Despite its war on it for 20 years.. For these reasons, Washington did not include the Taliban in its list of terrorist organizations

Washington -

The US State Department's list of terrorist groups includes more than 60 groups from different parts of the world. There are groups in Asia, Africa, Europe, Central and South America, but the list does not include the Afghan Taliban movement, while the list includes the "Taliban movement - Pakistan branch.

Among the most famous American list groups are the Basque separatist movement in Spain, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, as well as well-known groups in the Middle East such as Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hezbollah and Palestinian factions.

During his speech to the American people on the developments in Afghanistan, it was remarkable that Biden avoided any negative descriptions of the Taliban movement, and despite describing a number of movements and groups as terrorists, he did not address the same thing when he spoke about the Taliban.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, which were planned by Al-Qaeda from Afghan territory under the control of the Taliban, the administration of former President George W. Bush did not include the movement on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

The Taliban refused to hand over the leaders of al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, to the United States, and the two sides fought a fierce war that extended for 18 years, in which more than 6,000 Americans were killed, yet the administrations of Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden committed to the same approach in not including the Taliban on the list terrorist organizations.

Two decades after US forces removed the Taliban movement from power in early 2002, and expelled it from the capital, Kabul, the movement made its way back to power.

Legal and political consequences

After nearly 18 years of fighting, and at the beginning of 2020, in the absence of representatives of the legitimate Afghan government at the time, American negotiators sat and on the other side of the table representatives of the Taliban sat down to negotiate an agreement that would see the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, which was done Accessed on February 29, 2020.

These meetings would not have taken place, except because the Afghan group was not included in the US State Department's list of "foreign terrorist organizations."

This designation, primarily political, is legal in essence, opening the door to financial penalties, visa restrictions, and the right to prosecute individuals who support terrorist groups.

American standards

The classification of a group as a terrorist according to the criteria of the US State Department requires the availability of several conditions that are summarized in participating in terrorist activities, and that these activities constitute a threat to US national security interests.

Some experts argue that Washington preferred to view the Afghan Taliban largely as an insurgency aspiring to rule the country, but the real reason for not including the Afghan Taliban on the list has more to do with political considerations than whether it meets the legal criteria for designating terrorists or not.

Although the Taliban has not been designated a terrorist group by the State Department, the Department of the Treasury has designated the Taliban since 2002 as a terrorist entity.

This separate designation means that the movement and its members are subject to sanctions and embargoes, and Congress passed a law in 2008 placing restrictions on Taliban members' immigration to the United States.

Many commentators attribute this American inconsistency largely to political reasons, a fear that four American administrations have known about labeling the group as a foreign terrorist organization, which would anger them and make it difficult for American diplomats to engage them in any political process.

On the other hand, some analysts assert that classifying the Taliban as a terrorist organization would have given American negotiators a tool of pressure that could be used to obtain concessions from the movement, allowing to facilitate the formation of a national unity government, an opportunity that was wasted and cannot be retrieved.