Many senior Taliban leaders reportedly took refuge in the Pakistani city of Quetta, from where they guided the Taliban. But the existence of what was dubbed the "Quetta Shura" was denied by Islamabad.
Despite ever higher numbers of foreign troops, the Taliban gradually regained and then extended their influence in Afghanistan, rendering vast tracts of the country insecure, and violence in the country returned to levels not seen since There were numerous Taliban attacks on Kabul and, in September , the group carried out a high-profile raid on Nato's Camp Bastion base.
Hopes of a negotiated peace were raised in , when the Taliban announced plans to open an office in Qatar. But mistrust on all sides remained high and the violence went on. In August , the Taliban admitted they had covered up Mullah Omar's death - reportedly of health problems at a hospital in Pakistan - for more than two years. The following month, the group said it had put aside weeks of infighting and rallied around a new leader in the form of Mullah Mansour, who had been the deputy of Mullah Omar.
At around the same time, the Taliban seized control of a provincial capital for the first time since their defeat in , taking control of the strategically important city of Kunduz. Mullah Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in May and replaced by his deputy Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, who remains in control of the group. In the year following the US-Taliban peace deal of February - which was the culmination of a long spell of direct talks - the Taliban appeared to shift their tactics from complex attacks in cities and on military outposts to a wave of targeted assassinations that terrorised Afghan civilians.
The targets - journalists, judges, peace activists, women in positions of power - suggested that the Taliban had not changed their extremist ideology, only their strategy. Despite grave concerns from Afghan officials over the government's vulnerability to the Taliban without international support, the new US president, Joe Biden, announced in April that all American forces would leave the country by 11 September - two decades to the day since the felling of the World Trade Center.
Having outlasted a superpower through two decades of war, the Taliban began seizing vast swathes of territory, before once again toppling a government in Kabul in the wake of a foreign power withdrawing. They swept across Afghanistan in just 10 days, taking their first provincial capital on 6 August. Overall, U. Of course, Afghan women are not monolithic: they hold diverging views about the U. And Afghanistan today is different than it was in the s. Women have already been turned away from schools and universities, ordered not to leave their homes without a male guardian, and flogged for breaching Taliban-imposed rules.
There have also been reports of forced marriages and targeted attacks against women and girls. Although the situation on the ground remains highly fluid, Afghan women who have stood up for gender equality, democracy, and human rights clearly face imminent risks.
In this context, the U. And it needs to support those actors continuing the difficult fight for inclusion within the country and from abroad, rather than disengaging politically at this critical moment. Indian officials have engaged with Taliban representatives in Doha and elsewhere for some time, though Indian diplomats still face thorny choices ahead. Critics argue that this form of engagement could have been better organized , but contacts nonetheless exist. This outreach notwithstanding, there are at least three sets of issues that Indian leaders will need to wrestle with as they craft a new strategy.
India had no diplomatic presence in Afghanistan during the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In , an Indian commercial plane hijacked by terrorists from Pakistan, with passengers, landed in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. The plane was released after three terrorists languishing in Indian prisons were freed.
They were escorted from Kandahar to the Pakistani border by the Taliban. This memory has not faded. Second, the Haqqani network, allied with the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, has attacked Indian interests in Afghanistan, including the Indian embassy. As it formulates its strategy, India will need to confront the bitter reality that Pakistan has essentially won in Afghanistan.
Third, despite the limited available options, India is also uniquely positioned as a country with close working ties to European states, Iran, Russia, and the United States. If the Taliban practice what they have been preaching, which seems unlikely , India might just be able to find a workable balance between remaining engaged in Afghanistan without necessarily legitimizing the Islamic emirate. India could support an international conference, such as a Bonn Conference 2. In the end, every strategic permutation will be dependent on the conduct of the Taliban government.
Deeds rather than words are what matter. This was a mistake the United States will pay for in the years to come. The Taliban insurgency was alive and well, but Afghan security forces were holding their own with a steadily diminishing number of U.
Then Washington ran out of strategic patience. A year after proclaiming that the U. This met a long-standing Taliban condition: readiness to talk to the Americans, but not with their puppets in Kabul. I said at the time that these talks were about American capitulation, not peace. And that is what they turned out to be.
The indelible image of this catastrophic U. Air Force C plane taxiing for takeoff from Kabul surrounded by an Afghan mob desperate to get out of the country. The damage to U. The United States has emboldened Islamic radicals everywhere as the Taliban produce a narrative of righteous believers defeating the infidels on the field of battle.
The Taliban are back in control, and they will bring their al-Qaeda allies with them. This is not a hypothetical security threat. At the same time, wholesale withdrawal will degrade U. The United States has also placed those who have already risked their lives to support U.
For those outside of Kabul, the danger is far greater. Afghan women and girls have been put at risk too. From the beginning, U. To pursue education. To run for office, establish businesses, and join the military. They did so, with the assurance that the Americans had their backs.
It did not have to happen this way. There was a working and sustainable status quo. Driven by impatience, Trump initiated a policy to withdraw completely from Afghanistan, which U.
President Joe Biden embraced with the results seen today. Qatar brokered a truce between Israel and Hamas, also Fatah and Hamas, between Lebanese factions, even a ceasefire between Sudan and Darfur Qatar also flirted with radical Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
It supported Arab Spring protests in Libya and Syria. Taliban was one more. Second, Giustozzi says Qatar wanted to support Taliban as a way of limiting Iranian influence on the Karzai government. By , the US wanted a venue to start diplomatic engagement with Taliban. Qatar volunteered. It suited the US, since its biggest air base in the region is in the tiny, wealthy state.
But Hamid Karzai, then president of Afghanistan objected, and quietly, so did Pakistan, feeling leverage slipping. Karzai would have preferred Taliban to set up office in Turkey, for instance. But Qatar prevailed, seemed more neutral, and mid-level Taliban leaders, like Mullah Abdul Saleem Zaeef had moved there. Taliban opened a political office in Taliban wanted five of its people freed from Guantanamo Bay.
How the Taliban plan to govern Afghanistan remains unclear. Women face an uncertain future. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen says the group will respect the rights of women and minorities "as per Afghan norms and Islamic values". The militants had declared an amnesty across Afghanistan and said it wanted women to join its government. But there are fears over women's freedom to work, to dress as they choose, or even to leave home alone under Taliban rule.
Another major fear is that the country will once again become a training ground for terrorism. Taliban officials insist that they will fully adhere to the US deal and prevent any group from using Afghan soil as a base for attacks against the US and its allies.
They say they aim only to implement an "Islamic government" and will not pose a threat to any other country. But many analysts say the Taliban and al-Qaeda are inseparable, with the latter's fighters heavily embedded and engaged in training activity. It is also important to remember that the Taliban are not a centralised and unified force.
Some leaders may want to keep the West muted by not stirring up trouble but hardliners may be reluctant to break links with al-Qaeda. Just how powerful al-Qaeda is and whether it could now rebuild its global network is also unclear. Its fighter numbers could be only between a few hundred and 2, but it may try to gain footholds in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and parts of Tajikistan, which could be a serious regional concern. Afghanistan country profile.
Afghanistan profile - Timeline. Who are the Taliban? Peace in the shadow of the Taliban? What could peace in Afghanistan look like? How do the Taliban make money? Why Afghanistan is more dangerous than ever. Uncovering Pakistan's secret human rights abuses. Image source, EPA.
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