Today not the least of the factors of the Afghan political life and the whole region is the activity of the Afghan resistance forces of the Taliban. Despite the ten-year-long struggle of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan government against this group, for many years the Taliban has succeeded in avoiding a resounding defeat. Is victory over the Talibs feasible, or they will have to be further reckoned with as an influential force in Afghan politics?
Why the Taliban Was Not Wiped Out?
Today not the least of the factors of the Afghan political life and the whole region is the activity of the Afghan resistance forces of the Taliban. Despite the ten-year-long struggle of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan government against this group, for many years the Taliban has succeeded in avoiding a resounding defeat. Is victory over the Talibs feasible, or they will have to be further reckoned with as an influential force in Afghan politics?
Why the Taliban Was Not Wiped Out
Contemporary Taliban is neither an army nor a state structure but a networked terrorist organization which makes it a difficult enemy to defeat in classic warfare. A well-balanced covert structure of the movement allows to operate in underground environment for many long years and to stockpile resources to continue the struggle.
The Taliban has no integrated HQ in Afghanistan, annihilation of which could paralyze the movement. The ideological guidance is exercised by Mullar Mohammad Omar and the so-called Quetta Shurah, a collegiate body presumably based in the city of Quetta, Pakistan. The Quetta Shurah exercises control over three “frontline” shurahs) stationed in the Pakistani towns of Gerdi, Miramshah and Peshawar. Immune to the Afghan jurisdiction, those bodies are invulnerable to the Afghan police and ISAF.
In Afghanistan the Taliban relies on a network of warlords of separate armed groups authorized by the Pakistan-based shurahs to represent the shadow power in certain areas, to collect taxes, to hold Sharia trial etc. Entire administrative districts of the country fall under complete shadow control of the warlords, with one of them having the status of a shadow governor of the province. In addition, warlords enjoy a sufficiently wide autonomy: the system of an on-site control strongly resembles medieval vassalry where the central power was in many ways titular.
The system is flexible enough. There have been so far practically no cases of armed conflicts over the control of the territory inside individual groups. The reason is that at the time of the distribution of control over provinces each warlord was entrusted with a sufficiently vast territory which is difficult to control single-handedly. Therefore, a field commander is more interested in the neighbors’ and shurah’s support than in the expansion of his area of influence.
A warlord has a team of armed militants (150-200 men strong) at his disposal. Normally, the team would single out a group of nobility of sorts – demolition men, recruiters etc. – who make the commander’s inner circle. Besides, if the authority of the Taliban is strong enough in a given area, a number of “officers” are vested with purely administrative functions related to tax collection from peasants and local businesses, on-site control over sharia law compliance, and interaction with the local population.
The Taliban is still capable of continuing the fight having a certain human potential at its disposal. According to the author’s estimate, at present the overall strength of the Taliban is from 30 to 50 thousand members. Basically, they are militants equipped with small arms, grenade launchers and man-portable air defense (MANPADs). There is also a cluster of “underground fighters”, Taliban henchmen, who refrain from direct participation in combat operations and even hold posts of public servants. Those are informants, keepers of safehouses, propagandists etc., however they are not a numerous lot.
It is difficult to get the exact number of the movement members as a significant part of manpower of each group is a “reserve force” i.e., they live at home in nearby villages or at rear bases in Pakistan. In mid-2000s the reserve force made more than a half of available manpower, while today it has reached 90% of the total because of the stepped up antiterrorist efforts of the authorities and ISAF. Such methods uphold proper secrecy and make detection and total destruction of the Taliban groups more difficult for the authorities.
For a long time the reason of Taliban success was that the ISAF troops refrained from moving off their bases while the Afghan authorities were short of power to provide systematic control over the territory of the country. Habitually, combat operations were limited to air strikes and short raids, thereafter the militants returned to the areas temporarily cleansed from their presence. Besides, missile and bomb attacks resulted in numerous casualties among civilians, which in its turn discredited the ISAF mission. However, such tactics allowed to minimize the loss of foreign military, which prevented the renunciation of the tactics for a long time.
Thereupon, the first eight years of the war in Afghanistan were lost. The foreign command was taking its time in the hope of winning the war by simply wearing out the enemy and waiting for the Afghan law enforcement agencies to get strong enough. However, the Taliban managed to find new sources of finance (primarily, drug trafficking and racketeering) which made it possible to continue their warfare in a new environment.
New Tactics in the War Against the Taliban
Lately, with the understanding of the hopelessness of former approach, the command of foreign troops resorted to more active operations. Ground operations and joint operations with the Afghan Army are undertaken more frequently, networks of strong points and checkpoints are established at the local level. All this facilitated a considerable consolidation of the state power positions in the north and south-west of the country, while the Taliban influence diminished even in Kandahar and Helmand provinces which used to be informal centers of the movement.
The so-called “night raids” proved to be highly effective – surprise operations to capture and destroy enemy troops instead of bombing-missile “surgical strikes”. It resulted in a tangible reduction of casualties among civilians as well as a growing number of captured militants. Information obtained from the taken prisoners helped to detect many Taliban accomplices and “sleeping” agents, and to substantially reduce urban underground of the extremists.
On the whole, Taliban losses are sufficiently large – more than 10 thousand killed and arrested. Many prominent warlords were killed, and their posts were often taken over by inadequately trained younger people who had worked their way up in combat operations. Afghan troops loyal to the official authorities and foreign troops became a tangible threat to the Taliban who had to give up face-to-face fighting tactics and completely turned to the subversive war strategy). At present the Taliban key tactics are roadside bombs and terrorist attacks against rank-and-file public servants, while the civil population becomes primary victims thereof, which leads to a dwindling esteem of the armed opposition.
However, the new tactics of the ASAF command has its flip side. Intensified ground operations entail both weakening of the Taliban and greater losses among the
foreign military contingent. Besides, lately the Taliban managed to launch
a number of resounding terrorist attacks against Afghan politicians and foreign missions in Kabul, which were void of great military importance but had certain negative effect on the public opinion in the US and Western countries.
What’s in Store for Tomorrow?
At present the situation in Afghanistan is ambiguous. On the one hand, for the first time over a long period of time the ISAF succeeded in weakening the Taliban positions, liberating many strategically important regions, and suppressing the intensity of their combat activity. Besides, popularity of the armed opposition among the Afghans has significantly dropped, which undermines its manpower potential.
What’s more, wasted years also affect the situation. Western societies are sick and tired of the war, therefore certain mass-media entities and a part of the expert community can possibly develop a “Hasavyurt syndrome” recurrence: calls for an immediate peace at all costs without an ultimate defeat of the enemy. Nevertheless, such frame of mind is most typical of the European members of the ISAF. On the contrary, the US political elite rather display an intention to establish stationary military bases in Afghanistan under the pretext of supporting the fight against extremism.
Therefore, one can make a conclusion that the Taliban problem could be resolved provided the Afghan authorities and their Western allies managed to safeguard the results of anti-Taliban operations of recent years. It is important to realize that though their victory would result in the crushing defeat of terrorist groups (anti-Russian-minded, among other things), it would also permit the US to significantly step up its influence on Afghanistan and neighboring countries.
* Taliban
The Afghan Taliban is an ethnic movement of Afghan Pashtos born after the collapse of the Communist regime in Afghanistan. The war launched among the groups of Mojahedeen entailed disintegration of the country into “independent principalities” and collapse of national economy. Pushtos, the largest and – in the eyes of many – the titular nation in Afghanistan, were not the least hit thereby.
Talib is a word from Arabic denoting a medresseh student. Historically, the graduates of such schools and young mullahs made the backbone of the Afghan Taliban.
The Taliban started as a Pushto protest movement against the disintegration of the country in an attempt to restore the state integrity and to end the civil war. However, with the lapse of time it degenerated into an extremist party of clerical nature supporting international terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.
For a long time the Taliban maintained relations with Chechen extremists, and in 2000 actually declared war on Russia intending to send armed groups to Chechnya. They also supported terrorists who performed terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. This came as the justification for the US interference into the Afghan conflict which prohibited Taliban control over the entire territory of the country.
After foreign troops had been dispatched to Afghanistan the Taliban declared their major goal – to oust the “invaders” – however, they didn’t give up their claims for the unlimited control of the country. In particular, currently their statements are made on behalf of of a self-declared government of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”.
