The Plight of the Afghan People

The Taliban, in Pashto meaning ‘students’, emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions of the Afghan Civil War, following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. They are essentially a Deobandi Islamist religious-political movement and military organisation. They largely consisted of students from Pashtun areas who appeared in religious seminaries. From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban had power over three quarters of the country and preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam, enforcing a strict interpretation of Sharia (or Islamic law).

Source: BBC News

Under the leadership of Mohammad Omar, the movement spread through Afghanistan, extending the Taliban’s influence. In 1996, the totalitarian Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was established and they captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, overthrowing the regime of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, and there was a transfer of capital to Kandahar. The Afghan people, weary of the Mujahideen warlords rule and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, were accepting of the Taliban initially, who promised to restore peace and security to a country that has only known war for so long. They grabbed the citizens’ attention by stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and allowing commerce in the country to flourish. However, they also introduced punishments according to their interpretation of Sharia law, with public executions for convicted murderers and offenders. The rules for women were severe, with them being forced to wear full length burka, and banning the education of girls above 10. They banned activities and media. They violated countless human rights, an example being in 2001, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in central Afghanistan, despite international outrage. During their rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban and allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians and denied UN food supplies to more than 160,000 civilians. Religious and ethnic minorities were severely discriminated against during their rule. According to the United Nations, the Taliban and its allies were responsible for about 76% of Afghanistan's civilian casualties in 2010 and about 80% in 2011 and 2012. The Taliban government was only endorsed by three countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Ahmad Shah Massoud, the commander of the Northern Alliance, an Anti-Taliban coalition, was assassinated by Al-Qaeda operatives. Massoud, an expert on guerrilla warfare and also known as the Lion of Panjshir, was highly respected among anti-Taliban groups and his death took a heavy toll on the resistance.

Afghans carry a picture of Massood in Kabul, Afghanistan

Source: Council on Foreign Relations

On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing them into the World Trade Centre in New York and Pentagon in Washington D.C. Although none of the hijackers were Afghan nationals, the Taliban were accused of providing sanctuary to the suspects - Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda movement. On October 7, 2001, a US-led military coalition with British support launched a bombing campaign against the Taliban, officially launching Operation Enduring Freedom. Canada, France and other countries including several from NATO Alliance pledged their complete support. They launched attacks in Afghanistan, mainly involving U.S. airstrikes on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, which was assisted by a partnership of U.S. Special forces, the Northern Alliance and Pashtun anti-Taliban forces and by the first week of December the Taliban regime in the country had collapsed. Other senior Taliban seniors, including the group's leader at the time, Mullah Mohammad Omar and bin Laden, evaded capture, despite one of the world's largest man hunts.

After the fall of Kabul in November 2001, the UN invited major Afghan factions, like the Northern Alliance, to Bonn, Germany, to sign the Bonn agreement, installing Hamid Karzai as the interim administration head to maintain security in Kabul. Although NATO allies join the US and take over by the new Afghan government in 2004, the deadly Taliban attacks are still there.

Hopes for negotiating peace were raised in 2012, when the Taliban were to open an office in Qatar, but these talks were quashed by the Taliban who accuse Washington of reneging on their promises, keeping mistrust on all sides high and the violence continued.Despite having the most foreign troops to date, the Taliban are slowly regaining power, expanding their influence in Afghanistan and destabilising key regions of the country, and violence in the country has returned to levels not seen since 2001. In 2014, NATO's international forces ended their combat mission, leaving the security of the country to the Afghan armies. This allowed the Taliban to seize more power and territory.

In 2017, President Donald Trump decided to press ahead with an open-ended military commitment to prevent an emergence of a “vacuum for terrorists”, which was unlike the policy of withdrawal followed by his predecessor. In 2019, negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban reached their highest level yet, building on the momentum of 2018. In 2020, U.S. special envoy Khalilzad and the Taliban's Baradur signed an agreement paving the way for a major retreat of the military from Afghanistan.

In April 2021, President Joe Biden announced that U.S. military forces will leave Afghanistan by September 2021. The Taliban, who have continued capturing and contesting territory across the country despite ongoing attempts at peace by the Afghan government, worsened attacks on Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). By July 2021, the U.S. troops had withdrawn almost 95%.

In August, the Taliban launched a direct attack and captured the capital of southern Nimruz Province. After that, several provincial capitals began to fall in rapid succession. Within days they captured more than ten other capitals, including Jalalabad in the east and Mazir-i-Sharif in the north. Soon after, on 15 august 2021, they entered the capital Kabul, causing the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country and the Afghan government soon collapsed. The Taliban then announced that they have taken entire control of the presidential palace as well as the city. The rapidity of the collapse of the Afghan government threatens a mass exodus of refugees from the country and has exacerbated an already dire humanitarian crisis.