Afghanistan’s timeline is replete with political instabilities, wars, massacres and conflicts. Partly due to internal conflicts and majorly due to foreign invasions. Afghanistan has a far longer history as a distinct national entity with continuity to the present than most of its neighbors. Contrary to some views, Afghanistan is a geographically well-defined country. Also, Afghanistan can be effectively governed and politically stable. The monarchial state that ruled from 1933 to 1973 under Zahir Shah was unlike today’s modern industrialized countries. It did, however, keep the peace and maintain order. Although the government did not provide services to most of the population (education and health, for example, were available mostly in urban areas and for elites), it did carry out the above basic state functions, which subsequent governments have struggled to fulfil.
King Zahir Shah, like his father Nadir Shah, had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization, creating nationalist feeling, and improving relations with the United Kingdom. However, Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World war II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War thereafter. This proved beneficial as the country was friends with both the enemies of Cold War. The trouble started brewing when the King was away to Italy and Daoud Khan launched a bloodess coup and became the first President of Afghanistan, abolishing the monarchy.
Daud Khan’s social and economic reforms during his time as prime minister and president were thought to be relatively successful, but his foreign policy tensed relations with neighbouring countries, and he was assassinated in 1978 during the Saur Revolution led by the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). PDPA declared its establishment and Nur Muhammad Tarakki led the party. From here Afghanistan would be laid as hotbed of international terrorism.
In 1979, the Soviet Army took over the land. Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 Afghans were killed and millions more fled the country as refugees, mostly Pakistan and Iran. Between 6.5%–11.5% of Afghanistan’s population is estimated to have perished in the conflict. The war caused grave destruction in Afghanistan and is believed to have contributed to the Soviet collapse and the end of the Cold War, in hindsight leaving a mixed legacy to people in both territories.
The Taliban emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Afghans, weary of the mujahideen’s excesses and infighting after the Soviets were driven out, generally welcomed the Taliban when they first appeared on the scene in the 1990’s. They appeared on the scene as an ultraconservative group with political, religious and social control. Their early popularity was largely due to their success in stamping out corruption, curbing lawlessness and making the roads and the areas under their control safe for commerce to flourish. However they also followed cruel punishments like public execution. They imposed sharia law in the places they undertook.
Taliban fostered Islamic terror groups including al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and anti-India terror outfits operating from Pakistan. One of them had hijacked an Indian passenger plane in 1999 and flown it to Kandahar with Taliban security demanding the release of terrorists locked up in Indian jails. At the height of their power, the Taliban controlled nine-tenth of Afghanistan before Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda carried out the 9/11 terror attacks in the US killing about 3,000 people. The terror attack evoked an angry response from the US and its Nato allies which was directed against al-Qaeda but rooted out the Taliban from Afghanistan for 20 years. The 9/11 attacks brought the US-led Nato forces to Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase after the Taliban again rejected the demand to extradite Osama bin Laden. The US landed in Afghanistan in October. By mid-December 2001, the Talban were fleeing from their strongholds including Kandahar, and an interim government formed by anti-Taliban groups that had met in Germany took over power in Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan — launched on October 7, 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks — is the longest ever waged by the United States.
By the end of 2018, the US was firmly committed to completing a pull-out, putting the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani under pressure of a resurging Taliban.
In January 2019 the Afghan government admitted it had lost more than 45,000 security personnel in the previous five years during the tenure of Ashraf Ghani and the period of Taliban resurgence.
On the other hand, the Donald Trump administration was determined to bring its soldiers back from Afghanistan. A deal was signed between the US and the Taliban in February 2020 following several rounds of negotiations in Qatar. The US and Nato were to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in a time-bound manner.
The US-Taliban war had ravaged Afghanistan. And, in this war-ravaged country, the Taliban did not face the problem of recruitment and funding for its operations. Pakistani madrasas and Islamic seminaries in Afghanistan kept the supply of jihadi fighters on. The Taliban also got help from the antagonism against American presence within Afghanistan.
The Talibs never gave up on their hold over Afghan land. After its defeat at the hands of American forces, the Taliban resorted to guerrilla warfare. It would strategically target installations, public places or officials, military bases and government convoys from 2001 onward. It has succeeded in its strategy and evidently survived possibly the biggest counter-insurgency operations for 20 years by the most powerful military forces of the US and the Nato.
The 2019 survey showed that less than 15 per cent Afghans were Taliban sympathisers. But it drastically changed when the US entered into a peace deal negotiation with the Taliban in 2020. Close to 55 per cent of the surveyed Afghans said they believed that the Taliban would restore peace and order in Afghanistan.
Eduindex News 