Roots Of The Taleban’s Resurgence

Afghanistan has seen a dramatic increase in fighting, especially in the southern and central regions. Coalition forces and the Afghan military released a statement June 24 saying they had killed at least 65 Taliban fighters, as part of Operation Mountain Thrust.
More than 10,000 Afghan, NATO, and US forces are taking part in counter-insurgency operations in the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Zabul, the stronghold of remnants of the ousted Taleban regime. US and Afghan officials see the operation as an effort to extend the reach of the Afghan government and to expand humanitarian and reconstruction efforts.
“Operation Mountain Thrust is not about just killing and capturing extremists,” Col. Tom Collins, a US army spokesman, told reporters. “It is very much about establishing the conditions where the [Afghan] government can extend its authority into areas where it does not currently have a presence.”
Mohammed Diaoud, the governor of Helmand province, has cautioned against a resurgence of the Taleban. “It’s not as if they are all sleeping,” Diaoud told a reporter. He hastened to add that the Taleban do not “have the ability to fight against such an organized operation." Some expect the security situation to improve as NATO raises the number of troops in Afghanistan from some 9,700 to more than 15,000, mostly where insurgents are most active.
How has the enemy risen from the ashes of defeat? One reason could be that the Taleban were never defeated to the extent we have been led to believe. Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been quite selective in his support to the Bush administration’s war on terror. Islamabad has been helpful in the capture of Al Qaeda leaders and in the interception of the organization’s communications. When it comes to the Taleban, Gen. Musharraf has his limitations. The Taleban, after all, was the creation of Pakistan, an organization that was expected to bring order to the factional fighting that followed the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces.
True, the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) wing recruited and trained these fighters – fresh graduates of Islamic seminaries that proliferated in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Islamabad’s backing for the Taleban was most substantial during the civilian governments of Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. To get a true picture of the dynamics involved in Pakistan, the perception that Islamabad has lost its leverage in Afghanistan with the fall of the Taleban regime must be juxtaposed with the rise in the influence of New Delhi. The most democratically elected government would have a hard time bolstering cooperation with the United States against the Taleban.
Pakistan’s support alone cannot explain the Taleban’s resurgence. Reports from the field speak of younger, more aggressive commanders rising through the ranks and becoming more audacious in their tactics. They have benefited from some of the operational weaknesses among coalition forces. The British and Canadian troops who recently replaced some American forces have not yet acquired the skills of the departing soldiers.
At a broader level, the Taleban have been incorporating tactics employed by insurgents in Iraq. The increasing use of suicide bombers and the selection of high-media-value targets bear the hallmarks of the Iraqi insurgency.
Another shift seems to have occurred. Like the anti-Soviet mujahideen before them, the Taleban preferred to fight in rural areas. Warfare in the region’s rugged terrain is deeply etched in many Pashtun tribes. Recent fighting, however, has been focused in more populous areas.
The role of Al Qaeda comes into focus here. If the organization could join hands with avowedly secular Baathists in an anti-US insurgency in Iraq, Al Qaeda certainly would have fewer reasons not to back the Taleban, a wholly owned subsidiary. The precise relationship between Al Qaeda and the Taleban following the latter’s overthrow in late 2001 remains unclear. Some suggest that the leaders of the two groups have fallen out.
However, if Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri are indeed hiding somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, then it is clear they are doing so at the behest of the Taleban, who enjoy considerable support among the region’s tribals.
Finally, the Iran factor comes into play. With American forces bogged down in the Iraqi insurgency, Iran has been the principal state beneficiary. By pinning down the US military on their eastern flank as well, the mullahs in Teheran must hope to improve their leverage against the Americans on the nuclear and a raft of other issues.