In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States launched a blitzkrieg war against the Afghan Taliban, ending the "Islamic Emirate."
However, within a few years the Taliban regrouped and returned to the battlefield.
By 2016, Taliban fighters invaded at least a third of Afghanistan, and today, after the withdrawal of the United States of America from Afghanistan, the Taliban dominated the military and political scene again, by entering Kabul and controlling all Afghan regions.
In order to understand the extent of the Taliban's rootedness and resilience in society and militarily, Al Jazeera Net conducted an interview with Professor Theo Farrell, Professor and Executive Dean of Law and Human Sciences at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
Farrell previously served as Head of War Studies at King's College London, and has published several books on military and strategic affairs, including Military Adaptation in Afghanistan, issued by the prestigious Stanford Press, and Britain's Unwinnable War. Afghanistan, 2001-2014" (Unwinnable: Britain's War in Afghanistan, 2001-2014). He was an advisor to the British Army Command and the International Auxiliary Forces for Security in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2010;
We leave you with the dialogue:
What are the sources and social roots that contributed to the resurgence of the Taliban?
Social endowments are important in mobilizing people to join or support the insurgency. Social endowments include pre-existing networks, shared identities, shared beliefs, and rules of reciprocity, all of which facilitate cooperation and teamwork, particularly in situations with short-term costs and the promise of long-term rewards. term.
The cohesion of the rebel organizations is linked to the social networks established before the war, and the "social endowments" are important in mobilizing people to join or support the rebel movement.
The cohesion of the rebel organizations is also linked to the social networks established before the war, where the rebel leaders are often socially suited to the existing structures of collective action within the organization, which can be embodied in two forms: the first is horizontal networks and the second is vertical links; Horizontal networks connect people who may be geographically dispersed through shared ideological beliefs, and many insurgencies develop structures to provide services to civilians. This requires the rebel groups to transfer part of the resources - which were supposed to be allocated to the insurgency - to civilians to ensure their loyalty.
This is largely embodied within the Taliban movement, which has a horizontal service network that provides religious education and military experience and is a strong ground for strengthening the ideological framework of the movement; From the moment of its founding, this movement emanating from the Deobandi schools in Pakistan mobilized thousands of young people from these schools to fight against the Soviets in the eighties; This made it organize itself into larger networks called "fronts," each front led by a commander who was able to distribute military supplies from foreign donors across his front to field commanders.
The main challenge for Hamid Karzai's interim Afghan administration in 2002 was to assert the government's authority outside Kabul and prevent a return to civil war;
Karzai did this primarily by including several warlords in the new Afghan government.
In this way, the corrupt warlords who were driven from power by the Taliban in the 1990s returned to become local governors and police chiefs.
Under the guise of official authority, these reincarnated figures have robbed and abused the population, and this has provided fertile seeds for the gradual return of the Taliban to southern and eastern Afghanistan since 2004.
And when Karzai became president, the Taliban were not fighting, but the US government's intervention with the Afghan authorities against the Taliban's families is what made the Taliban return to the fighting battles in Kandahar, Paktia provinces and others.
The book "Britain's Unwinnable War in Afghanistan 2001-2014" (Al Jazeera)
Since 2004, the Taliban have returned in a more powerful way to southern Afghanistan, where the movement has penetrated into rural areas; It began with small teams of Taliban visiting villages to make contact with sympathizers, foment rebellion, and intimidate or kill sheikhs and pro-government clerics. As confidence in them increased, Taliban envoys held open meetings to call people for jihad against the "corrupt government" and "foreign invaders", and Taliban mullahs were sent to call for jihad in the villages; The strategic task of these "vanguard" divisions was to prepare the ground for the subsequent escalation of the insurgency.
In a sign of a strong horizontal network, the Taliban fronts in southern Afghanistan were unified under the Quetta Shura.
Invariably, rivalries emerged between some of the Taliban's most senior leaders;
The rivalry between Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Mullah Dadullah was particularly evident, and in due course this led to the emergence of two additional leadership shuras rivaling the Quetta Shura.
However, they did not openly challenge the primacy of the Quetta Shura.
This was symbolically significant and consistent with the Taliban ideology, which maintains the centrality of obedience to the emir.
What is the value of the Taliban's vertical ties to local communities, and how did they use the courts to increase their popularity?
Vertical ties were equally important to establishing the Taliban insurgency. A closed political system was developed under Karzai. Government resources flowed mainly into and around the family networks of incumbent warlords, and oppressed communities allied with the Taliban for protection from pro-government militias.
The rebellion mapped the pre-existing tribal differences, exemplified by the Ishaqi community within the Singin province of Helmand, and for generations, the Aliseh and Alikuza community in northern Helmand were in competition with the Ishaqzai.
Under the Taliban, Eshaqzai held a number of key government positions in the province, including the position of governor, and then things turned around when Karzai appointed one of the warlords of Alizai as regional governor and also by appointing warlords on Alikuzai as heads of the regional secret police, then warlords used Their government positions as cover for taxing and harassing Eshaqzai.
When the Taliban took control of large parts of the territory, they set out to attempt to re-establish an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan, and there was great demand for Taliban intervention in resolving the recurring rural disputes over land, trade, and family matters.
But when the Taliban took control of large parts of the territory and set out to attempt to re-establish an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan, there was great demand for Taliban intervention in resolving the recurring rural disputes over land, trade, and family matters.
In this regard, the Quetta Shura sought to replicate the court system of the Islamic Emirate in the 1990s structuring a diversified court in Helmand, thus the Taliban was able to re-establish the emirate's court system for some time.
However, most of the provinces knew the administration of justice by shadow rulers, Taliban mullahs and military leaders, and the Taliban's regularity in the justice system earned them popularity and respect and the support of their insurgency by local communities, especially in southern Afghanistan.
Due to the increasing pressure of ISAF operations, the Taliban switched in 2009 from the permanent courts to the mobile courts in Helmand, however Taliban courts remain widely used because compared to the official Afghan courts they provide greater justice, less bureaucracy, and less corruption.
Why did the Taliban focus on the military side despite its penetration and control over the social fabric?
The Taliban's focus on the military side was because they were unable to provide public services to the people in the areas under their control.
This resulted in an intensification of conflict, which led to a decline in support for the Taliban over time in many parts of Afghanistan.
Aside from those villages and tribal groups allied with the Taliban, many farmers in eastern Afghanistan were seeking peace, but were constrained by Taliban restrictions that cordoned off the movement of civilians.
The Quetta Shura structured shadow rulers to ensure that they took action to win communities over, such as banning arbitrary executions and limiting attacks on teachers and health officials.
The 2007 and 2010 editions of Al-Leila set out procedures for communities to lodge a complaint with the Quetta Shura Council if the governor of a province or district is too repressive or corrupt.
Two provincial governors were replaced in Sangin in 2009, one for allowing Taliban fighters to attack local farmers who received government agricultural aid and the other for his hard-line administration of justice.
The Taliban also took measures to strengthen the military chain of command and improve field commanders' compliance with Quetta's directives, while attacks on schools and extrajudicial killings declined in 2010 and 2011.
How did the Taliban achieve military adaptation to the existing situation around it?
The Taliban proved to be a highly adaptable opponent during the war with the Soviets;
Where the Afghan fighters developed experience suitable for guerrilla tactics, which included in particular the laying of mines and ambushes for convoys, and conducting raids against military bases. In the war, the Taliban gained great tactical experience and a high ability to adapt despite the fall of the Islamic Emirate.
The Taliban's loose organizational structure, based primarily on a large number of semi-autonomous fronts linked to the various shura councils, posed a major problem for the Quetta Shura in managing the war effort.
Initially, the Quetta Shura Council tried to get the fronts to cooperate by offering financial incentives, the Taliban also tried to mobilize forces by moving experienced fighting groups across the provinces, and by 2008 the Taliban leadership realized that these attempts were futile.
The Peshawar shura began developing a more centralized command system for Taliban fighters in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan. This new system included the creation of regional military committees to plan large-scale operations, manage logistics, and deal with conflicts between frontline commanders, as well as appointing local military commissioners to ensure compliance by field commanders. For guidance from the Peshawar Shura Council, a structural adaptation that serves the military side.
Pakistan's extensive military support to the Taliban, including the provision of military advisors, contributed to the establishment and operation of this organizational structure;
The Peshawar Shura was formed in part from a breakaway faction of Hizb-e-Islami in 2006, and in this way Hizb-e-Islami ideas of how to organize the insurgency entered the Taliban movement.
Pakistan's extensive military support to the Taliban, including the provision of military advisors, contributed to the establishment and operation of this organizational structure.
The Peshawar Shura was formed in part from a splinter faction of Hizb-e-Islami in 2006, and in this way Hizb-e-Islami ideas of how to organize the insurgency entered the Taliban movement.
This more centralized system was later adopted, with some reluctance, by the southern Taliban upon the appointment of Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir as head of the Quetta Military Commission in 2009;
Baradar appointed Zakir to oversee the Quetta Military Commission, and Zakir was able to ensure the spread of the new centralized system across the south, and the foreign aid flowing through Pakistan since 2008 was increasingly directed toward the Peshawar shura, allowing them to gradually increase spending on the Quetta Shura in financing the war. This made the Taliban's military efforts more professional.
The book "Military Adaptation in Afghanistan" (Al-Jazeera)
How did the Taliban adapt tactically to the changing military situation around it, and how was this manifested in the choice of weapon used?
The Taliban has adapted its tactics in response to battlefield pressures;
In Helmand, for example, the Taliban used conventional infantry attacks in 2006 and 2007 in an attempt to overrun British outposts.
The number of Taliban killed by these operations is not specified, but British Defense Intelligence estimated them in the thousands.
In response to these increasing losses, Taliban field units have adapted by moving toward using new tactics.
According to my interviews with Taliban leaders, they emphasized that it was the necessity of minimizing losses on the battlefield that changed their tactics;
As an example of tactical adaptation, the Quetta Military Commission in 2010 issued a general order directing field units to avoid direct combat and to make greater use of guerrilla tactics.
The Taliban also used a variety of warships commensurate with their tactics, including the introduction of heavy anti-aircraft machine guns, heavy mortars, advanced anti-armor weapons, and the use of sniper rifles and improvised explosive devices.
The most significant military technology-related adaptation made by the Taliban was the transition to the use of IEDs on an industrial scale, which they implemented in Quetta and Peshawar;
The Taliban established mine committees to lead this effort.
In 2006, about 30% of all coalition deaths were due to IEDs, the following year the share rose to nearly 40%, and from 2008 to 2010 IEDs were responsible for more than half of all coalition deaths.
With a shift in tactics came a new military training system backed by directives from Quetta and Peshawar that compelled tactical commanders to undergo regular training and advice on guerrilla tactics. According to a Taliban commander in Helmand in early 2012, the focus is on IED training, making guerrilla jackets, preparing for guerrilla bombers and guerrilla fighting.