Taliban Research Articles

CIA Drone Strikes in Pakistan: History, Perception and Future

This report is a part of CRSS’s special publication series that focuses on perception and impact of drone strikes on security and counter-terrorism in Pakistan. The report discusses the background of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-operated US drone strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), along with how the success of the first strike and the confusion surrounding it gave the US an unmanned option to target alleged terror heads in the region. Since the first strike in 2004 which targeted Taliban leader Nek Muhammad Wazir, the US has conducted over 400 strikes in various areas of FATA. These strikes on the one hand have resulted in the elimination of high profile targets, while on the other, have contributed to civilian casualties. There are conflicting opinions and sentiments on the issue both abroad and in Pakistan, with arguments that such strikes have led to a spike in extremism and terrorism in FATA. The primary survey conducted in this report suggests that drones remain a complex issue with competing narratives. There are also a significant number of respondents from FATA who believe that drones not only eliminate terrorists, but are also the least of three evils: military operations, Taliban and drones. Finally, the report recommends that if the government of Pakistan has a tacit drone deal with the US government and believes drones are effective in FATA, it needs to formulate an effective and clear narrative in order to give clarity.

Reimagining Traitors: Pearl Abraham'sAmerican Talibanand the Case of John Walker Lindh

Pearl Abraham's 2010 novelAmerican Talibanuses the “true” story of John Walker Lindh, a white US citizen captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, to reflect on the intense mediation of public trauma in the early days of the “War on Terror.” This article discusses the significance ofAmerican Talibanas a post-“9/11” work of literary fiction which, by imagining individual agency and interrogating the relationship between a racialized “Americanness,” treason and sovereignty, invites its readers to be critical of historical, political and media narratives in the so-called “post-truth era.”

A Critical Analysis of Terrorism and Military Operations in Malakand Division (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) after 9/11

The 9/11 was a paradigm shifting event in the international and global politics. On September 11, 2001, two jet planes hit the twin's tower in United States of America (USA). US official authorities said that it is done by alQaeda. This event also changes Pakistan's internal and foreign policies. The government of United States compel Afghan Taliban government to handover the master mind of 9/11 attack and their leader Osama bin Laden but the talks failed between the both governments. Therefore US government compel the government of Pakistan to give us Military bases and assistance against Afghan Taliban. Pakistan agreed with US as frontline ally of US in war on terror. The majority of Pakistani people were not happy with the decision, therefore, some non-state actors appeared in different part of the country especially in Malakand Division and FATA to support Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In Malakand Division Mulana Sufi Muhammad head of Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi started a proper armed campaign for Afghan Taliban Support and sent thousands of people to Afghanistan support Taliban against US and their allied forces. It was a basic reason behind the emergence of terrorism in Malakand division KP but it did not played it role alone to cause terrorism in the region. Many other important factors i.e. weak political administration, unemployment, economic deprivation, socio-political instability constituted the main reason that opened room for non-state actors to consolidate their grip on the region.

Pak-Afghan Border: A Case Study of Border Management

The controversy surrounding the Pak-Afghan border and its mismanagement continues to be one of the most contentious bilateral issues between Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the recent past, relations between the two neighbours have reached their lowest following a number of clashes along the Pak-Afghan border, which have led to fatalities on both sides. Although internationally the Durand Line is accepted as a recognised border, yet all successive Afghan regimes, including the Taliban have rejected the legality of the border. Since 2012-13, there has been a steady rise in cross-border movement, cross-border attacks and militancy, which has sparked a debate in Pakistan to advocate for effective management and regulation of the Pak-Afghan border. However, all border initiatives proposed by Pakistan have been rejected by Afghanistan. There appears to be a contradiction in the Afghan position. On the one hand, Afghan authorities claim that the Durand Line divides families living on both sides of the border, yet at the same time they continue to accuse Pakistan of interference, supporting the Afghan Taliban, cross-border terrorism, considering Afghanistan its ‘backyard,’ and ‘fifth province.’ The Afghans allege that Pakistan does not respect Afghanistan’s sovereignty. Ironically, whenever Pakistan has raised the issue of border recognition, management or regulation, there has been stern opposition from Afghanistan. Therefore, it is essential that Pakistan and Afghanistan find a mechanism to manage, stabilise and control the unregulated border. This requires an effective border control regime that transforms this historically contentious border into a conduit for cooperation rather than confrontation. This paper focuses on the reasons that have made the Pak-Afghan border so contentious, the steps Pakistan is taking to secure this border, and reasons for Afghan opposition. The paper also suggests a way forward.

Women and Support for Terrorism in Pakistan

While there have been many scholarly inquiries about the sources of support for terrorism among Muslim publics, to date, no scholar has sought to empirically demonstrate whether or not gender predicts support for Islamist militancy. Instead, most scholars and officials assume that “men of military age” are the most important segment of interest. Gender if examined at all is usually treated as a “control variable” rather than a “study variable,” reflecting the paucity of interest in this subject. This is likely an important scholarly and policy-analytic oversite. Many terrorist groups have women’s wings and women-oriented publications and other outreach programs because they understand the important role that mothers, wives and sisters play in a male family member’s decision to take up arms with a terrorist group. (And in some conflicts, women also join as combatants.) In this paper, we seek to address these scholarly lacunae by examining gender-wise support for two militant groups based in and operating from Pakistan: the Afghan Taliban which has no female outreach program and the sectarian Sipha-e-Sahaba-e-Pakistan, which does. We leverage a large dataset drawn from a relatively large national survey of Pakistanis collected in 2011 to model support for these groups using gender as an independent variable along with other demographic and control variables. We find that females are significantly more likely to support the sectarian group with a women’s outreach-wing, but less likely than men to support the Afghan Taliban. We argue, from these results, that gender deserves more attention in understanding who supports and participates in Islamist militancy.

Dekonstruksi patriarki khaled hosseini dalam novel a thousand splendid suns

Endang SuciatiUniversitas Pesantren Tinggi Darul Ulum Jombangendangsuciati@fbs.unipdu.ac.id AbstractThe culture of patriarchy can be found in many quotations in A Thousand Splendid Suns novel. This kind of culture seems to dominate the woman. It can be seen that woman is considered weak. On the other hand, this novel also depicts the strength of woman that woman has braveness to fight againt and to control the man. Thus, the problem is about how this cultural of patriarchy is indeed deconstructed by this novel. This novel was analyzed using the concept of patriarchy by Kate Millet and deconstruction about hirarchy. The result shows that there is reversal of hirarchy between the man (Taliban leader, Rasheed, and Jalil) who are considered strong and powerfull and the women (Mariam, Laila, and Jalil’s wives) who previously are considered subordinated. They are the women who are strong, have braveness to face the truth, responsibility, and have power to control the men. It shows that it is true that there is deconstruction about the culture of patriarchy which previously has been contructed by Khaleed Hossaeni in the novel.Keywords: patriarchy, deconstruction, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Analysis of appearance of the Taliban in Afghanistan based on the crisis theory of “Hrair Dekmejian”

The second half of the 20th century for the most Islamic Countries like Afghanistan has been associated with many social crises such as the legitimacy crisis, the participation crisis, the security crisis, economic crises, and so on, which prompted various protest and local reactions, such as Fundamentalist currents, as a protest against the existing order and the growing crises of their societies. According to Hrair Dekmejian's theory, a historical empirical model shows that the cause and effect relationship is between social crises and the appearance of revolutionary or revivalist movements that demand the elimination of the existing formal order and the construction of a modern society based on its own ideological program. In this article, we are going to analyze the Appearance of a neo-fundamentalist Taliban group that has the most extreme ideology among fundamentalist and neo-fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan based on Dekmejian 's theory and discuss the internal social crises in Afghanistan. According to the theory of crisis, the existence of a crisis within Afghanistan has exacerbated the revolutionary religious emotions and inclinations in the country and has led to collective and organized religious responses to confront the crisis. Therefore, the main question of the article is how the social crisis in Afghanistan has had an impact on the appearance of the Taliban in this country?

LONG-TERM PRESERVATION OF THE PHYSICAL REMAINS OF THE DESTROYED BUDDHA FIGURES IN BAMIYAN (AFGHANISTAN) USING VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGIES FOR PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF RESTORATION MEASURES

Abstract. In March 2001, the world’s largest depictions of standing Buddha figures located in Bamiyan (Afghanistan) were destroyed during a campaign of the Taliban leadership against all non-Muslim heritage in the country. Bamiyan and its archaeological remains have been nominated a World Heritage also to commemorate the events of destruction the site has experienced over the centuries. More than fifteen years after the Giant Buddha figures turned into dust, the UNESCO Safeguarding campaign for the preservation of the Bamiyan World Heritage property has made considerable progress. Upon continued request by the local population and the national government, the international community is asked to contribute proposals for the future presentation of the physical remains including the options of reassembling the original fragments. The achievements and backlashes of the UNESCO campaign are discussed and a proposal is given, how virtual technology can contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding the future of the site. At a time when deliberate raids during military conflicts against heritage places have become commonplace, the Bamiyan case has become emblematic and is considered now a key turning point in the heritage community on the question, which roles reconstruction can have especially in the aftermath of conflict situations. It is argued that immersive virtual reality technologies offer the chance to investigate how values attributed to cultural heritage are produced and experienced among different stakeholder groups.

Using culture and psychology to counter the Taliban’s violent narratives

Scholars, politicians, and policy-makers have increasingly pointed to the role of narratives in recruiting militants and justifying violence, highlighting the need for counter-narratives that promote peace. However, few have offered concrete guidelines on how to construct counter-narratives. This exploratory study uses prototype theory from social psychology to analyse Taliban narratives written in Arabic on the historical figure Maḥmūd of Ghaznī (971–1030), who is portrayed as a figure worthy of emulation. Key themes emerge from the Taliban’s narratives: potential ingroup members are defined as Sunni Muslims who are committed to jihad; deviant Muslims must become Sunnis; non-Muslims must be converted and humiliated; and Taliban leaders should emulate Maḥmūd of Ghaznī’s attributes. Contrasting the Taliban’s narratives of Maḥmūd of Ghaznī with the historical record reveals themes that are culled empirically around which counter-narratives could be constructed.

A Marriage Estranged: The Strategic Disconnect between Pakistan and the United States

A Marriage Estranged:The Strategic Disconnect between Pakistan and the United States Moeed Yusuf (bio) Like a bad marriage that holds together only because the couple deems divorce to be cost-prohibitive, the United States and Pakistan remain locked in a deeply distrustful relationship. Both sides regularly accuse the other of being an insincere partner and complain of being cheated. Yet Pakistan remains a major non-NATO ally, and the two states continue to seek ways to overcome their differences to fight terrorism. U.S.-Pakistan relations frayed considerably in the last eighteen months of the Obama administration. With President Donald Trump's entry into the mix, Pakistanis sensed an opportunity to work with an administration that seems to have no preconceived South Asia policy. But progress will not be easy. The roots of U.S.-Pakistan tensions in recent years lie in the most canonical principle of interstate relations: a fundamental divergence of priorities and self-perceived interests. Each country's policies in pursuit of its interests, perfectly rational in its own mind, have been antithetical to the other's vision for South Asia. But both sides have been reluctant to acknowledge this situation—perhaps concerned that doing so would unleash the dangers associated with a total rupture in ties. This essay will examine the divergence in U.S. and Pakistani interests and consider the prospect for improved relations during the Trump administration. Real Divergences, Real Consequences Since September 11, the United States' most urgent priority in Pakistan's neighborhood has been to defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Its principal long-term strategic interest lies in cementing its burgeoning alliance with India as a means of checking China's rise. Pakistan's foreign and security policy, on the other hand, is shaped by the perennially hostile relationship with India. Throughout the country's 70-year history, the Pakistani military has tried to ensure a semblance of parity with its eastern neighbor. This has been Pakistan's insurance policy against any Indian aggression that could threaten the state's collapse. [End Page 46] During the Cold War, Pakistan used the United States to bolster its economy and military capability against Soviet-leaning India. Pakistan's India calculus has not moved since this time, but the United States' strategy has flipped. And herein lies the problem. The United States and India are now engaged in a multifaceted strategic partnership that is reinforcing India's rise. In Afghanistan, the United States has invested trillions of dollars to transform the country from a safe haven for anti-U.S. terrorist groups responsible for the September 11 attacks to a peaceful, democratic state. To achieve this goal, it created the NATO-trained and -backed 350,000-strong Afghan National Security Force, partnered with political forces opposed to the Taliban, and leveraged international economic support for Afghanistan. India has emerged as a key partner. It has pledged over $2 billion in assistance, making it Afghanistan's fifth-largest donor, and was the first country to sign a security pact with Afghanistan.1 Pakistan was pivotal for this U.S. vision in Afghanistan—without Pakistan, no victory was possible there. Pakistan provided the United States with subsidized transit facilities, deployment of over 100,000 troops to its western frontier to fight anti-U.S. terrorists who had crossed into Pakistan's border regions after the September 11 attacks, and significant intelligence cooperation on groups like al Qaeda. But this cooperation did not extend to the Afghan Taliban. U.S. policymakers offered several incentives to gain Pakistan's full support in Afghanistan while simultaneously trying to ensure Pakistan's internal stability. These included over $30 billion in monetary assistance, support to Pakistan's internal counterterrorism operations, direct use of aerial power through drone strikes against militants in the border regions, and signals of a long-term commitment to Pakistan that entailed broadening the conversation beyond Afghanistan and terrorism to economic and development issues through a "strategic dialogue" process. Such U.S. assistance helped Pakistan immensely—from critical budget support in times of economic crisis to much-needed resources to fight domestic terrorists. But behind the veil of the two countries' crucial tactical cooperation remained...

Ben Quilty: the fog of war

ABSTRACTThis essay looks at the war paintings of Ben Quilty, who in October 2011 was stationed with Australian troops fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan as part of Australia’s Official War Art Scheme. Quilty’s portraits, in fact made back at home in his studio after he returned, show soldiers naked, in pain, reliving traumatic episodes from their war experiences. They have been almost universally praised as providing a new and compelling image of war for those who have not experienced it themselves. We examine these portraits closely, arguing that they express a new post-modern ideology of “interpassivity”, allowing the spectator to exhibit signs of concern for soldiers, without actually doing anything to change their situation. In this we suggest that Quilty’s paintings contain a meaning that goes against the intentions of the artist and the understanding of their audience. Contrary to their dominant reading, they express something about our culture that our culture is unable to admit about itself.

Madrasah Education System And Terrorism: Reality And Misconception

Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Islamic schools known as madrasah havebeen of increasing interest to analysts and to officials involved in formulating U.S. foreign policytoward the Middle East, Central, and Southeast Asia. Madrasah drew added attention when itbecame known that several Taliban leaders and Al-Qaeda members had developed radicalpolitical views at madrasah in Pakistan, some of which allegedly were built and partially financedthrough Saudi Arabian sources. These revelations have led to accusations that madrasah promoteIslamic extremism and militancy, and are a recruiting ground for terrorism. Others maintain thatmost of these religious schools have been blamed unfairly for fostering anti-U.S. sentiments andargue that madrasah play an important role in countries where millions of Muslims live in povertyand the educational infrastructure is in decay. This paper aims to study a misconception of therole and functions of Islamic traditional religious schools which have been linked with theactivities of terrorism. The study will be specifically focus on practice of the traditional Islamicschool, which is locally called as ‘madrasah system’.

Fight or Flight: How to Avoid a Forever War against Jihadists

The war on terrorism is enduring and expanding. U.S. forces have been fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for over fifteen years, the longest armed conflict in American history. President Obama cam...

Pro-Daesh jihadist propaganda. A study of social media and video games

<i>The fight that Europe and the West must wage against jihadist terrorism will take some time, but if we live up to our values of integration and democracy, we will come out of it soon. As Giovanni Falcone, the Italian judge killed by the Mafia, once said about the Mafia: “It is a human phenomenon, and as all human phenomena has a start and an evolution, it will have also an end”.</i><br><br> <i>Jihadis have been using Twitter at least since 2010, with the Shabaab joining the site in December 2011, but never before to this extent. One early adapter of Twitter, the Afghan Taliban, began to establish their social media presence in December 2010, through which they issued brief bulletins about their actions and alerts for forthcoming communiqués. Many of the most prominent jihadi groups have followed the same path, including the Shabaab al-Mujahideen, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The content of these Twitter accounts has tended to closely mirror material released to jihadi forums. For example, the Afghan Taliban may post the text of a communiqué to their website, to a jihadi forum, and to the Twitter account of one of their spokesmen. Mirroring jihadi groups, elements of the online jihadi community have also migrated to social media sites, with prominent forums such as Shumukh al-Islam and Ansar al- Mujahideen English Forum creating Twitter accounts to publicise notable releases and discussions. Concurrently, many individual jihadis and jihadi supporters have joined Twitter, enthusiastically circulating propaganda among themselves and promoting it to potential recruits. Yet, the benefits conferred by social networking come with a substantial cost: social networking platforms can sow great confusion if known official accounts are deleted and re-established or if there are multiple accounts claiming to represent a specific jihadi group. In order to reach the new official accounts, followers must be able to distinguish the legitimate social media accounts of jihadi groups from non-authenticated users, which is a level of ambiguity that is not found on jihadi forums.</i>

The search for rebel interdependence

The existing conflict literature tends to treat interdependence between rebel groups as a binary category: either groups are allied or unallied, fragmented or unified, interdependent or independent. Yet much of our qualitative knowledge suggests that interdependence is better understood as a matter of degree where certain groups exert a disproportionate influence over their counterparts. The challenge is how to identify the degree of interdependence in practice. As a solution, I conceptualize interdependence as a property of a system of interactions between rebel groups and government forces within and across borders. My approach is to model the entire system of interactions in order to test hypotheses related to the directionality of influence and the potential for military coordination between groups. I demonstrate the utility of this approach by examining the relationship between Pakistan and the two major factions which make up the Taliban organization – the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. I analyze the triangular system with a vector autoregressive model and monthly time series data on violent actions initiated by each group from January 2008 to February 2013. The substantive findings support much of the received wisdom concerning Pakistan’s disparate relationship to both groups, which is characterized by antagonism with the Pakistani Taliban and collusion with the Afghan Taliban. The results also suggest that the claims of interdependence between the two Taliban groups have been overstated.

Democratization in Afghanistan: Challenges and Opportunities

Democratic reform and governance began after the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban ruled a brutal and fundamentalist regime from 1996 to 2001. In the last decade and half which has been free of Taliban control, Afghanistan has made significant improvements in areas, such as good governance, rule of law, women’s rights and freedom of speech. Despite gains and progress made over the years, the country is faced with a resilient insurgency that constitutes the remnants of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Taliban claim that democracy is opposed to Islamic and sharia laws and therefore the group is fighting to establish a ‘real Islamic state’ based on conservative principles. This paper argues that a historical analysis in Afghanistan and other Islamic democracies proves otherwise. In Afghanistan, this is reflected in state development and democratic achievements of the last fifteen years, where democracy and political inclusion have helped to bring stability, peace and development.

Pak-Afghan Ties: Evolution, Challenges and the Way Forward

Pakistan and Afghanistan are often bracketed as brother nations, having deep rooted historical links, traditional affinity, striking social fabric similarity, shared religious identity, ethno-cultural bondage, and strategic partnerships, all dating back to pre-partition Indian subcontinent era. Nevertheless, in the post-partition regional dynamics and legacy of issues between the British Raj and Afghanistan, bilateral relations between the two have been wavy, marked by ups and downs; yet the affinity and warmth at people-to-people level have remained generally cordial if not idyllic. After 9/11, US-led international coalition invaded Afghanistan; it overthrew the Taliban government and since then the political face of Afghanistan has been managed through overt coercion and covert machinations. The conflict of interest between the people of Afghanistan and foreign installed Afghan governments is the cause of current mass resentment leading to armed resistance; led by Afghan Taliban. The ensuing trouble casts its shadow on Pakistan in the form of inflow of unarmed benign refugees as well as militants alongside arms, drug and human trafficking. Afghan government has brushed aside many meaningful border management proposals from Pakistan. Post 9/11 bilateral relations have been revolving around serious distrust, blame game, refugee crisis, cross border violation leading to an environment of low intensity hostility towards each other. This paper summarizes the profile of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, identifies the challenges, envisages the prospects and proposes ways for narrowing the gap between existing and desired format of relationship.

ФАКТОР ИГИЛ И ДВИЖЕНИЕ ТАЛИБАН В ПОЛИТИКЕ РОССИИ ПО АФГАНИСТАНУ И В БОЛЕЕ ШИРОКОМ РЕГИОНЕ

ФАКТОР ИГИЛ И ДВИЖЕНИЕ ТАЛИБАН В ПОЛИТИКЕ РОССИИ ПО АФГАНИСТАНУ И В БОЛЕЕ ШИРОКОМ РЕГИОНЕ

Legal Rule and Tribal Politics: The US Army and the Taliban in Afghanistan (2001–13)

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the implications of two competing modes of governance, those of the US Army and the Taliban, through the lens of the relations between property, citizenship and political authority in Kunar, Afghanistan, between 2001 and 2013. To account for the political struggle in the province, the author outlines two models of governance: a political one based on mediation and conciliation, which the US Army applied; and a legal one promoting direct relations between the rulers and the ruled, upheld by the Taliban. After looking at the political dynamics in Kunar since the nineteenth century and since 2001, I argue that it is paradoxically the Taliban that placed itself in continuity with the state, while the US Army played tribal politics and undermined the legitimacy of the regime it had helped to install in Kabul. Kunar is a case of an armed confrontation in which different militarized groups compete to impose their rule by controlling space and access to landed property.

Confronting Pakistan's Support for Terrorism: Don't Designate, Calibrate

In May 2016, the United States killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in the first drone strike ever in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. The Taliban has long used Baluchistan a...