Who are the Taliban?

Let’s talk about the Taliban.

They’ve been fighting the government and its allies in Afghanistan for 20 years.
Today they seem stronger than ever. And now the Americans are going home. Biden wants his troops out by September 11. And that could strengthen the Taliban even more.

So who exactly are the Taliban? How is it that they have so much power? And why are people worried they’ll take over Afghanistan — again?

To understand the Taliban you need to know what happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Afghan guerillas called the mujahideen fought a Soviet occupation for nine years. They even got money and weapons from the CIA.
In 1989 the Soviets pulled out and the next few years were pretty chaotic. By 1992 there was a full-blown civil war with tribal leaders fighting for power. Two years later a militia called the Taliban started getting attention. Many of its members had studied in conservative religious schools in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan and some of them had also fought as mujahideen. And they had their own plans for the country. By 1996 the Taliban had seized the capital. They declared Afghanistan an Islamic emirate and started imposing their own strict interpretation of Islamic law. Then 9/11 happened. The US was after al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, who was hiding out in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s help. The Taliban said they wanted proof he was behind the attack. And when they refused to hand him over immediately the Americans invaded. Within a couple of months, the Taliban were forced out of power and Afghanistan got a new interim government. Three years later it got a new constitution and Hamid Karzai was elected president.
While that was going on the Taliban had regrouped. They wanted foreigners out and they wanted back in. What followed were years of devastating conflict — and it’s still going on. More than 40,000 Afghan civilians were killed. At least 64,000 Afghan military and police and more than 3,500 international soldiers dead.

The US alone has spent almost a trillion dollars on war and reconstruction projects. And after all that Afghanistan is still deeply unstable and the Taliban are still a force to reckon with. Today the Taliban have as many as 85,000 full-time fighters and training camps across the country. And the area they control has been growing. Right now the Taliban control one-fifth of Afghan districts. On top of that half of all districts are considered contested which means the Taliban have a strong presence in many of those places too. And they control parts of some major highways.
They’re also well organized. The Taliban’s leader is Haibatullah Akhundzada. He heads a council that oversees about a dozen commissions in charge of things like finance, health, and education. Below them are local officials in charge of everyday services. So in a way, the Taliban have set up a parallel state. They even run their own courts which can be pretty popular among Afghans. All that control has also made them rich. According to Taliban members and a UN committee, they make close to $1.5 billion a year. They’ve always made a lot of money from growing opium poppies and the drug trade. But they’ve found even more ways to generate income. Last year they made millions from mining and trading minerals and even producing methamphetamine. They also have their own tax-collection system and receive funding from abroad — although suspected sources, like Pakistan and Iran, deny it. Over the years the international community has tried to get the Taliban and the Afghan government talking — or at least to talk about talking. There was even a meeting in the Maldives at one point. And during a brief Eid ceasefire in 2018 Taliban and Afghan soldiers were seen mingling in Kabul — even praying together. But overall peace negotiations haven’t achieved much.

The question now is what will happen when the roughly 10,000 US and NATO soldiers leave?
Will the Afghan government be able to survive? And what will the Taliban do?

Well, the prospects for peace and stability aren't looking great.
Even while peace talks have been going on almost 1,800 Afghan civilians have been killed or injured in the first three months of this year. That’s almost 30% more than last year.
There’s also been a wave of assassinations that people blame on the Taliban. Afghans are already asking themselves what life might be like if the Taliban take over again.
Will they rip up the constitution which protects basic human rights. In a New York Times op-ed, the Taliban tried to clear things up saying they want to “build an Islamic system … where the rights of women that are granted by Islam — from the right to education to the right to work — are protected.”
And right now there are some places under Taliban control where girls are in school. But not everywhere.

So how much support is there for the Taliban?

Well, according to a major public opinion study done in 2019, 85% of people said they had no sympathy for them.
People may not like them but the Taliban know what they want and they’ve shown that they’re in it for the long haul. So far their strategy seems to have worked. 

We are always monitoring the situation in Afghanistan and the negotiations here in Doha so check out our website for the latest reports.