Because of its strategic location, Afghanistan is seen as a springboard to the huge resources of oil and gas in Central Asia. 1973 military coup led by Soviet-backed Communists in the Afghan army ousted the last scion of the Durrani dynasty. The Soviet Red Army marched into Kabul in December 1978.
Soon after the invasion, the U.S., wary of Soviet expansionist designs, sold the ‘Islam-is-in-danger’ story to the Islamic World, especially Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. To further its goal of ousting the Communists from Afghanistan, the U.S. engaged the Saudi royal house and the Pakistani political and military establishment to wage a proxy war against the Soviet Red Army.
Pakistan ensured that America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) channeled all weapons, purchased with Saudi money, through the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which trained the Mujahidden from various countries. It was thus that during the Cold War, Afghanistan became a battle-ground for a ‘hot war’ between the world’s two superpowers, though the U.S. sought to fight its war making the Islamic Mujahidden its proxy.
Stirred, shaken, and finally, sapped by the zeal of the Mujahidden, the Soviet Red Army retreated from Afghanistan in 1989. The defeat of a superpower emboldened the Islamists to think in an entirely new way: with limited numbers and limited resources, a holy war could defeat the other superpower also.
As the war ended, the CIA abandoned Pakistan and Afghanistan without taking back the weapons in the hands of the Mujahidden
Birth of Taliban...
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-89), the civil war between the Red Army and the Islamists saw a constant tussle for control of Kabul. The warlords levied and collected taxes from road users passing through their “area”.
In the summer of 1994, these road bandits stopped a convoy, just north of Kandahar. The convoy belonged to a wealthy and influential Pakistani who demanded that the Pakistani government intervene and secure the release of the captured convoy
The Pakistani government, which did not want to intervene directly, instead directed the ISI to seek the help of the radical Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI). The JUI ran everal madrassas (Islamic seminaries) where a large number of Afghan students (refugees who fled their homeland during the 1979-89 war) were enrolled. The JUI used these students to organise a local militia against the warlords, which had held the convoy to ransom.
About 2000 volunteers of the JUI, who called themselves ‘Taliban’, meaning ‘students’, freed the convoy after decimating the forces of the warlords. Flush with success, they pressed on and successfully captured Kandahar. The Taliban were given a rousing reception by the locals, who hated the local warlord for the misery he had inflicted on them. The Taliban’s impeccable behavior helped them gain a reputation for being honest and religious. At this time, the Taliban did not impose any of the harsh measures (like the imposition of a strict and ultra-orthodox Islamic code of conduct) for which it later gained international notoriety.
By the end of 1996, the Taliban had captured nearly 90 per cent of the country’s territory including Kabul.
The ousted warlords, mostly non-Pashtuns (unlike the Pashtun-dominated Taliban), joined hands to take on the Taliban. However, as they were left with control of only 10 per cent of the country’s territory, they set up base in the country’s north and hence the anti-Taliban grouping came to be called the Northern Alliance.
The Northern Alliance was lent support –military, diplomatic, and logistical – by Central Asian republics, which feared that the Taliban might sweep into their countries. India, mindful of an anti-India and pro-Pakistan government (read Taliban) in Kabul, also provided the Northern Alliance with the required ‘assistance’.
From then onwards, there is a constant war going on between Taliban and anti-Taliban Forces which all of us are aware of….
