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A Decade of Instability and Agony - The Taliban

The situation in Afghanistan has always been detrimental. Thousands of wars, thousands of casualties, political instability and finally, terrorist groups, have reshaped Afghanistan into what it is today. The Taliban, often displayed as a symbol of tyranny and oppression have now taken over the rule of Afghanistan. The wars however, have not been so easy, especially for the Afghan forces. The civilians have gone through a stage of brutality and trouble for the past century with no peace to hold together the nation. But all of this arises a question. How did this happen?

Almost two centuries ago, around the beginning of the 19th century, Empires sought to assert their dominance in every sphere of the world they could. The two fierce rivals of the time, the British Empire and the Russian Empire ruled over the lands of Asia and each wanted to gain their hold there. Afghanistan, the nation landlocked by both of these empires acted as a buffer zone and both of the empires had an eye on it. The British waged three wars against Afghanistan which saw the ousting of rulers, the demarcation of the Durand Line, and the independence of Afghanistan.

Over time, the kingdom of Afghanistan saw two ideologies, the communist ideology which was led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and the Islamist ideology. Daoud Khan the ruler of Afghanistan at the time, established the National Revolutionary Party, which was aimed at spreading Islam. The ruler was soon overthrown due to his extreme ideologies and Afghanistan was declared as a democratic republic. The new ruler, Nur Mohammad Taraki, took away power from the Islam extremists and the clerics, an action which the Islamists clearly did not like. Due to this reform, tensions between the PDPA and the Islamists arose. The Soviet Union formed an alliance with the PDPA and the USA with the Mujahideen, an islamist group in Afghanistan.

Around the same time, the cold war between the USA and the USSR was at its peak. The USA didn’t want Afghanistan to be a communist state, and the USSR didn’t want USA to extend its influence over to Afghanistan. The USA funded millions of dollars to the Mujahideen and gave them access to high-technology equipment and warfare. In the first election that was held in Afghanistan, the PDPA won, but the funding only increased. In 1996, the Mujahideen won the civil war. Even though Mujahideen was a single group, its ethnicities were many. One of these ethnic groups, the Taliban, soon came to power. The Taliban wiped out the Mujahideen and laid out extremely conservative reforms. The Taliban being Pashtun nationalists, purged the non-Pashtun ethnicities of the Mujahideen and the Muslims in Afghanistan. Only three countries in the world recognized the Taliban’s rule of Kabul, namely, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The failed attempts of the Mujahideen in fighting them, only further increased the stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Around the same time, the 9/11 attacks in USA were conducted by the al-Qaeda terrorist group, led by Osama bin-Laden. The Taliban helped to shelter Osama bin-Laden, and in retaliation, the United States conducted several military airstrikes on Afghanistan. They even joined an alliance with the Mujahideen and together eliminated the Taliban from Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the new president, was later termed as the “best president of Afghanistan” as peace finally prevailed after a long time.

However, the Taliban had still not been completely eliminated as violent actions were still held by them. Around 2021, The USA made a decision to completely withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban took the opportunity to spread their influence across Afghanistan.

Now, the Taliban have captured Afghanistan entirely and continue to take up extreme reforms in Afghanistan. A small ethnic group has taken over an entire nation and defeated a much stronger force. The two main reasons for this have been the withdrawal of the US troops and secondly the low-morale among the Afghan fighters mainly due to political instability.