O Taliban is a Sunni fundamentalist group that emerged in 1994 during the Afghan Civil War. It took part of the country and established, in 1996, a government marked by human rights violations. It was ousted from power by US troops in 2001, and it was retaken after the departure of the U.S, in 2021.
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Summary on Taliban and the resumption of power in Afghanistan
The Taliban is a fundamentalist organization that emerged in the Afghanistan, in 1994, and controlled the country from 1996 to 2001.
It was dismissed as an offshoot of the Thetried of 11 of sseptember.
The United States sought to reform the Afghan army and form stable democratic governments.
Donald Trump began negotiations for withdrawals of US troops.
Joe Bidem completed the end of the occupation of Afghanistan.
A Taliban offensive brought it back to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
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What is the Taliban?
Briefly, the Taliban is a
islamic fundamentalist group Sunni which emerged in 1994 in Afghanistan during the WarCivilAfghan. This group was created within the mujahideen, rebels who settled in Afghanistan in the late 1970s. These rebels emerged as an opposition to the socialists, who had ruled the country since 1978.With US and Pakistani support, the mujahideen led an armed resistance against the Afghan government and Soviet troops, when they invaded the country in 1979. Over 10 years, the mujahideen were trained and equipped with US money and were responsible for the expulsion of the Soviets.
In 1992, the mujahideen defeated the government socialist that existed in Afghanistan and, from 1992 to 1996, they fought each other for the power of the country. One of the groups that took part in this struggle was the Taliban, which defended the imposition of Islamic law, known as Sharia. The Taliban is known for its extremely conservative positions.
The Taliban emerged among the mujahideen conservative and contrary to western and progressive values. It was formed by students from Afghan religious schools, known as madrasas. Your name is a reference to the students of these madrasas that thickened the lines of the group. Taliban, in Pushto, means “student”.
the Taliban ruled much of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, with an extremely authoritarian government that executed opponents and punished the civilian population with amputations and public floggings. The Taliban government has also banned the population from accessing Western culture and prevented women from working and studying, in addition to forcing them to wear the burqa.
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Why was the Taliban ousted from power?
In 2001, the Taliban controlled much of the territory of Afghanistan, and in that year, a terrorist group that was installed inside the lands controlled by the organization carried out an attack against the United States — you September 11 attacks, led by al-Qaeda and that resulted in the death of nearly three thousand people.
O US government demanded the Taliban hand over the al-Qaeda leader, osama bin laden, and close all bases of the terrorist organization. O Taliban refused to accept the demands of the United States, and thus the international community supported the US government in a Afghanistan invasion, in October 2001.
In December of the same year, the Taliban had been stripped of power in Afghanistan, and the United States initiated preparations for the formation of a new government in the country and for the training and formation of an army Afghan. The fundamentalist group, although weakened, continued to pose a great threat to the country.
Between 2001 and 2021, Taliban members were in hiding in places in Afghanistan and Pakistan and they remained active, recruiting soldiers, raising funds, buying weapons and carrying out attacks. A series of terrorist attacks that took place in Afghanistan during this period were the work of the Taliban.
In 2013, the founder of the Taliban, Muhammad Omar, died after contracting a mysterious illness. His death was only known internationally in 2015, and since 2016, the organization is led by Badwtherewi Hibatullah Akhundzada.
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Taliban's resumption of power
When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, certain goals were at stake:
Bin Laden's Death;
The extinction of al-Qaeda and the Taliban;
The formation of a stable democratic government in Afghanistan.
Only the first objective was achieved by the North Americans, and only in 2011 was the execution of Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan. The US presence continued to be the only factor that guaranteed the existence of the Afghan government that emerged after the fall of the Taliban. However, the intervention in Afghanistan has become a nightmare for the United States.
It is estimated that the US government has spent about 83 billion dollars to train and arm the Afghan army. In addition, Afghan governments proved to be very corrupt and unstable, and the war became unpopular with the American population. The result of this sum of factors: the United States decided to leave Afghanistan.
barack obama (2009-2017) promised to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, but failed to keep his promise. his successor, Donald Trump (2017-2021), also opted for the end of operations path and even decided to negotiate terms of peace with the Taliban, between 2019 and 2020. The agreement negotiated the withdrawal of US troops in exchange for peace guarantees from the Taliban.
The agreements failed, and Trump nevertheless announced that he would withdraw US troops from the country, but he also failed to keep that promise. It was only with the government of Joe Biden that the promises to withdraw the troops were put into practice. The US president announced that they would leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021.
The expectation was that the Afghan government would use the structure left by the Americans to lead the country and resist an eventual war against the Taliban. It was also hoped that the Afghan army would be able to resist the Taliban and that Kabul would be able to fight for six months in the event of an attack.
The US government hastened the withdrawal of its troops, carrying out it in August 2021. The departure of US troops immediately began a Taliban military campaign. During 2001 to 2021, the Taliban supported itself through security services, the sale of opium and through secret donations.
To complicate matters, the US exit came at the time of the Taliban's greatest strength since 2001. It is estimated, for example, that in May 2021, the group had about 85,000 soldiers. Before August, he already controlled a part of Afghanistan, although the big cities were still in the hands of the government of President Ashraf Ghani.
With the withdrawal of troops in August, the Taliban began its military campaign, which conquered Afghanistan with a fulminance. In less than two weeks, nearly every major city in the country was conquered, including the capital, Kabul. Afghan government representatives, like President Ghani, fled, leaving the way open for the group to take power.
The US government announced that it would send new soldiers to Afghanistan to lead the withdrawal of the US diplomatic corps working in the Asian country. In addition, it is estimated that the hasty withdrawal of US troops has caused weapons such as armored vehicles and drones to have fallen into the hands of fundamentalists.
The Taliban's arrival in Kabul resulted in despair scenes, with part of the city's population heading to the airport to desperately flee the country. These people fear the Taliban government, which between 1996 and 2001 was marred by numerous human rights violations.
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Future of Afghanistan after Taliban takeover
The departure of US troops from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban to power in the country demonstrated the great failure of 20 years ofThe american occupation. The United States invested billions of dollars in the Afghan army, and that force proved unable to fight the Taliban, suffering defeat after defeat.
The US government has also failed to build a democratic alternative in Afghanistan, and the governments that have sprung up in Afghanistan have proven to be unpopular, corrupt and weak. Furthermore, the conflict proved to be absurdly expensive, and the United States is estimated to have spent more thantwo trillions of dollars in Afghanistan.
The Taliban advance has already resulted in executions in some parts of Afghanistan, and some of the advances are estimated to have have happened in the country in the last 20 years, as the large presence of women in schools and in the job market, exist. Another fear is the reckoning that the Taliban can promote in the country for having been ousted from power 20 years ago.
The United States and other Western nations have shown no interest in recognizing the legitimacy of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. However, international observers point to the possibility that the China acknowledge this, as the stability of Afghanistan would be of interest to Chinese interests in the region in the long term. Another point that shows that maybe China can recognize the Taliban government it's the fact that the group's biggest ally — Pakistan — is its biggest economic partner today.
Image credits
[1] lev radin and Shutterstock
[2] Dmitriyk21 and Shutterstock
[3] Jono Photography and Shutterstock
by Daniel Neves
History teacher
