afghan security forces are fully capable of keeping insurgents at bay, but there have been reports of thousands of Afghan troops seeking refuge in other countries to avoid the fighting.
How do the Afghan forces and the Taliban compare?
The total strength of the Afghan national security forces — including the army, special forces, the air force, police, and intelligence — was more than 307,000 at the end of April, the US Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a report last week.
The combat forces available on any given day are likely around 180,000, according to an estimate by Jonathan Schroden of military think tank CNA. The precise strength of the Taliban, on the other hand, is not accurately known. UN Security Council monitors last year said the group had between 55,000 and 85,000 fighters.
Foreign assistance is critical for Afghanistan, one of the poorest nations in the world. Its military has required $5-6 billion a year, according to the US Congressional Research Service. Washington has usually provided around 75 percent of it, and has pledged continued support.
Taliban finances are unclear. Their revenues are estimated between $300 million to $1.5 billion a year, according to UN monitors. They generate funds from the country’s huge narcotics industry, through extortion of businesses, other criminal activities, and by imposing taxes in the areas under their control, the monitors said.
The United States spent tens of billions of dollars to raise and equip the Afghan military after it toppled the previous Taliban regime in 2001.
Afghan forces possess a technological advantage over the Taliban, using a wide variety of Western-made weapons, including modern assault rifles, night-vision goggles, armoured vehicles, artillery and small surveillance drones.
They also have something the Taliban cannot match: an air force. The Afghan military has an available fleet of 167 aircraft, including attack helicopters, SIGAR reported.
The Taliban on the other hand have mainly used the small arms and light weapons that flooded Afghanistan over decades of conflict — such as Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifles — while also procuring them from regional black markets, analysts say.
Afghan forces have had their confidence tested for years, suffering high casualties, corruption, desertions, and now the departure of foreign troops and the end of US air support.
Poor planning and leadership have also been blamed for low morale.
The Taliban, on the other hand, have displayed greater cohesion despite reports of internal rifts in recent years, analysts say, pointing to religious zeal as well as the promise of material gains as contributing factors.
Afghans queue up for escape lifeline
With the Taliban making huge advances in the countryside as foreign forces wind up their withdrawal, many Afghans — those with the means, at least — are looking for a way out. Dozens begin lining up at the passport office in Kabul before dawn most days, and by eight in the morning the queue already stretches for a good hundred metres.
Applicants slowly shuffle forward, clutching see-through plastic folders containing their documents. Occasionally a police officer is needed to collar queue-jumpers trying their luck.
India’s stake
With the Taliban being joined by Pakistanis in Afghanistan in large numbers, their fighters have been instructed by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to target the Indian-built assets in the war-torn country, over the last many years.
The Indian government has invested over $3 billion in the Afghanistan reconstruction effort since the last two decades and the 218-km road between Delaram and Zaranj Salma dam; and the Afghan Parliament building which was inaugurated in 2015, are the biggest symbols of Indian contribution for the Afghan people.
As per inputs, the Pakistani and the Taliban fighters there have been sent in with specific instructions to target the Indian built assets and remove any signs of Indian goodwill work there, government sources monitoring Afghanistan told ANI here.
India had made an immense contribution towards the education sector in Afghanistan and had played a big role in training their teachers and support staff.
Afghan foreign minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar on Tuesday spoke to his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar about convening an emergency session of the UN Security Council on stopping the Taliban’s violence and atrocities across Afghanistan.
India, currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, holds the rotating presidency of the body for August.
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