Taliban insurgency
The Taliban insurgency began after the group's fall from power during the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces fought against the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, and later by President Ashraf Ghani, and against a United States-led coalition of forces that has included all members of NATO; the 2021 Taliban offensive resulted in the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani. The private sector in Pakistan extends financial aid to the Taliban, contributing to their financial sustenance.
The insurgency had spread to some degree over the border to neighboring Pakistan, in particular Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban conducted warfare against Afghan National Security Forces and their NATO allies, as well as against civilian targets. Regional countries, particularly Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia, were often accused of funding and supporting the insurgent groups.
The allied Haqqani Network, Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, and smaller al-Qaeda groups had also been part of the Taliban insurgency.
Background
Following the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban was defeated and many Taliban fighters left the movement or retreated to sanctuaries in the country of Pakistan. In May and June 2003, high-ranking Taliban officials proclaimed that the Taliban regrouped and were ready to wage a guerrilla war in order to expel US forces from Afghanistan. Omar assigned five operational zones to Taliban commanders such as Dadullah Akhund. Dadullah took charge in Zabul province.In late 2004, the then hidden Taliban leader Mohammed Omar announced that the Taliban were launching an insurgency against "America and its puppets" in order to "regain the sovereignty of our country".
The Taliban spent several years regrouping, and launched a re-escalation of the insurgency campaign in 2006.
Organization
As of 2018, the Taliban was composed of four different shuras, or representative councils. The first is the Quetta Shura. Two smaller shuras are subordinated to it, the Haqqani network and the Peshawar Shura. The Peshawar Shura was established in March 2005, and is based in eastern Afghanistan. The majority of its fighters are former members of the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin. The Haqqani network declared its autonomy from the Quetta Shura in 2007, and rejoined in August 2015. The Peshawar Shura was autonomous from 2009 until 2016.The second autonomous shura is the Shura of the North, based in Badakhshan Province. The third is the Mashhad Shura, sponsored by Iran, and the fourth is the Rasool Shura, led by Muhammad Rasul and also known as the High Council of the Islamic Emirate.
Finances
While the pre-2001 Taliban suppressed opium production, the insurgency "relies on opium revenues to purchase weapons, train its members, and buy support." In 2001, Afghanistan produced only 11% of the world's opium. Today it produces over 80% of the global crop, and the drug trade accounts for half of Afghanistan's GDP. However, later estimates show that drugs might not be the major source of income of the Taliban. Taxation and mineral sales under the group's shadow governments since 2001 have also been major sources.On 28 July 2009, Richard Holbrooke, the United States special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that money transfers from Western Europe and the Gulf States exceeded the drug trade earnings and that a new task force had been formed to shut down this source of funds.
The United States Agency for International Development is investigating the possibility that kickbacks from its contracts are being funneled to the Taliban.
A report by the London School of Economics claimed to provide the most concrete evidence yet that the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI is providing funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought. The report's author Matt Waldman spoke to nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan and concluded that Pakistan's relationship with the insurgents ran far deeper than previously realized. Some of those interviewed suggested that the organization even attended meetings of the Taliban's supreme council, the Quetta Shura. A spokesman for the Pakistani military dismissed the report, describing it as "malicious". Pakistan's armed forces and intelligence services, most notably the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, play a significant role in bolstering the operational capabilities of the Taliban, resulting in their emergence as a formidable military entity.
Foreign support for the Taliban
Pakistan
The Taliban's victory was facilitated in support from Pakistan. Although Pakistan was a major US ally before and after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, elements of the Pakistan government have for decades maintained strong logistical and tactical ties with Taliban militants, and this support helped support the insurgency in Afghanistan. For example, the Haqqani Network, a Taliban affiliate based in Pakistan, had strong support from Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistan intelligence agency. Taliban leaders found a safe haven in Pakistan, lived in the country, transacted business and earned funds there, and received medical treatment there. Some elements of the Pakistani establishment sympathized with Taliban ideology, and many Pakistan officials considered the Taliban as an asset against India.In 2007, Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf admitted Taliban getting cross-border aid and said that "There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil. The problem that you have in your region is because support is provided from our side."
Pakistan's former Interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad on 1 September 2021, said in an interview with Hum News that "All top Taliban leaders were born and brought up in Pakistan. This has been our 'service' that we trained them and many more might be studying." Later on 29 September 2021, he denied Pakistan gave any military support to the Taliban and further claimed "US is accusing us that we facilitated Taliban but we only facilitated them to bring them to the table at the request of US".
Dr. Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at Royal United Services Institute on terrorism and conflict, interviewed Taliban fighters who attested of Pakistani support. "Our Punjabi trainers work very hard and always find a solution when the enemies use new tactics against us." Such training from Pakistani advisers allowed the Taliban fighters to respond to changes in enemy tactics by shifting toward ambushes, suicide attacks, and IED use. Another interviewee asked "What could the Taliban do without these foreigners? It is the foreigners who give the Taliban weapons, advice and support", and there were "up to fifteen to twenty 'Punjabi' trainers in some districts."
Russia and Iran
Dr. Antonio Giustozzi wrote, "Both the Russians and the Iranians helped the Taliban advance at a breakneck pace in May–August 2021. They contributed to funding and equipping them, but perhaps even more importantly they helped them by brokering deals with parties, groups and personalities close to either country, or even both. The Revolutionary Guards helped the Taliban's advance in western Afghanistan, including by lobbying various strongmen and militia commanders linked to Iran not to resist the Taliban."2002–2006 Taliban insurgency re-grouping period
Following the Battle of Tora Bora, the Taliban was defeated and many Taliban fighters left the movement or retreated to sanctuaries in Pakistan, where they began the initial stages of re-grouping.Pamphlets by Taliban and other groups turned up strewn in towns and the countryside in early 2003, urging Islamic faithful to rise up against US forces and other foreign soldiers in holy war. On 27 January 2003, during Operation Mongoose, a band of fighters were assaulted by US forces at the Adi Ghar cave complex north of Spin Boldak. Eighteen rebels were reported killed with no US casualties. The site was suspected to be a base for supplies and fighters coming from Pakistan. The first isolated attacks by relatively large Taliban bands on Afghan targets also appeared around that time.
In May 2003, the Taliban Supreme Court's chief justice, Abdul Salam, proclaimed that the Taliban were back, regrouped, rearmed, and ready for guerrilla war to expel US forces from Afghanistan. Omar assigned five operational zones to Taliban commanders such as Dadullah, who took charge in Zabul province.
Small mobile Taliban training camps were established along the border to train recruits in guerrilla warfare, according to senior Taliban warrior Mullah Malang in June 2003. Most were drawn from tribal area madrassas in Pakistan. Bases, a few with as many as 200 fighters, emerged in the tribal areas by the summer of 2003. Pakistani will to prevent infiltration was uncertain, while Pakistani military operations proved of little use.
As the summer of 2003 continued, Taliban attacks gradually increased in frequency. Dozens of Afghan government soldiers, NGO humanitarian workers, and several US soldiers died in the raids, ambushes and rocket attacks. Besides guerrilla attacks, Taliban fighters began building up forces in the district of Dai Chopan in Zabul Province. The Taliban decided to make a stand there. Over the course of the summer, up to 1,000 guerrillas moved there. Over 220 people, including several dozen Afghan police, were killed in August 2003.
Operation Valiant Strike was a major United States military ground operation in Afghanistan announced on 19 March 2003 that involved 2nd and 3rd battalions of 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, Romanian and Afghan troops. The combined forces moved through Kandahar and parts of Southern Afghanistan with the objective of eliminating Taliban enemy forces and weapons caches while also attempting to gather intelligence on Taliban activity in the area. At the conclusion of the operation on 24 March 2003, coalition forces had detained 13 suspected Taliban fighters and confiscated more than 170 rocket-propelled grenades, 180 land mines, 20 automatic rifles and machine guns, as well as many rockets, rifles, and launchers.
United States led-coalition forces carried out Operation Asbury Park on 2 June 2004, and 17 June 2004, of taskforce 1/6 BLT of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit engaged in fighting with Taliban and other anti-coalition forces in both Oruzgan Province and Zabul Province culminating in the Dai Chopan region of Afghanistan. This operation was characterized by atypical fighting on the side of the tactics of the Taliban and the other guerillas encountered. culminating in a large battle on 8 June. During Asbury Park, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit was faced with an opponent that frequently would dig in and engage the Marine forces, rather than the traditional hit and run methods. As such, Marines, with the aid of B-1B Lancer, A-10 Warthog, and AH-64 Apache aircraft, engaged in "pitched battles each day," culminating in a large battle on 8 June. The last of the fighting which took place near Dai Chopan on 8 June was decisive in that enemy forces were depleted to such an extent that no further contact was made with the enemy for the duration of the operation. What was meant by the enemy to be a three pronged attack 8 June 2004 resulted in over eighty-five confirmed kills, with estimates well in excess of 100 enemy dead, an estimated 200–300 wounded, with dozens captured. While throughout the entire operation a "handful" of US forces and Afghan Militia were injured.
In late 2004, the then hidden Taliban leader Mohammed Omar announced an insurgency against "America and its puppets" to "regain the sovereignty of our country".
In late June through mid-July 2005, United States Navy Seals carried out Operation Red Wings as a combined / joint military operation in the Pech District of Afghanistan's Kunar Province, on the slopes of a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, approximately west of Kunar's provincial capital of Asadabad,. Operation Red Wings was intended to disrupt local Taliban anti-coalition militia activity, thus contributing to regional stability and thereby facilitating the Afghan Parliament elections scheduled for September 2005. At the time, Taliban anti-coalition militia activity in the region was carried out most notably by a small group, led by a local man from Nangarhar Province, Ahmad Shah, who had aspirations of regional Islamic fundamentalist prominence. He and his small group were among the primary targets of the operation.
In between 13 and 18 August 2005, United States Marine Corps carried out a military operation, called Operation Whalers that took place in Afghanistan's Kunar Province, just weeks after the disastrous Operation Red Wings. Like Operation Red Wings, the objective of Operation Whalers was the disruption of Taliban Anti-Coalition Militia activity in the region in support of further stabilizing the region for unencumbered voter turnout for the 18 September 2005 Afghan National Parliamentary Elections. Operation Whalers was planned and executed by the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment. The emphasis of the operation was an Anti-Coalition Militia cell led by Ahmad Shah, which was one of 22 identified ACM groups operating in the region at that time, and was the most active. Ahmad Shah's cell was responsible for the Navy SEAL ambush and subsequent MH-47 shootdown that killed, in total, 19 US special operations personnel during Operation Red Wings. Operation Whalers, named after the Hartford / New England Whalers professional hockey team, was the "sequel" to Operation Red Wings in that it was aimed at furthering stabilization of the security situation in the restive Kunar Province of Eastern Afghanistan, a long-term goal of American and coalition forces operating in the area at that time. Operation Whalers, conducted by a number of Marine infantry companies of 2/3 with attached Afghan National Army soldiers and supported by conventional Army aviation, intelligence, and combat arms forces units and US Air Force aviation assets, proved a success. Taliban Anti-Coalition Militia activity dropped substantially and subsequent human intelligence and signals intelligence revealed that Ahmad Shah had been seriously wounded. Shah, who sought to disrupt the 18 September 2005 Afghan National Parliamentary Elections, was not able to undertake any significant Taliban Anti-Coalition operations subsequent to Operation Whalers in Kunar or neighboring provinces.