15 ms·

Who Are the Taliban?

45 points by akbarnama 5y ago

ipaddr 5y ago
I wonder how big their forces are and how supported they are by the local population.
- T-A 5y ago
  From the article: The group is thought to now be stronger in numbers than at any point since they were ousted in 2001 - with up to 85,000 full time fighters, according to recent Nato estimates. So less than half of the Afghan National Army's 180,000 troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_National_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_National_Army There is a rule of thumb that attackers need to outnumber defenders 3 to 1 in order to win. But that assumes the defenders actually want to do their job.
  - mrighele 5y ago
    I'm not surprised defenders didn't want to do their job, since they were lacking ammos and even food [1]. "Soldiers in Ghurmach in the northern province of Faryab had spoken to a local media about the same topic just a month before, saying, "We haven't eaten for days. We only have four sacks of flour for 400 soldiers. No one cares about us. We can't fight the Taliban on only bread and water."" It seems that endemic corruptions was one of the main reasons. "[...] In May 2018, the police in Badghis province in the north-west of Afghanistan confirmed that a contractor that provided food to Afghan security forces was serving up dog meat. " "[...] According to the same report, there are thousands of 'ghost soldiers' in the ranks of the Afghan army: soldiers who exist only on paper, allowing commanders to inflate their budgets and fill their pockets. An Afghan army soldier earns only 200 dollars a month. " With all the money that was funneled from the coalition, this doesn't surprise me. In hindsight, I don't see how the Afghan government could have ever survived the Taliban without indefinite presence of the USA. https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corruption-rations-soldiers-army-eat https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corru...
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      It would've required the US to do something more sophisticated than giving money to a bunch of corrupt thieves and hoping things work out. US military or civilian leadership is ultimately responsible for the failure even if the Afghan National Army was a complete failure. The ANA was organized and maintained by the US.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - 542354234235 5y ago
    > There is a rule of thumb that attackers need to outnumber defenders 3 to 1 in order to win. But that assumes the defenders actually want to do their job. That is more of a rule for an individual battle. The Afghan army cannot mass all its troops for a battle. They have to attempt to hold large amounts of territory, spreading themselves thin. The Taliban can mass troops in specific areas, so it outnumbers the defenders, and then move on. It is not accurate or fair to portray the ANA as some sort of clearly superior force that just doesn’t feel like fighting.
    - T-A 5y ago
      > The Taliban can mass troops in specific areas, so it outnumbers the defenders, and then move on. At which point the army could not just move back in and retake the "lost" area because...?
      - 542354234235 5y ago
        >At which point the army could not just move back in and retake the "lost" area because Welcome to the last 20 years of counter insurgency in Afghanistan.
        T-A 5y ago
        Not only didn't you answer the question; you invoked a history which contradicts your model. The Taliban did not roll through Afghanistan as a big wrecking ball. A moment of thought would tell you that this model does not match the growing area they controlled, nor the way it grew toward Kabul from all sides. Nor is it plausible that the army, with more than double the troops, better vehicles and air support would be unable to converge on your hypothetical wrecking ball. The Taliban avoided big battles, because they always lost those. By all accounts, their final advance was so rapid only because they met virtually no resistance. When they reached Kabul, they initially stayed outside the city, until word got out that the military and police had abandoned their positions and looting was underway, at which point they announced that they were going in to restore order.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Twitter refuses to suspend their accounts so the Taliban at least has friends in Silicon Valley.
  - Leparamour 5y ago
    That would explain Jack Dorsey's grooming habits.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  The article said 85,000, but other sources report 60,000 to 200,000. The local population thinks of the Taliban as the least bad option - less corrupt than the Muj. and the puppet govt., but somewhat overly strict in executing (7th century) Sharia law. The local population will provide support in the form of taxes mainly - ie. it doesn't matter what they think or want. Islamic republics/emirates tend to do extreme mate-guarding of women, so you won't be seeing them in public or in schools much. (This is also a practise within recent economic migrant communities in Europe.) It's easy to understand the Afghani situation - the Taliban aren't "terrorists" - they're a committed local army following the Koran in a literal manner. AMA.
- xet7 5y ago
  Who funds the Taliban: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28126421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28126421
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  I heard that Taliban rule is, like many authoritarian states, more stable than chaos and civil war, and also reduces crime across the board. This stability gives a sizable level of local support. For many however it's literally a death sentence.
  - Cipater 5y ago
    Surely any "rule" by definition is more stable than chaos or civil war? Taliban rule is incredibly oppressive though, almost cartoonishly so. I can't think of any contemporary regime more tyrannical and authoritarian. Their stated aim is to "recreate the time of the Prophet" 1400 years ago.
    - thinkingemote 5y ago
      Indeed, and topically understanding the urge to order, safety and peace is the key to working out China too as well as the West's befuddlement at the inhabitants attitude towards their own tyrannical and authoritarian state. China isn't totalitarian but I believe the Taliban aims to be. I should look into this more.
    - lodi 5y ago
      > I can't think of any contemporary regime more tyrannical and authoritarian. Kim Dynasty, North Korea.
  - 542354234235 5y ago
    >This stability gives a sizable level of local support Support might be a strong word. More like acquiescence. The Taliban actively attempt to undermine and destroy security in areas it does not control. Most Afghans don’t like the Taliban but understand there isn’t really a viable alternative. It is either the chaos of no control, the Taliban randomly attacking people in places secured by the government, or the repressive security of the Taliban.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
I didn’t see it mentioned that USA trained and armed the Taliban when they were waging their jihad against the Soviets.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  It's the modern BBC after all. Did you expect unbiased reporting?
- torstenvl 5y ago
  That's because such a claim is patently and indisputably false (unless you think the Taliban have time travel capability).
  - sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
    Not entirely false. Taliban was initially formed by Pushtun students of Pakistan Medrese. By coincidence, they were the core of resistance to the Soviet army. Mohammed Omar, founder of Taliban, was a veteran of Anti-Soviet war. So, not entirely a time travel case.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Yes, entirely false. The fact that a veteran of some group later did something else doesn't mean everyone involved in the first venture contributed to the second. That's like saying Peter Thiel founded Tesla. It's so obviously false that anyone pushing that narrative is presumptively dishonest.
  - Leparamour 5y ago
    How's the weather in Langley?
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  From Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Background https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Background > After the Soviet Union intervened and occupied Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic mujahideen fighters engaged in war with those Soviet forces. > Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq feared that the Soviets were planning to also invade Balochistan, Pakistan, so he sent Akhtar Abdur Rahman to Saudi Arabia to garner support for the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation forces. A while later, the US CIA and Saudi Arabian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) funnelled funding and equipment through the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) to the Afghan mujahideen.[112] > About 90,000 Afghans, including Mohammed Omar, were trained by Pakistan's ISI during the 1980s.[112] British professor Carole Hillenbrand concluded that the Taliban have arisen from those US-Saudi-Pakistan-supported mujahideen: "The West helped the Taliban to fight the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan".[113] Nearly all of the Taliban's original leadership previously fought in the Soviet-Afghan War for either the Hezb-i Islami Khalis or Harakat-i Inqilab-e Islami factions of the Mujahideen.
darkteflon 5y ago
I saw the headline and felt immediately overwhelmed. I was a university student glued to my TV as the second plane struck the South Tower, as Blair and Bush did their thing and then as the tanks rolled in. Now twenty years later I’m seeing the same fucking headlines rolling by on repeat and I’ve just realised the cycle has begun again.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  The west has been fighting and messing around over there since the end of the 19th century. Realise that 120 years later, the cycle never has ended.
nnlsoccer 5y ago
There’s an amazing book by Rory Stewart, a UK diplomat/former MP, called The Places Between. He walked across Afghanistan in 2002 and the book documents his journey. it gives a nuanced cultural description of the tribal landscape (and is fascinating not dry). It’s worth picking up
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  I was quite impressed by Rory Stuart, it’s a shame he didn’t survive the political chaos of 2019 because ideology aside he seemed to have a wider worldview than his fellow passengers of the traditional Eton to Oxbridge to the Cabinet social pipeline.
sheepdestroyer 5y ago
Taliban are crazy religious extremists who dynamite ageless UNESCO World Heritage monuments, and preach an irrational and Human Rights violating way of life based on some even dumber than usual interpretations of the Coran. This is so sad that religions can still have such damaging effects on the world and lives of so many people.

45 points by akbarnama 5y ago

ipaddr 5y ago

I wonder how big their forces are and how supported they are by the local population.

T-A 5y ago
From the article: The group is thought to now be stronger in numbers than at any point since they were ousted in 2001 - with up to 85,000 full time fighters, according to recent Nato estimates. So less than half of the Afghan National Army's 180,000 troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_National_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_National_Army There is a rule of thumb that attackers need to outnumber defenders 3 to 1 in order to win. But that assumes the defenders actually want to do their job.
- mrighele 5y ago
  I'm not surprised defenders didn't want to do their job, since they were lacking ammos and even food [1]. "Soldiers in Ghurmach in the northern province of Faryab had spoken to a local media about the same topic just a month before, saying, "We haven't eaten for days. We only have four sacks of flour for 400 soldiers. No one cares about us. We can't fight the Taliban on only bread and water."" It seems that endemic corruptions was one of the main reasons. "[...] In May 2018, the police in Badghis province in the north-west of Afghanistan confirmed that a contractor that provided food to Afghan security forces was serving up dog meat. " "[...] According to the same report, there are thousands of 'ghost soldiers' in the ranks of the Afghan army: soldiers who exist only on paper, allowing commanders to inflate their budgets and fill their pockets. An Afghan army soldier earns only 200 dollars a month. " With all the money that was funneled from the coalition, this doesn't surprise me. In hindsight, I don't see how the Afghan government could have ever survived the Taliban without indefinite presence of the USA. https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corruption-rations-soldiers-army-eat https://observers.france24.com/en/20200218-afghanistan-corru...
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    It would've required the US to do something more sophisticated than giving money to a bunch of corrupt thieves and hoping things work out. US military or civilian leadership is ultimately responsible for the failure even if the Afghan National Army was a complete failure. The ANA was organized and maintained by the US.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- 542354234235 5y ago
  > There is a rule of thumb that attackers need to outnumber defenders 3 to 1 in order to win. But that assumes the defenders actually want to do their job. That is more of a rule for an individual battle. The Afghan army cannot mass all its troops for a battle. They have to attempt to hold large amounts of territory, spreading themselves thin. The Taliban can mass troops in specific areas, so it outnumbers the defenders, and then move on. It is not accurate or fair to portray the ANA as some sort of clearly superior force that just doesn’t feel like fighting.
  - T-A 5y ago
    > The Taliban can mass troops in specific areas, so it outnumbers the defenders, and then move on. At which point the army could not just move back in and retake the "lost" area because...?
    - 542354234235 5y ago
      >At which point the army could not just move back in and retake the "lost" area because Welcome to the last 20 years of counter insurgency in Afghanistan.
      - T-A 5y ago
        Not only didn't you answer the question; you invoked a history which contradicts your model. The Taliban did not roll through Afghanistan as a big wrecking ball. A moment of thought would tell you that this model does not match the growing area they controlled, nor the way it grew toward Kabul from all sides. Nor is it plausible that the army, with more than double the troops, better vehicles and air support would be unable to converge on your hypothetical wrecking ball. The Taliban avoided big battles, because they always lost those. By all accounts, their final advance was so rapid only because they met virtually no resistance. When they reached Kabul, they initially stayed outside the city, until word got out that the military and police had abandoned their positions and looting was underway, at which point they announced that they were going in to restore order.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Twitter refuses to suspend their accounts so the Taliban at least has friends in Silicon Valley.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  That would explain Jack Dorsey's grooming habits.
redis_mlc 5y ago
The article said 85,000, but other sources report 60,000 to 200,000. The local population thinks of the Taliban as the least bad option - less corrupt than the Muj. and the puppet govt., but somewhat overly strict in executing (7th century) Sharia law. The local population will provide support in the form of taxes mainly - ie. it doesn't matter what they think or want. Islamic republics/emirates tend to do extreme mate-guarding of women, so you won't be seeing them in public or in schools much. (This is also a practise within recent economic migrant communities in Europe.) It's easy to understand the Afghani situation - the Taliban aren't "terrorists" - they're a committed local army following the Koran in a literal manner. AMA.
xet7 5y ago
Who funds the Taliban: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28126421 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28126421
thinkingemote 5y ago
I heard that Taliban rule is, like many authoritarian states, more stable than chaos and civil war, and also reduces crime across the board. This stability gives a sizable level of local support. For many however it's literally a death sentence.
- Cipater 5y ago
  Surely any "rule" by definition is more stable than chaos or civil war? Taliban rule is incredibly oppressive though, almost cartoonishly so. I can't think of any contemporary regime more tyrannical and authoritarian. Their stated aim is to "recreate the time of the Prophet" 1400 years ago.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
    Indeed, and topically understanding the urge to order, safety and peace is the key to working out China too as well as the West's befuddlement at the inhabitants attitude towards their own tyrannical and authoritarian state. China isn't totalitarian but I believe the Taliban aims to be. I should look into this more.
  - lodi 5y ago
    > I can't think of any contemporary regime more tyrannical and authoritarian. Kim Dynasty, North Korea.
- 542354234235 5y ago
  >This stability gives a sizable level of local support Support might be a strong word. More like acquiescence. The Taliban actively attempt to undermine and destroy security in areas it does not control. Most Afghans don’t like the Taliban but understand there isn’t really a viable alternative. It is either the chaos of no control, the Taliban randomly attacking people in places secured by the government, or the repressive security of the Taliban.

eurasiantiger 5y ago

I didn’t see it mentioned that USA trained and armed the Taliban when they were waging their jihad against the Soviets.

Leparamour 5y ago
It's the modern BBC after all. Did you expect unbiased reporting?
torstenvl 5y ago
That's because such a claim is patently and indisputably false (unless you think the Taliban have time travel capability).
- sedan_baklazhan 5y ago
  Not entirely false. Taliban was initially formed by Pushtun students of Pakistan Medrese. By coincidence, they were the core of resistance to the Soviet army. Mohammed Omar, founder of Taliban, was a veteran of Anti-Soviet war. So, not entirely a time travel case.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Yes, entirely false. The fact that a veteran of some group later did something else doesn't mean everyone involved in the first venture contributed to the second. That's like saying Peter Thiel founded Tesla. It's so obviously false that anyone pushing that narrative is presumptively dishonest.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  How's the weather in Langley?
cyber_kinetist 5y ago
From Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Background https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Background > After the Soviet Union intervened and occupied Afghanistan in 1979, Islamic mujahideen fighters engaged in war with those Soviet forces. > Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq feared that the Soviets were planning to also invade Balochistan, Pakistan, so he sent Akhtar Abdur Rahman to Saudi Arabia to garner support for the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation forces. A while later, the US CIA and Saudi Arabian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) funnelled funding and equipment through the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI) to the Afghan mujahideen.[112] > About 90,000 Afghans, including Mohammed Omar, were trained by Pakistan's ISI during the 1980s.[112] British professor Carole Hillenbrand concluded that the Taliban have arisen from those US-Saudi-Pakistan-supported mujahideen: "The West helped the Taliban to fight the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan".[113] Nearly all of the Taliban's original leadership previously fought in the Soviet-Afghan War for either the Hezb-i Islami Khalis or Harakat-i Inqilab-e Islami factions of the Mujahideen.

darkteflon 5y ago

I saw the headline and felt immediately overwhelmed. I was a university student glued to my TV as the second plane struck the South Tower, as Blair and Bush did their thing and then as the tanks rolled in. Now twenty years later I’m seeing the same fucking headlines rolling by on repeat and I’ve just realised the cycle has begun again.

thinkingemote 5y ago
The west has been fighting and messing around over there since the end of the 19th century. Realise that 120 years later, the cycle never has ended.

nnlsoccer 5y ago

There’s an amazing book by Rory Stewart, a UK diplomat/former MP, called The Places Between. He walked across Afghanistan in 2002 and the book documents his journey. it gives a nuanced cultural description of the tribal landscape (and is fascinating not dry). It’s worth picking up

BoxOfRain 5y ago
I was quite impressed by Rory Stuart, it’s a shame he didn’t survive the political chaos of 2019 because ideology aside he seemed to have a wider worldview than his fellow passengers of the traditional Eton to Oxbridge to the Cabinet social pipeline.

sheepdestroyer 5y ago

Taliban are crazy religious extremists who dynamite ageless UNESCO World Heritage monuments, and preach an irrational and Human Rights violating way of life based on some even dumber than usual interpretations of the Coran. This is so sad that religions can still have such damaging effects on the world and lives of so many people.