Taliban

Template:TOC-right The modern Taliban movement, or the Taliban Islamic Movement of Afghanistan (TIMA), took control of Afghanistan in 1994, imposing a strict Salafist rule, as or more conservative than the Wahhabi movement of Saudi Arabia. Both featured a "Department for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice." They argued they were creating a stable Islamic state that the leaders of the jihad against the Soviets could not create.

At the present time, the modern Taliban forms a substantial part of the insurgency in the Afghanistan War (2001-), as well as an active insurgency in Pakistan. The Taliban historically had a strong presence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. After continuing fighting in areas along the Afghan border, Pakistan negotiated with Taliban fighters. Fighting continued, and, on May 7, 2009, Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani of Pakistan formally revoked a peace agreement with the Taliban, accusing the Taliban of repeated violations. Taliban forces had fought to within 60 miles of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

The modern Taliban movement unquestionably abrogated the human rights of citizens, especially women, and also provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They were ousted from power in the Afghanistan War (2001-), but continued to fight as guerrillas even after the formation of an interim Afghan government. The question remains open if having a Taliban faction in a new coalition would increase stability. Many also question if there are moderate Taliban elements that could and would participate in a government of national unity.

Tribal loyalties

Afghanistan is a tribal, not national, society. One must understand ethnic and cultural divisions to understand any of its social dynamics. The modern Taliban movement, rising in the chaos following the withdrawal of the Soviets in the Afghanistan War (1978-1992), connected a current Islamist trend with traditions of the Durrani Pashtun, whose traditional stronghold was Kandahar. President Hamid Karzai is a Durrani. Until the overthrow of King Zahir Shah in 1973, Pashtun, and especially Durrani Pashtun, made up the khan class, Afghanistan's equivalent to aristocracy. Under the pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and then under Soviet occupation, a new sort of legitimacy arose: commanders of mudjahedin resistance movements. When the Soviet military withdrew, however, neither dynastic nor leadership provided consensus legitimacy.

Not all Afghans who fought the Soviets were Pashtun; the Northern Alliance military commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was a Tajik. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a regional warlord whose alliances have often changed, is an Uzbek.

Traditional taliban and Afghan leadership

"Taliban" can be translated as "seeker" or "student" of Islam "Lower-case" taliban were not new to Afghanistan. After sufficient study, a taliban might become a mullah. Traditional taliban joined the Pashtunwali warrior ethos with piety, selflessness, which created a different approach to leadership. Few mudjhaden bands did not have taliban members, who were young, unmarried, and with a high tolerance for shahadat (martyrdom). The talibs were part of the band, but kept their identity, often eating and sleeping apart from the other fighters.

The traditional Taliban go back at least two centuries in Afghan history, to Ahmad Shah Durrani, a king who died in 1773 and established an Islamic identity. The classic Taliban had been a "loose Islamic civil service", returning to villages as teachers and religious leaders. Traditional opponents of the Durrani are the Galzai tribe, centered in Gardez, which has two branches: Ahmed Zai and Soloman Khail. They speak Pashtun, as opposed to Dari, the other major language of Afghanistan.

Another type of legitimacy was religious, even in spite of Afghan Islam not being monolithic. Prior to the Taliban movement, authority came from three lineages; the mullah was a simple preacher with relatively little status.

• syed, or descent from the family of the Prophet,
• pir, or strong personal relationship to Allah, distinct from the communal Muslim tradition; especially important in Sufism
• ulama, religious scholarship

Mullahs had not been local leaders, in contrast to khan, or to maliks, or tribal leaders. Indeed, there were many jokes about greedy or ignorant mullahs. The Taliban gave authority to mullahs, filling a vacuum. Syed had become less important with detribalization and urbanization. Islamic knowledge had also been undermined by kings and Communists. Tradional mullahs were community servants.

The typical Taliban leader is young, with little formal education or administrative experience beyond the madrassa. This often offended Pashtuns who felt they should have more influence.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the symbol of the Taliban, belongs to the Galzai tribe, an exception among the mostly-Durrani Taliban leadership. The Ghalzai, however, were prominent in the Communist government and the mudjahadeen. Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani, who commanded the Taliban military in 1991, is of the Zadran tribe, part of the Soloman Khail.

The rise of TIMA

The resurgent TIMA was made up principally of graduates of the Haqqania madrassa near Peshawar. That religious school's teachings drew from a 19th century Indian Salafist Muslim movement called Deobandism, which argued against modernization and believed that Muslims needed to live in the same way as the Prophet and his Companions. It was influenced by Wahhabi thinking.

The Taliban both draw on their interpretation of Deoband Islam, but also a strong Pashtun concept of tradition and patriarchy, at odds with other tribes such as the Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. The students making up the core of the Taliban, however, had grown up in a radical Islamic environment outside Afghanistan; their religion was more central than their tribal identity

Current Indian Deobands, however, do not preach holy war, but an Afghan and Pakistani branch does. "Everybody thinks of Islam as Arab, but you have to pay attention to Islam in South Asia," said Vali Nasr, a political scientist at the University of San Diego. "If you don't, you confront something like the Taliban and everyone says, 'Where did these guys come from?' To understand that, you have to understand Deoband." Current Deobandis say they teach "a socially conservative vision of Islam purified of folk and Hindu customs and concerned with teaching individuals how to practice their faith properly."

Deobandi understanding of Islam is derived largely from the Jamiyatul Ulama-i-Islam (JUI) movement in Pakistan, which had built hundreds of madrassas in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas. JUI had many factions, the most prominent of which was that led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, also known as Maulana Sami ul-Haq.

Haqq's principal madrassa is the Darul Uloom Haqqania, in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. Haqqania trained eight cabinet ministers of the previous Taliban regime, and also recruited Pakistani students to fight for the Taliban. During one Taliban military campaign in 1997, the entire student body was sent to join the militia. The Taliban 
has maintained ties with other militant Pakistani Islamist groups, including the Sipah-e Sahaba, a virulently anti-Shi'a organization, which joined the assault on Mazar-e-Sharif in 1998.

Interviewed in 2007, ul-Haq did not speak of a traditional Taliban role in Afghanistan.

Well, the Taliban were busy in their studies when the factional wars in Afghanistan reached their climax. Naturally, when the leaders could not make it, the students had to come to the rescue of the war-torn country. Thus, the Taliban rushed back to rescue their country from the factional fighting. [i.e., after the Soviet withdrawal] Similarly, when America attacked Afghanistan in late 2001, the same event happened—it is understandable that when infidels attack a Muslim country, then it is the duty of every Muslim to defend it. Maulana Sufi Muhammad of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) also took thousands of people for jihad, which was a commendable action.{

Pakistani objectives

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Pakistani foreign and economic policy set great value on having a land route to the former Soviet Central Asian Republics. Any such route would go through Afghanistan. Pakistan saw its best chance with a Pashtun government, and the ISI first supported Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Benazir Bhutto, in 1993, favored an alternative route to Turkmenistan, going through Kandahar in south Afghanistan rather than the route from Peshawar to Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif in the north.

Early Taliban visibility

There appears to be a mixture of reality and legend in how the Taliban first gained local popularity. Many of the groups that fought the Soviets were run by warlords, and, after victory, ruled as bandits in their localities. Mullah Omar is generally said to have come to prominence by stopping the rapes of Afghan children.

Taliban representatives also visited the government of interim president Burhanuddin Rabbani, discussing fighting Hekmatyar, whose forces were shelling Kabul. Rabbani was open to anyone who would oppose Hekmatyar.

Pakistani support

Hekmatyar had not succeeded by 1994, and Pakistan looked elsewhere. Pakistan's Interior Minister Babar was offering to reconstruct roads in Afghanistan. Bhutto met non-Taliban warlords Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan. Babar sent out a convoy on October 29, 1994, which was stopped by the southern warlords. On November 3, Taliban forces broke the hostage situation, and then moved to take Kandahar, making them a credible factor. Babar told newsmen the Taliban were "our boys", although they insisted they were independent. Nevertheless, the Taliban set up a road route and accepted assistance, as well as JUI volunteers from the Pakistani madrassas. Bhutto denied formal support of any faction in Afghanistan, saying she could not stop recruits from crossing the border.

Issues with the Taliban are not limited to Afghanistan. During the Afghanistan War (1978-1992), Pakistan supported various Islamic fighters against the Soviet Union, both as part of its geopolitical balancing act with China and India, and also to be responsive to internal Islamist groups. Those groups were especially strong in Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). The Taliban may have involved from a local religious and militia group to a credible military force in 1994, under a retired Pakistani general, Benazir Bhutto's Interior Minister Naseerullah Baber.

Both government factions and tribal elements may have continued to support the Taliban, but, as the Taliban have become more of a military threat inside Pakistan, and Pakistan's government evolves, it is in Pakistan's interest to stop Taliban insurgency. There is a growing recognition of a need for more trust among Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States.

Taking control

Under Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban advocated an Islamic revolution, under Sharia and without the foreign mujahedin. Most of their members were Pashtun that had fought the Soviets. Taliban spokesman Ma'soum Afghani said, in 1997, "Arabs fulfilled their role in Jihad in Afghanistan against Communism. We have relationships with some of them but not all of them are under our control or on our land. They live in Afghanistan as guests, but the land of Afghanistan will not be used against any other Islamic country."

In late 1994, Hashmat Ghani Azmadzai, leader of the Ahmadzai tribe, accepted what he considered a fair offer by the Taliban, to restore the king, hold a loya jirga (great council), and bring order to what was warlord anarchy. Supporting the Taliban, at this time, was seen as defending against enemies of the Pashtun.

Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in May 1996. According to Time', it was his $3 million contribution that gave the Taliban the margin of victory in September 1996.

Another faction came from Amadzai's brother Ashraf, who has served as Finance Minister in the interim administration. Some Dari-speaking factions see him, and his Afghan Mellat party, as an authoritarian who wants to "Pashtunize" the other ethnic groups: Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmen, etc. See government evolution below.

At first, they were welcomed by President Rabbani and northern leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Haji Qadeer, chairman of the Eastern Council (Shura-e-Mashreqi) and governor of Nangarhar Province, fled to Peshawar, as the Taliban captured his capital, Jalalabad on September 11. When Hekmatyar's base fell on February 14, 1995, he moved out of the south.

Massoud first counterattacked, on March 6, 1995, against Hazara Shia leader Abdul Ali Mazari in south Kabul. Mazari made a temporary alliance with the Taliban, but died in Taliban custody; this was to become a permanent wound between the Shias and Taliban. Massoud pushed back the Taliban.

In August, Ismail Khan struck at the Taliban from his base in Herat in the west, threatening Kandahar but being thrown back in September. He fled to Iran, and a mob destroyed the Pakistani embassy in Kabul. The loss of Kabul permanently shifted the initiative to the Taliban. Mullah Omar, on April 4, 1996, achieved a spiritual dominance when he wrapped himself in the Cloak of the Prophet, took the oath of bayat from his followers, and declared jihad.

Taking Kabul on 27 September 1996, they ousted the government and killed former President Najibullah and his brother. By June 1997, they were in effective control of most of the country.

Rule under the Taliban

The Taliban, even after capturing Kabul, were vague about their plans and structure. Mullah Wakil said

The Sharia does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1,400 years ago and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the last 14 years.

Governance

At first, thee was a six-member ruling council in Kabul but ultimate authority for Taliban rule rested in the Taliban's inner Shura (Council), located in the southern city of Kandahar, and in Mullah Omar. In October 1997 the Taliban changed the name of the country to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with Mullah Muhammad Omar, who had previously assumed the religious title of Emir of the Faithful, as head of state.

The inner Shura was predominantly Durrani Pashtun, which caused resentment among other ethnic groups. Mullah Omar, however, was Ghilzai. It had a core of 10 members, but up to 50 could be at a given meeting. The core called themselves Kandahari, although they could be from Uruzgan or Helmand as well as Kandahar Province.

Two other councils reported to the inner Kandahar shura: the Kabul Shura, or acting national cabinet, and the miliary council. Some individuals were members of both. Provincial governors, police chiefs, mayors and other officials also exerted power; the Taliban had replaced all but some governors with Kandahari Pashtuns. They either spoke no Dari or spoke it poorly.

International engagement

Early U.S. involvement with the Taliban reflected both a desire to broaden the government, but also to encourage oil-related economic development in Central Asia. The U.S. also had a strategic interest in denying Russia the oil in its former Central Asian republics, especially Tajikistan. While Afghanistan was not known to have oil reserves, it was in a key geographic position if Caspian area oil was to move away from Russia.

Turkey had given limited support to the mudjahedin in the 1980s. Turkey and Israel had allied, and initially saw the Taliban as a restraint on Iran. By 2000, however, Turkey saw the Taliban as a threat, having united, in antiterrorism, the United States, Russia, China, India, Iran, Israel, Belarus, Armenia and all Central Asian republics except Turkmenistan. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan stood alone.

While Tajikistan had a civil war between 1992 and 1997, both sides cooperated with Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Afghan Tajik leader. Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were opposed to Pashtun expansion. The Taliban had accused Massoud of trying to create a "greater Tajikistan", which was of great concern to the other Central Asian republics before the Taliban victory.

Turkmenistan wanted to export oil, but had no good export route: Russia wanted to limit exports to the West, Iran was unacceptable to the U.S., and Afghanistan was in civil war.

Eventually, a pipeline under the Caspian Sea to Turkey was started, which also appealed to Turkey's interest in a pan-Turkic region including Turkmenistan.

Afghanistan and oil

In October 1996, Zalmay Khalilzad wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post, saying "The Taliban does not practice the anti-US style of fundamentalism practiced in Iran." He had been a consultant for the Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and had done an analysis, for Unocal, of a pipeline from new oil fields in Turkmenistan, which would cross Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Two oil companies, Unocal and Bridas, the latter which was 60 percent owned by U.S. Amoco, wanted to build a pipeline from new oil fields in Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, into Pakistan.

Human rights

Economic and geopolitical factors, however, soon clashed with the Taliban's style of government; Khalizad may have been correct about Taliban fundamentalism being different from that of Iran only in that Iran was less stringent.

Taliban searched everywhere for acts and practices they deemed inconsistent with the Qu'ran and Sunna. In an interview with Mullah Muhammad Hassan, "We cannot say this or that is permitted becasue it is allowed in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Iran. We have studied many religious books and in all of them, the things we have prohibited are prohibited. So while we may say that what these countries do are their business, just as what we do is ours, we also say nothing they say or do allow them to escape from the basic fact: They are permitting things that are prohibited in Islam." It is worth noting that only three countries, all Islamic, ever gave the Taliban diplomatic recognition: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE); the UAE later withdrew it.

On a personal basis, they required all men to grow beards of specified characteristics, and banned women from working outside the home, requiring them to wear the face and body cover of the chador.

Outside observers considered them especially hard on women, although Human Rights Watch also condemned the treatment of women by the former Northern Alliance, renamed the United Front. The Taliban, specifically, required women to wear head-to-foot covering and be acccompanied by a male relative in public. Women could not work outside the home except in health care, girls over 8 were not allowed to attend school, and the most rigorous enforcement, in 2000-2001, were against educated women. "Before the Taliban took power, accounted for 70 percent of all teachers, about 50 percent of civil servants, and 40 percent of medical doctors in the country."

The Clinton Administration never recognized the Taliban. After a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions condemning Taliban treatment of women, the U.S. closed its embassy in Kabul in August 1997.

Continuing oil interest

In November 1997, Unocal invited a Taliban delegation to Texas and opened a training center for Afghans. According to Unocal CEO John Imle the company spent between $15 and $20 million on its Central Asia oil pipeline (CentGas) project, including preliminary feasibility studies, humanitarian projects and lobbying the Taliban. At that dinner, Khalizad challenged the Taliban minister of culture and information, Amir Khan Muttaqi, over Koranic language of the treatment of women.

The Taliban moved to official contact on December 15, with talks, in Washington, with Undersecretary of State for South Asia Karl Inderforth, arranged by Unocal. Speaking with anonymity, a State Department spokesman said ""We made our position clear, namely that the pipeline could be useful for Afghanistan's rehabilitation, but only if the situation was settled there by political means...a broadly-based government together with their rivals before the ambitious project to build an oil and gas pipeline is launched"

Unocal's vice president of international relations, in 1998, testified "the proposed Central Asia Oil Pipeline (CentGas) cannot begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place," he urged the administration and the Congress "to give strong support to the United Nations-led peace process in Afghanistan."

Civil war

The country was effectively partitioned between areas controlled by Pashtun and non-Pashtun forces, as the Taleban now controlled all the predominantly Pashtun areas of the country,as well as Herat and Kabul. Non-Pashtun, in general, formed the Northern Alliance opposing the Taliban. Ahmad Shah Massoud, military leader of the Northern Alliance, was Tajik. organizations controlled the areas bordering on the Central Asian republics whose populations are ethnically non-Pashtun, such as Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazara. In addition to ethnic conflict, the Hazara, who are Shia, distrusted the Taliban .

The Taliban also received support from Pakistan, especially Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which tended, at the time, to contain some of the more extreme Islamist members of the Pakistani government. There was a confluence of interests among the Taliban, ISI, and bin Laden, all being anti-Soviet and strongly Islamic. ISI could also hide training, in Afghanistan, for missions in Kashmir. This relationship caused distrust from Iran, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Russia.

After the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa, Massoud wrote to the U.S. Senate, asking him to help against the Taliban, bin Laden, and ISI. The Clinton Administration, however, continued to focus on attempting to use diplomatic engagement with Mullah Omar, to get him to break with bin Laden.

9-11, demands, and overthrow

Osama bin Laden had helped fund the Taliban take power, and turning him over to the West, in Mullah Omar's belief, would violate the tradition of protecting guests with no guarantees of western protection for his regime. According to a Time reporter, Omar said "Did we invite him in?" said Omar of bin Laden. "He was already here. But we don't know how to get rid of him or where to send him." Eventually, Omar decided to deny the recommendation of a 600-man body of senior clerics last Thursday to "encourage" bin Laden to leave Afghanistan "in his own free will" at a time and to a place of his choosing. Now, said the Taliban, Afghanistan is ready for a "showdown of might." Not all the foreign fighters in Afghanistan, on 9/11, were loyal to bin Laden, but to the Taliban idea of a strict Islam through the Muslim world. According to Time, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates showed there had been thousands of graduates from Afghan terrorist training camps, but only 3,000 are loyal to al-Qaeda. At the time,Taliban was seen by the west as supporting al-Qaeda and in need of destruction.

In September 2001, Omar named Jalaluddin Haqqani‎ commander of the Taliban armed forces. Haqqani, a Ghilzai Pashtun, came from a clan outside the Durrani Pashtuns from whom most Taliban had come. He has independent and strong links to ISI.

There is no strong evidence the Taliban leadership knew of the planned 9-11 attack and none that they participated in it. While the Taliban are sympathetic to Salafist movements worldwide, their focus is on the Afghan-Pakistan region. From a geostrategic perspective, rather than a humanitarian one, the Western interest is that they simply do not provide sanctuary to transnational terrorists.

Initial combat operations

Beginning on October 7, conventional combat operations against Afghanistan did not target the bulk of the Taliban, to encourage defections. The first stage was against critical command & control, air defense, and other direct barriers to Western operations. The second was against daylight raids carried out by jet fighters against ‘targets of opportunity’ such as military vehicles, and by bombers against defence emplacements, but not against troop concentrations. appeared to have been delayed in the hope that elements of the Taliban could be persuaded to defect.

Ground drive against the Taliban

At the beginning of November 2001, the U.S. military prepared for a ground offensive by Alliance forces, by intensifying bombing of Taliban and al-Qaeda ground forces on the frontlines around Mazar-e-Sharif and north of Kabul. Heavy bombing by AC-130 and B-52 bombers increased to 100 sorties per day in November, coupled with efforts to encourage defection. This would leave hard-core Taliban units unprotected when the Northern Alliane advance began. CIA Special Activities Division personnel preceded United States Army Special Forces teams that joined Northern Alliance units to advise and to guide in air strikes. GEN Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that the US was supplying the Northern Alliance with munitions and facilitating the delivery of weapons supplied by other states, including Russia.

A U.S. Army Ranger unit raided an airfield near Kandahar, coded Objective Rhino, on the night of 19-20 October, while Special Operations Forces (SOF) soldiers attacked Taliban headquarters in Kandahar. Later in November, a U.S. Marine ground unit would make Rhino its base for conventional attacks against Kandahar.

Military collapse

Four main factors contributed to the fairly sudden loss of Taliban control.

1. Overdependence on local forces without strong loyalty
2. Resentment of bin Laden's foreign fighters
3. Attempting to defend all their territory
4. Withdrawal of Pakistani support

The Taliban had become "highly dependent on manpower drawn from a variety of local militia and mujaheddin groups, which had tenuous loyalty to the Taliban. The extensive efforts made by anti-Taliban forces and US special forces to encourage defections from these groups proved beneficial once the Northern Alliance advance began, leaving core Taliban units exposed and unable to mount an effective defence.

"In the eyes of many Afghans, the foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda are seen as the cause of many of their country’s ills. The decision to deploy al-Qaeda fighters and leaders to bolster ‘suspect’ Afghan Taliban units also served to increase resentment and create the impression that Afghan independence was under threat.

An apparent Taliban decision to "occupy all the territory under its control, rather than fall back to its core areas in the south and east." They committed to the northern front around Mazar-e-Sharif and Taloqan, rather than moving to more defensible line. To support this front, their supply lines went through Herat in anti-Pashtun areas. While the anti-Soviet mujaheddin had fought effective guerilla warfare, using their knowledge of the terrain to avoid contact, the Taliban put themselves into the reach of airpower. "Once the Northern Alliance had broken through the frontline, large numbers of men – including several thousand Pakistani and al-Qaeda fighters – were cut off in a pocket around Taloqan and Kunduz, resulting in the loss of a significant part of the Taliban’s combat strength.

Pakistan hesitantly withdrew support, but, when it did, according to a Western diplomat interviewed by the New York Times, "We did not fully understand the significance of Pakistan's role in propping up the Taliban until their guys withdrew and things went to hell fast for the Talibs,"

Fall of Kandahar

When the Taliban evacuated Kabul, they called for guerilla resistance, but still put on a static defense at Kandahar. Not only were they attacked there by the Northern Alliance and U.S. aircraft, as well as U.S. special operations forces operating from at least November 13, a U.S. Marine unit arrived on the ground on November 25. On 25 November US Marines, airlifted in from ships in the Arabian Sea, established a forward operating base at Dolangi airfield and began ground attacks.

On December 6, Northern Alliance leaders, including Karzai, met with Taliban leaders and negotiated a surrender of the city. Some Taliban put down their weapons, while others moved into guerilla warfare.

Afghan evolution

Former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had been the Northern Alliance president ousted by the Taliban, said there have been talks with the Taliban. In May 2008, a Taliban response had changed slightly from earlier positions when they explicitly rejected the Karzai government; they simply did not mention it.

In September 2008, Karzai asked for Saudi help in promoting talks with the Taliban. While he appealed to the Taliban, an anonymous former Taliban source told CBS News that they did not consider him a strong leader with whom they should negotiate.

Warfare continues in Afghanistan, and the security situation has been getting worse; it is no longer safe to drive between Kabul and Kandahar. Unquestionably, Taliban units still are in active combat with Western forces and the Afghan government. Groups identifying as Taliban are attacking coalition forces, but, as with the forces under Mula Birather, they are made up of alliances among Taliban military groups in Afghanistan.

While the Obama Administration has made Afghanistan the focus of new large-scale efforts against terrorism, John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, argues that the Taliban was a reluctantly provided a home al Qaeda in the 1990s, violated agreements to refrain from issuing inflammatory statements and fomenting violence abroad, and then, with the 9-11 attacks where the Taliban had no official role, brought down the Taliban government. "Given the Taliban’s limited interest in issues outside the "AfPak" region, if they came to power again now, they would be highly unlikely to host provocative terrorist groups whose actions could lead to another outside intervention."

The Administration has suggested reaching out to "moderate Taliban." While Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the idea, others were dubious.Some analysts suggest no such thing exists outside fantasy. "Obama's comment resemble a dream more than reality," "Where are the so-called moderate Taiban? Who are the moderate Taliban?" said Waheed Mozhdah, an official in both the Taliban and the Karzai governments. A different Taliban said this could not work in the presence of a planned troop surge. Mullah Abdul Salem Zaeef, who spent nearly four years in Guantanamo Bay detention camp, said a mostly American surge

...was likely to act as a magnet to foreign fighters...All the people were optimistic when Obama became president. I was a little optimistic that he would stop the war, but when he declared the strategy, especially sending more troops and sending a military man as the ambassador, these strategies are war strategies, not a peace strategy and it's increasing the problem..."The Saudis wanted to be the interpreter between the Taliban and the government and they did something, but increasing more troops is destroying this process...The problem is not between Taliban and Afghans, everything is possible by Afghans. The Taliban are sitting with them, I know that, they respect each other."

Factions hostile to the government

At the head of the list of Taliban hardliners is Mullah Mohammed Omar, for whom the U.S. offers a USD $10 million reward. Others include his aide Mohammed Tayyib Agha and spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, as well as former Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi. Turabi directed the religious police.

Not all the Afghan leaders considered hostile are members of the Taliban, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, although they may cooperate with the movement.

Non-Taliban power blocs

Not all opposition to the Karzai government are Taliban. Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban, has met with both Taliban and non-Taliban opposition.

In December 2008, there were negotiations between the government and Taliban that included other individuals with their own power base, such as former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has hundreds of his own fighters Eastern Afghanistan. Like Taliban leaders, there is a bounty on Hekmatyar, whose representatives met, in Dubai, with the government.

Rahmani, a former Taliban minister and the current mediator between the Taliban and the government also said he was in contact with Mullah Jalaluddin Haqqani, who served as Chief of Army Staff as well as Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs in Mullah Omar's government, as well as the Taliban military leader in southern Afghanistan. Haqqani has said “We’ve no moderate to hold talks with the Americans.”, yet the Taliban have had discussions with "sincere" people in the Karzai government. He denied there had been Saudi Arabia-sponsored peace negotiations between them and the US. Dismissing talks with the U.S. as propaganda, he said there was no point in talking when the Taliban had the upper hand on the battlefield, and “We cannot go outside Afghanistan to participate in any talks, as we face difficulties in our movement. In case of any talks, we send fifth or sixth-rank leadership to negotiate,”

Haqqani, however, is also described as a leader of an active fighting opposition, and there is an American price for his capture. Xinhua describes him as "a close aide to Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and has been leading Taliban fighters in east Afghanistan". Reuters said there were two raids against his forces in Khost Province On September 8, U.S. armed drones fired missiles at a house and school he founded in Pakistan, killing 23, of whom several were his relatives. Reuters said he is "considered close to Osama bin Laden. The ailing Taliban commander was in Afghanistan along with his son Sirajuddin, who has been leading the group, at the time of the attack, another son said." A day later, a second raid captured weapons and detained two persons suspected of planting bombs.

Possible Taliban moderates

One suggested moderate is Maulavi Mohammad Qasim Halimi, Chief of Protocol under Mullah Omar, who was held in Bagram Prison for over a year, and who first met Halimi in 2001, before the collapse of the Talibani. In the Karzai government, he is chief of the investigation branch of the Supreme Court, and is a deputy to Afghan Chief Justice, Dr. Abdul Salam Azimi.

Halimi had given up wearing the black Pakul mujahedeen turban and had trimmed, but did not shave, his beard; he is freer to move than other former Taliban who work with the government. He also is in touch with other former Taliban, such as former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Muttawakil and Abdul Salam Zaeef, former Taliban Ambassador to Afghanistan; they spent time in the same prisons, both of whom have experience in working with other cultures. Zaeef has spoken of Taliban solidarity, but a Western diplomat said his claims of Taliban unity were "wishful thinking". He said: "There is plenty of empirical evidence that the insurgents are pulled in different directions and not all are prepared to drag the country into perpetual war."

Hashemi, who had indeed tried to define the Taliban internationally, has spoken, in Western interviews. At the time, he defended the destruction of the Buddhas, although he has since said he personally regretted it. In 2006, he was a non-degree student at Yale. A professor of political science, Seyla Benhabib, said, in a telephone interview, he is not an ideological zealot. "How fortuitous it was that at the age of 18, because he knew languages," but worked as a translator, at various times, for the Taliban and UNICEF.

Hashemi told Western interviewers said that he had faith in Western democracy, and believed in women's right to education and vote. "He pointed out that many Westerners have a misconception with regards to the Taliban movement, which some describe as a fundamentalist movement, yet there are those within it, such as former Foreign Minister Wakil Muttawakil who have moderate ideas, and who call for disarmament."

Taliban in Pakistan

There has been a full circle, as the Taliban movement began in Pakistani madrassas, moved into Afghanistan, escaped into Pakistan, and now are fighting for control of parts of that country. Even after a cease-fire, they recently advanced within 60 kilometers of the Pakistani capital, and the Pakistani government declared the agreement invalid.

Pakistani rule has never been strong in Aareas along the Afghan-Pakistani border, including the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), historically have been run by tribal law, even going back to the days of British colonial rule in the 19th century.

The situation has been complicated by Pakistani, especially ISI, tolerance of other militant Islamist groups in these areas, who cooperated with both the refugee Taliban and al-Qaeda. Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan's main overt Islamic party, also is sympathetic to the Taliban. In the 2002 Pakistani election, a coalition of Islamic parties, (MMA is the Urdu abbreviation) took control of the NWFP provincial assembly, headed a coalition in Baluchistan, and took 60 seats, up from 2, in the National Assembly.

Radical Islamists, to whom the Taliban were allied, became an increasing problem for Pakistan. Sufi Mohammed, the leader of the pro-Taliban Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed [TNSM or the Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammed's Law], as well as TNSM/Taliban leaders Fariq Mohammed in Bajaur, Mullah Fazlullah in Swat Valley, and [[Omar Khalid in Mohmand.

South Waziristan

South Waziristan, in the FATA, is probably the strongest area in Pakistan for both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The local military leader is Baitullah Mehsud, who may directly command approximately 20,000 men. He provides sanctuary for fighters to operate in Afghanistan, having driven out Pakistani government troops in 2005.

A madrassa student without additional formal education, he has sworn bayat to Mullah Omar, and developed his military skills under Pashtun commander Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani. He became prominent in late 2004, after Nek Muhammad Wazir was killed in a missile attack in June 2004.

"His name appeared for the first time in newspapers after the abduction of Chinese engineers about three years ago when Baitullah was an aide to Abdullah Mehsud. Abdullah fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance and in 1996 lost a leg when he stepped over a land mine. He was taken captive by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum who turned him over to American forces. Abdullah was sent to Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and held prisoner for two years, insisting the whole time that he was just an innocent tribesman.

"He was released in 2004 for reasons that remain unclear, and he returned to Waziristan. Soon after his return, Abdullah and his aide orchestrated the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in his region, proclaiming that Beijing was guilty of killing Muslims. Mehsud heads Tehrik-e-Taliban, the most radical Pakistani Taliban faction, which wants to overthrow Pakistan's government. In contrast, the factions of Maulvi Nazir Ahmed (often called Maulvi Ahmed), in the plains and lower hills of South Waziristan, and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan, focus more on sending fighters into Afghanistan. Nazir's movement is primarily Arab, while Mehsud has a volunteers from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Red Mosque Movement

Maulana Abdul Aziz, leader of the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) movement, wanted to establish an Islamic state in central Pakistan. In 2004, Aziz and his brother Ghazi Abdul Rasheed issued a fatwa ruling that Pakistani soldiers killed while fighting against the Taliban and al Qaeda did not deserve a Muslim burial. Before that time, the fighting had been restricted to the FATA and NWFP. The Taliban, however, were sympathetic to the Red Mosque movement and had been supporting them with raids since 2006.

The Taliban-Pakistan conflict changed in July 2007 in the national capital, Islamabad, when Pakistani soldiers besieged, and then assaulted, the Red Mosque. After the raid on the Red Mosque, Mullah Khalid took over a shrine in Mohmand and named it the Red Mosque.

In April 2009, the Pakistani government released Aziz.

Swat Valley

Some of the most intense conflict has been in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, once a tourist destination called the "Switzerland of Pakistan," in the north of the NWFP. The Pakistani government agreed to allow sharia law in that area, on which tribal leaders had insisted before they would ask the insurgents to stop fighting. The government said the new law would have checks and balances that did not exist under the Taliban in Afghanistan. "'There was a vacuum . . . in the legal system. The people demanded this and they deserve it,'said Amir Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of the North-West Frontier Province." The agreement includes appeals process that was not present in Afghanistan. In February 2009, the signers agreed to a ten-day cease fire while this was being implemented.