Taliban

HISTORY:

In 1979 the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Almost a decade later with the help of the United States and Pakistan, the Mujahideen (freedom fighters) were able to overtake the Soviets. Three years later, 1992, the Mujahideen took over rule of Afghanistan that was back by the Soviet Union. The Mujahideen was not able to reach political unity and ended up fighting one another creating a civil war. One of the Mujahideen factions that were formed after the Soviets withdrew was the Taliban. They were comprised of Sunni Muslims. The Taliban were considered to be loosely organized until they united as the Taliban of Kandahar in 1994. One of their first wins was fighting off rival Mujahideen and warlords on a trade route from Pakistan to Central Asia that the Pakistanis asked for them to protect. It was after that when they took over Kandahar, in southeast Afghanistan. They later took over Kabul in 1996. They were able to help eliminate corruption, restore peace, and allow commerce to resume. They were unable to end civil war, or improve conditions in cities where access to food, clean water, and employment actually declined during their rule. Between 1996 and 2001 the Taliban controlled almost 90 percent of Afghanistan. See the Taliban timeline here.

Taliban rules are meticulously enforced by religious police patrols from the Ministry of Virtue and Vice. The “virtue” squads coordinate Islamic education, while “vice” squads stamp out forbidden evils and enforce the movement’s conception of “pure” Islam. The Taliban bans music, other than religious song, unaccompanied by instruments. Television, movies and videos are also banned. So is kite-flying as it is seen as a distraction from a life of prayer. The Taliban advocates a harsh brand of Islam that bars women from working, girls from attending school, forces women to wear the all-encompassing burqa, which covers them from head to toe, and requires them to travel with a male relative. Men are forced to grow beards, pray at mosques and cannot wear short pants. Their overall goal is the merger of mosque and state. They believe they are obligated to install this form of governance not only in Afghanistan but also all over the world. In their minds they are promoting justice and freedom by instituting Islamic law, also known as Sharia.

SOCIAL:

During the war with the Soviet Union several refugees fled to Pakistan where most of the men who make up the Taliban attended madrassas (schools). The Taliban, which means student, studied Islam at these schools. After the fall of the Taliban in Kabul in 2001, the Taliban now mainly lie in between the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Out of fear of the Taliban, many educated Afghans are leaving their homeland in search of a better future abroad. This lowers the importance or ability to be able to rebuild Afghanistan. Afghans with an education and the skills in greatest demand know they can earn far more and live far better abroad. For example, university professors make less than $2 per hour in Afghanistan, and licensed physicians make about $100 a month working in a government hospital. However, the Taliban are not the sole problem. The country lacks a steady supply of electricity and clean water. Kabul’s air is choked with dust and pollution from diesel fuel that is used to run electric generators and from the huge number of cars crammed into a city designed to sustain only a fifth of its roughly four million inhabitants.

Three countries did support the Taliban; Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. However after the 2001 invasion and the overthrow of the Taliban by the United States Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates no longer support them. There is now what is known as the Pakistani Taliban.

ECONOMIC:

In the beginning the Taliban profited from smuggling operations of mainly opium cultivations and electronics. Due to international pressure they cracked down on cultivation and in 2000 claimed they had cut world opium production by two-thirds. Unfortunately, this deprived thousands of Afghans of their only source of income. Their economy was declining and conditions in cities were not improving. With this and a harsh winter in 2000-2001 many fled to Pakistan. Another item that effects the economy due to the Taliban is the lack of tourism.

The Taliban definitely played a roll in the amount of aid needed to help the afghan people and all those that fled to refugee camps. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) gave 584 million dollars over a six-month period. It is unknown how much the war in Afghanistan has cost the United States but the total as of September 2013 for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan came to almost 6 trillion dollars.

POLITICAL:

The Taliban has a leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and then it has a top leadership council, the Quetta Shura. It also has four regional military councils and 10 committees. To find out the top leaders of the Taliban click here.

The Afghan seat at the United Nations continues to be held by former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was overthrown by the Taliban in 1996.

SOLUTIONS:

Security needs to be improved. This will require an intensified effort to train and supply Afghan security forces to maintain peace and order on their own, so they are not permanently dependent on U.S. and NATO forces. The problem is the amount of members of these security forces that are actually members of the Taliban. In order to win they have to find a way to keep the enemy out of their army and affiliated organizations. This will probably mean more aid from the United States. Another solution is to stop their soft power. They do a lot of their recruiting through social media; there needs to be regulations on this. A third possible solution is to find a way to separate religion from politics. To help alleviate the brain drain and entice professional Afghans to return, the United States and the international community need to make Afghanistan a better place to live.