chi sono davvero i talebani afghanistan

Who really are the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist organization that leads Afghanistan

The movement of Taliban (translated into Italian as “students of the Koran”) is a political-ideological, Islamic fundamentalist and armed group born in 90s of the 20th century in Pakistan and then into Afghanistan. It has evolved over the decades into a powerful military organization, capable of taking control of Afghanistan twice, regaining control even after the US military intervention which lasted from 2001 to 2021. Against all odds, in fact, the Taliban not only have they managed to survive politically, socially and militarily, but they have even managed to strengthen themselves, so much so that today they are considered the (almost) undisputed rulers of theAfghanistan.

Birth and history of the Taliban

The origins and rise to power of the Taliban

Although it is commonly associated with the most backward segments of the Pashtun society in Afghanistan, actually the movement of Taliban (or Taliban) was born in Pakistan in the former 90sin the city of Quettathanks to the activity of Mullah Muhammed Omar Mujahid. Thanks to the determined support of PakistanOmar managed to create an important following among the millions of Afghan refugees, especially those belonging to the ethnic group of Pashtunwhich crowded the border areas between the two countries and the outskirts of large Pakistani cities. So what started as a movement of social emancipation And “religious discipline” over time it turned into a real one army of fanatics.

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One of the few existing photos of Mullah Omar. Credits: Wikimedia Commons

In the 1994 the Taliban militia moved against the city of Kandahar starting an irresistible advance that ended only with the capture of Kabul In the 1996. At the time, the triumphal advance of the “Koranic students” was undoubtedly favored by the hostility that the Afghan populations felt towards the “war lords” which, after Soviet withdrawal In the 1989 and the collapse of the communist regime of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992they had sunk the country into one generalized civil war which had made a clean sweep of any semblance of the constitutional order and socio-economic life of the unfortunate country.

In the 2001on the eve of the American invasion, the Taliban controlled the 75% of Afghanistan’s territory (the last obstacle that stood between them and the achievement of absolute power was the so-called “Northern Alliance” operating in the north-eastern area of ​​the country under the command of General Ahmad Shah Massoud and faithful to President Burhānuddīn Rabbānī). In the territories under their control they had stopped the violence and looting, but at the price of establishing one of the most autocratic and fundamentalist regimes ever, where the arbitrariness of “Islamic cohorts” and the uncompromising application of Sharia and of Pashtunwali (the code of tribal and customary laws of the Pashtuns) found no opposition.

Relations with Bin Laden and international jihadist terrorism

The period of the first Taliban takeover (1996-2001) also inaugurated their partnership with the international Islamic-terrorist organization of al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Ladennicknamed “the Sheik of Terror” and responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks in recent history, first and foremost that of “Twin Towers” occurred at New York Cityin the United States of America, theSeptember 11, 2001.

Even before those attacks, however, al-Qaeda had made a name for itself in Afghanistan given that the “Foreign Legion of Arab Jihadists” had played an active role in supporting the Taliban during their rise to power, so much so that in exchange they obtained the right to settle permanently on Afghan soil, making the country their “base camp”.

It was thanks to a suicide attack organized by al-Qaeda that the September 9, 2001 was killed Ahmad Shah Massoudthe hero of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and then a bitter opponent of the Taliban. The real turning point for the “Koranic Students” and for the whole world, however, came on September 11, 2001 with the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The war against the United States and the second seizure of power

The October 7, 2001 The United States together with their allies of International Coalition (of which Italy was also part) and the forces of Massoud’s orphaned Northern Alliance, attacked the Taliban, guilty of not having outlawed al-Qaeda and not having handed over Osama bin Laden to the US authorities.

Given the disproportion existing on the conventional field, the Taliban forces were soon driven out of Kabul and from all the territories they had occupied over the previous years, ending up barricading themselves in the mountainous areas on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Here, patiently replicating the same ones strategies and tactics already used at the time by the Afghan mujahideen 1978 and 1992 against the communist government and its Soviet alliesthe Taliban managed to find a first sanctuary from which to operate in relative safety and, over the next twenty years, they progressively expanded their operations against their enemies until they reached, August 30, 2021to cause the collapse of the pro-Western movement Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and fully withdrawal of all remaining Coalition forcesincluding Americans.

In the meantime both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were long deadthe one killed in 2011 during an attack by American special forces on Pakistani soil and the other was killed in 2013 during a tuberculosis epidemic also in Pakistan. A similar fate had meanwhile also befallen him much of the “old guard” of the leaders in command in the period between 1994 and 2001. Despite this, the movement had proven itself capable of self-regenerate and it had become stronger than before.

What is the current situation in Afghanistan?

Today the Taliban are once again in command ofIslamic Emirate of Afghanistan and unlike their first period of domination, this time they managed to extend their control, at least on a formal level, to the entire territory of Afghanistan where they stubbornly rebuilt one Islamic confessional state based on strict observance of Sharia (Islamic law) and Pashtunwali (the traditional customary law of the Pashtun people).

However, we must not believe that, just because Afghanistan has ended up in information oblivion, the Taliban’s domination over the country is absolute and unchallenged. Already in the aftermath of their second seizure of power, the Taliban had to defend themselves from the growing threat posed by the local branch of ISIS (the so-called ISIS-KP) and from the new republican resistance movement capped by Ahmad Massoudson of the aforementioned Ahmad Shah Massoud.

At the moment neither the ISIS-KP guerrillas nor that of the republican resistance still seem capable of challenging the Taliban on equal terms for control of the country’s territory, but as all observers of local events have now learned in Afghanistan nothing is taken for granted.