Dan Snow's History Hit - The Rise of the Taliban

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Is it possible that the Taliban of today are more fanatical than before? American and Coalition troops recently fought a bitter, 20-year war against them following the seismic events of 9/11. On August the 15th we mark the end of that conflict, two years after the last Western troops left Kabul. The withdrawal was chaotic and confused, and left the Taliban in control of Afghanistan.So what does the future of Afghanistan look like? And is the Taliban of today the same as the one that emerged from the Soviet occupation of the 1980s? Dan is joined by journalist and author Ahmed Rashid to discuss the origins, rise and future of the Taliban.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and James Hickmann, and edited by Dougal Patmore.PLEASE VOTE NOW! for Dan Snow's History Hit in the British Podcast Awards Listener's Choice category here. Every vote counts, thank you!Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at [e-mail], we'd love to hear from you!You can take part in our listener survey here.

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Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. On the 15th of August, it will be two years since the Taliban retook Kabul, as Western forces withdrew in an unseemly hurry. In this episode, I want to learn more about who the Taliban are and where they've come from. Is the modern Taliban different to what has gone before? And where did the Taliban come from in the first place? To help me answer questions like this, I've got Ahmed Rashid. He's a Pakistani journalist, best-selling author, and great expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan. He's written about the history of the Taliban. He spent a lot of time in Afghanistan with the Taliban, particularly in the 1990s. The really remarkable thing about Ahmed's insights is that, if anything, this new generation of Taliban fighters are actually more fanatical, more ideologically doctrinaire than

those that came before. Contrary to what people have stated, perhaps optimistically, that this would be a new type of Taliban, one that was used to sending its diplomats off to the Gulf states, one that was not against some of the technological advances of the last 20 years, ones that would be more accepting of the geopolitical realities. Contrary to all those hot takes, Ahmed is convinced that the Taliban today is led by purists, ones that will strive to force Afghan society to live by some self-defined version of Sharia law. And this isn't just a problem for Afghans, particularly Afghan women, who are now not allowed to attend secondary school, study at university and join the workforce. This is a problem for a much wider community of nations, as you'll hear.

So here, after two years of return to power, is Ahmed Rashid talking about the Taliban. Enjoy. Ahmed Rashid, talking about the Taliban. Enjoy. T-minus 10. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity until there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

Ahmed, thanks for coming on the podcast. Pleasure. When do we first hear the name Taliban and what's it mean? Well, the Taliban were very much there during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. And many of the fighters, the Mujahideen, would go to religious schools, madrasas, where the Taliban, where the students would study. Taliban means students. So they would study there and then they would go off and fight and come back and study some more. And that was how it started in the 1980s.

But it did not become a movement and a powerful political movement until a decade later, when the civil war erupted in Afghanistan, the Soviets left, the Americans left, despite promises to help rebuild the country. We were left with the Taliban, who then decided to turn the country around and bring peace. And they named their movement after their student days. So during the struggle against the Soviets, there wasn't an organized group called the Taliban. It was almost a name taken by individuals. No, no, there was not an organized group or movement. But the fact

was that those who had studied in madrasas, religious schools, were very proud of the fact and wanted to show it off. And so they called themselves Taliban. Nobody else called them Taliban at that point in time. They called themselves Taliban. They said, we are young fighters wanting to get Afghanistan clear of repression and get the Soviets out. So it was their own invention, basically. And take me through the timeline. The Soviets leave in 1989. What happens after that? This was the worst period in Afghanistan's history. In 1989, a civil war broke out between various factions of what we call the Mujahideen, who were the Islamic warriors who had forced the Soviets, the older generation of Taliban, if you like.

They fought each other for three, four years before the Taliban emerged and imposed some kind of peace. It was a terrible time. People were starving. There was no food. No aid agencies could go in. People went a very bad way. And the Taliban promised that if they came to power, they would never allow such a thing to happen. When does the Taliban emerge? When did people start talking about them as a group and they became a participant in this terrible civil war that you're describing? 1992-93. In other words, three years after the withdrawal of the Soviets, and the three years of terrible civil war and brutality, destruction of the cities. It should be noted, I mean, the cities weren't initially destroyed by the Russians. They were destroyed by the Afghans

themselves. So people have never forgotten that period. And these warlords became deeply unpopular, incapable of mustering any kind of support to run the country, because they had been involved in all the massacres, etc, against fellow Afghans. And from the beginning, were the Taliban different? How were they distinctive from just another group led by a warlord? Was there anything about them? Well, the warlords, for whatever they were worth, at least had a sense of Afghan history. They knew who they were. When the Taliban emerged, it was a completely new phenomenon. Their interpretation of Islam was not accepted by

the majority of Afghans, and they had to impose it, as it were. Their treatment of women, of education, banning, you know, any kind of modern music, television, they put a ban on all these things. This was unheard of at the time. I remember very well during the war with the Soviets, the Afghans loved being photographed, and they'd all, you know, urge me to take more and more pictures. Now with the Taliban, the Taliban banned photography altogether. They banned television. They started smashing TV sets and hanging them from trees as if to say, you know, these are the culprits of this whole crisis. And of course, art, cultures, music, the Afghans loved their music. That all suddenly disappeared. And the punishments were even more extreme than what Afghans had ever seen. Whipping,

death, of course, beatings of various kinds. The punishments were so severe that they terrorized the people. And so they were always distinctive from other warlord groups. They were driven by this extremism. Did that make them, though, more effective on the battlefield? Why were they able to prevail? and they would end the war, they would disarm the population, all of which they did to some extent in the territory that they conquered. But remember that they didn't enter Kabul until 1996 because there was fighting with the Afghan government in Kabul, there was fighting with various warlords. So for six years, the Taliban were in limbo,

fighting their way to Kabul to capture it and conquer it. The tragedy was that they did not bring a sense of governance at all. They had no idea about modern governance. How do you govern a country? How do you desire something better for the people? How do you provide food, wheat, and medicine? How do you work with Western NGOs who could provide all these things? None all these things. None of these things were accepted by the Taliban. But they were effective on the battlefield. They were effective on the battlefield, certainly.

They were very willing to sacrifice their lives in the war. They built a reputation of being formidable, which wasn't true, actually. But they had a very good PR system in which they told everyone we can't be beaten. And so you just accept our rule. It's either death or surrender. And a lot of villagers, especially in southern Afghanistan, decided to surrender rather than fight the Taliban. And that set in motion a whole new movement of the Taliban, where they were able to conquer without spilling too much blood. Given that the previous years had been so appalling for Afghanistan, were people prepared to put up with their extremely authoritarian views in the ways that you've mentioned? Was

there some acceptance and consent initially, or were they always unpopular? No, you're right. Initially, there was a lot of consent to their rule because everyone believed they'd bring peace and stability. A lot of the territory they captured between 93 and 96 was largely due to the fact that minor warlords surrendered their forces and their weapons rather than take on the Taliban. They had a fearsome reputation, which was not fully justified because they weren't particularly fearsome as such. Many of them were so young, they could hardly be fearsome. When I mixed with the Taliban and tried to understand their movement, what was so stunning to me was how different they were from the Mujahideen, the more older generation of fighters who fought the Russians. Their versions of Islam, of how to govern, what propaganda to say to people, it was completely different from what I'd ever seen before. And I was quite shocked that the

Afghans were willing to accept this. When, for example, on religion, most Afghans have a very, they're very conservative and much dedicated to Islam, but they don't have these extreme kind of punishments. So it was a very unusual thing. I mean, not taking pictures was so unusual for Afghans who love to show themselves off. And now, of course, you know, they banned beauty parlors recently. Of course, women's education, higher education has been banned. And the situation is actually now much worse

than it was when the Taliban first emerged. In the 90s, we saw images of the non-Islamic historic sites, religious sites being destroyed, blown up, and also the harsh public punishments. They were things that seemed to characterize that regime or certainly grabbed the attention of people overseas. Yeah, exactly. I mean, people would be called to the football stadium where there was either a beheading taking place of some criminal or somebody who had done something against Taliban law or opposed the Taliban. There were beheadings, there were whippings of women, especially killing of women also who committed adultery in any way. This whole idea that Islam is all about punishment is what they tried to promote. And it's a completely false recognition of Islam. Islam is not about punishment.

One part of it, yes, you know, they punish wrongdoers, but not in this way that the Taliban imagined. And so, you know, we had a very dire situation. People were just shocked and they were shocked to surrender, basically. How can you oppose a group which wants to behead women in a public stadium in front of all the men, which is against all Afghan tradition? There was a very mixed bag of feelings. But the fact that they brought peace and their effectiveness on the battlefield, which allowed them to bring peace in the country, was something that Afghans also appreciate. Were they pleased in Lahore about what was going on? Pakistan became a major sponsor for one simple reason. It did not want its arch rival, India, to make any headway in Afghanistan and to make any headway with the Taliban. So to keep the Indians out, Pakistan basically supported the Taliban. There was sympathy also in the military, in the intelligence services,

that Pakistan was Islamic and so are the Taliban Islamic, and they should work together, which of course ignored the reality that the Taliban's version of Islam was so completely different. But the main geopolitical aim by enlisting Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to side with the Taliban was essentially to keep India out, to keep the Russians out also, not allow them to come back in any shape or form, and with promises to rebuild Afghanistan. Remember, most of the Americans, the aid agencies, most of these do-gooders had fled the country. So despite the promises that they would rebuild the country, the Americans left in such a

hurry, they left nothing behind. There was a huge crisis of resources and lack of food, and some of it was fulfilled by the Pakistanis and the Saudis. The Taliban movement was to a large extent armed and financed by Pakistan and the Saudis. The Taliban movement was to a large extent armed and financed by Pakistan and the Saudis until they became self-sufficient through the use of trade and drugs and other things. You listen to Dan Snow's History, talking about the Taliban. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga.

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Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Osama bin Laden was a Saudi. He was responsible for the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington. In 2001, everything changed for the Taliban. Why were they sheltering bin Laden? And do you think the Taliban knew the scale of his ambition? You know, the Taliban on geopolitics was very naive. They believed what they wanted to believe rather than looking at reality. And they were told that if they apologize to the Americans, you know, 9-11 would be forgotten. And they were also very stubborn and they refused to apologize. They refused to take any measure to curb bin Laden during his stay in Afghanistan. They, in fact, encouraged their own fighters to join al-Qaeda, which is what happened to some

extent before 9-11. It was a mystery. And even some of the Pakistani intelligence officers who had been handling the Taliban urged the Taliban to give up bin Laden for the sake of Afghanistan. And they said, no, we gave bin Laden the promise that we would look after him. And when an Afghan makes a promise, we keep it. This is all to do with Pashtun culture, the culture of the dominant ethnic group, the Pashtuns. They refused to budge on this issue, despite visitations by the Americans, the United Nations, this issue despite visitations by the Americans, the United Nations, and all sorts of other people, including the Pakistanis and the Saudis. The Saudis by then and the Gulf states had soured with the Taliban. They didn't like the Taliban anymore and they gave them up. But Pakistan was

left holding the baby and Pakistan refused to, if you like, force the Taliban to give up bin Laden. And the Taliban leadership was very divided on this issue. People tend to forget that half the Taliban leaders were very much against bin Laden being in Afghanistan. And they wanted to throw him out. But they couldn't defy their leader, Mullah Omar, who insisted that he was a guest of the Afghans, and we have to maintain him as a guest, no matter what anyone says. Well, it would lead eventually to Mullah Omar's death, that decision. But the Americans with allies invaded Afghanistan. How hard was it to defeat the Taliban in terms of conventional warfare to seize the key points in Afghanistan and effectively depose their regime?

Well, it wasn't hard at all, actually. I mean, the American used bombing a lot. They had very few troops on the ground. They used their aircraft and they mobilized the Northern Alliance group of warlords, which was the non-Pashtuns, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Hazaras. These were ethnic groups who opposed the Taliban and opposed the domination of the Pashtun ethnic group in the war. So they had supporters on the ground who they mobilized.

They bought in a lot of money. They spent a lot of money buying support from these warlords, etc. There were some horrible massacres of the Taliban because of their refusal to surrender. There were some horrible massacres of the Taliban because of their refusal to surrender. The Americans used cluster bombs, for example, something that is now being debated as far as Ukraine is concerned. And they used very heavy bombardment, exactly the same way the Russians are doing in Ukraine. We had the incredibly sophisticated war machine, which the Americans used to literally decimate Taliban fighters who were on the ground with rifles and machine guns, but could not in any way be equal to what was coming on top of them from the skies. And yet the Taliban survived. Did they adapt? How did they change? Where did they go? I think that, you know, that's a very interesting thing. And I think, you know, Pakistan sided with

the Americans who destroyed the Taliban. But once the Taliban had been destroyed and this American-backed regime headed by President Hamid Karzai took over, Pakistan felt it had been done out of its victory, its support to the Americans, because the Americans were throwing their weight behind not the Pashtuns who Pakistan supported, but the other ethnic groups, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks. And the Americans were supporting these ethnic groups who were anti-Pakistan in the sense that they were closer to India. And so what happened, the military regime in Pakistan under the then leader, General Parvez Musharraf, decided he would give the Americans a little bit of trouble. And he started re-arming and re-energizing the leftovers of the Taliban. Taliban who sought shelter in southern Afghanistan, some who flooded into Pakistan and became refugees,

but also took on training of a new generation of youngsters to fight the Americans. And these young men became the Taliban and the next generation of fighters. And the war continued. I think if that initial support had not been there by Pakistan, Taliban would have withered away. The other big tragedy, of course, was that the Taliban had offered to surrender to the Americans after the bombardments of 9-11. And the Americans refused. And that was tragic because the Taliban were not involved with the peacemaking processes that led to the new Afghan government being formed. If the Taliban had been a part of that,

if the Americans had accepted their surrender at face value, I think history would have been very different. This region would have settled back into being a poor area region, but not a threat to the world. So the insurgency goes on. Is the Taliban just hiding in Afghanistan? Is it based across the border in Pakistan? Why were they so effective? Why were they so resilient? They were so effective because they had a base area in Pakistan. Their children were getting educated. They were bringing in arms and ammunition. They were meeting up with all the other extremist groups. They had an arena of operation in Pakistan and they had this huge refugee population. Some 5 million Afghans were refugees in Pakistan. Those refugees became a source of manpower for the Taliban army. They lacked nothing when they were in Pakistan.

They were allowed to operate very freely, smuggle goods, accept the money of other countries like Saudi, and rule the roost, as it were. And so the warlords didn't have that kind of support. The Americans supported them to some extent and tried to train up an Afghan government army, but it was done very hesitantly by the Americans, and in a very American way, which just didn't suit the Afghans. So advantage was held by the Taliban.

Why did the Afghan government seem to collapse so quickly two years ago? What happened there? Well, quite simply, the Afghan government, by then Ashraf Ghani was president. He was a different kind of president. He was a different kind of president. He was an intellectual who'd been at the World Bank and had worked the Americans very closely. And one view of this is that he lost his marbles. And, you know, he didn't want to prolong the war and fight. And so he fled and ordered everyone to stand down. But I think, you know, the main cause was why did the army collapse?

The Afghan army had been built up by the Americans, rearmed, retrained. But I think there too, there was just, unfortunately, a lack of will to fight because the Taliban had used all these months and years that they'd been out in the countryside, they'd used this time to woo a mixture of wooing and terrorizing the villagers, saying, either you surrender to us or we kill you. And that was more than enough to win over large chunks of the Afghan population and villagers who didn't want to see the war continue. And I think the main feature was that people had had enough of war. This had been going on for 20 years or more. People wanted to see an end to the war. And they

said, well, the Taliban are not our friends. They're a bad lot, but they are promising to end the war. And if they leave and they take the Americans with them, then the war will end anyway. Ahmed, who are the modern Taliban and are they different? In many ways, as far as they reject anything that they learned of during the American occupation, education, technical help, etc. And they went back to being very basic, orthodox Islamic extremists. And they didn't much care for the legacy that the Americans had left behind, particularly of education and women's rights.

And by bringing that to an end, the Taliban were essentially sending a message to the international community that we don't care about your development and your so-called help you're giving. And, you know, we want our old way of life that we had before in the 60s and 70s, which of course was not the old way of life, because the old way of life was never brutal in the way that it had become. But the Taliban succeeded because of their military success and their politics. They were able to woo and win over the population on the grounds of that we will return you to war if you don't. And that was not something anybody wanted.

So the Taliban today are a mixture of the old Taliban and a younger generation who are more orthodox even than the last lot. So actually, the Taliban, in one sense, I mean, the whole ethos of the Taliban has deteriorated enormously. The kind of extreme measures and punishments that the Afghan population is undergoing now, they never went through in 93 when the Taliban first emerged. It's much worse now than before. In terms of social progress, the position of women, criminal justice, etc. If anything, we've gone back right to the 1990s. You don't see any progress at all? Well, the progress only has been that there is relative peace, that the war has come to an end. The Taliban are not fighting a war. And the tragedy is there's

very little international interest in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is suffering a great deal. But from this aspect, it's true that there is no war going on for the first time since 1988, 89. That's a long period of war, which the Afghans have had enough of. What do you think the future holds? Can we take a guess? Well, I don't think this regime is sustainable because it's not built on any kind of constitution or democracy or even Afghan tradition using the lawyer Jirga,

the Grand Assembly, which traditionally governed Afghanistan. I mean, all of this, which traditionally governed Afghanistan. I mean, all of this is totally missing right now. And I don't see this being able to continue because people's demands are increasing. People are hugely frustrated with the lack of economic activity and lack of food and other things. The refusal to accept, for example, women doctors, the control of nursing and women. How can you prevent disease and cure people if you don't allow women to be doctors and nurses, etc? All that is not helping the Taliban. And in the long term, I don't see this being able to survive very long. In the meantime, do they represent a threat to Pakistan, as we mentioned

earlier? Is there a concern about their messianic zeal could spread across the region? Their zeal is already spreading across the region, and not just in Pakistan, but also in Central Asia, in Iran. The neighbors of Afghanistan, who are multiple, are very scared of the Taliban. The Taliban have promised that they will never encourage anyone to attack neighboring states. But the fact is that many of these militant groups are based in Afghanistan and are attacking neighboring states, particularly Pakistan. There's a Pakistani version of the Taliban, which is very active and very militant and very deadly, who are killing a lot of Pakistani soldiers. And so, you know, the repercussions of the Taliban have already started. Well, on that cheery note, let's end there.

Thank you very much, Ahmed, for coming on the podcast and telling me all about it. Thank you very much indeed. you