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Who are the Taliban today and what will they do next in Afghanistan?
The ease of their takeover has taken the world by surprise and caused distress for many. Now that the Taliban is in control of Afghanistan, here’s what we know about how they operate and what they want to do.
Published 19 August 2021 4:10pm
By Claudia Farhart
Who are the Taliban today?
The Taliban are a Pashtun-majority Sunni fundamentalist group formed in 1994 by former resistance fighters who battled the Soviet Union a decade earlier.
They rose to power in Afghanistan in 1996 and imposed a brutal rule over the country until 2001, when US forces entered the country following the September 11 attacks and toppled their regime.
But the Taliban did not disband, with many of their fighters seeking sanctuary in Pakistan, where some analysts believe they received sophisticated military training.
Georgetown University Professor C Christine Fair says one of the key secrets to their success today is that support from Pakistani military elements.
Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Source: AP
“Where the Taliban haven’t really changed in their essential nature is the fact that they are not independent operators, they are a fully owned subsidiary of the Pakistani military,” she tells SBS News from Washington D.C.
“Without Pakistan, the Taliban would be one of a number of nuisances that have come and gone from Afghanistan. But with Pakistani support, this is what they've done.”
What is their vision for Afghanistan?
Now that they are in control of Afghanistan, many are wondering just how the Taliban plan to govern.
Upon taking Kabul, the Taliban pledged to reimpose Sharia law, an Islamic legal system based on the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings.
“They're not state builders. They've never been people who are preoccupied with general policy concerns such as health, education, social security,” ANU Emeritus Professor William Maley says.
“They have an image of a pure state, and their image of a pure state is not a welfare state, it's a state in which people obey their dictates, which, in turn, are a product of their particular twisted version of Islam.”
Beyond that, analysts expect them to govern much as they did during their first stint in power.
“The Taliban were able to put into place ministries - ministry of interior, they had police, they had taxation - and there was reasonable compliance with that because they were so brutal,” Professor Fair says.
“What the Taliban did in their first tenure was that they simply co-opted militias to work for them, so I suspect that we’re going to see a similar set of practices. They’re not coming into a vacuum.”
Have they changed in the past 20 years?
The Taliban have repeatedly claimed they have reformed many of their draconian policies of the late 1990s, particularly those concerning women.
"We don't want any internal or external enemies," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Wednesday in the group’s first press conference in 20 years.
He went on to say women would be allowed to work and study and "will be very active in society, but within the framework of Islam”.
But political analysts say their conduct so far does not support those claims.
A Taliban fighter in front of main gate leading to the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul. Source: AP
“Whether there is a Taliban number two in terms of their behaviour, their policies, their accepting others in a new political system, respecting the rights of women, minorities, I think it remains to be seen. But we do not see any evidence of that coming yet,” says LaTrobe University international relations lecturer Niamatullah Ibrahimi.
“In the city of Herat, there are reports that they have sent girls back from universities. In Kandahar, they have replaced female employees at a bank with males.”
Have they won Afghan ‘hearts and minds’ - as they claim?
One thing that has changed about the Taliban in the last 20 years is the sophistication of their messaging.
The past week has seen videos of Kabul residents embracing Taliban fighters offered up as supposed evidence that they have won hearts and minds. But Professor Fair warns against believing what can be seen.
“The Taliban don't win hearts and minds, they never have, they never will. If they thought they could win hearts and minds they would have contested elections,” she says.
“What the Taliban do is terrify hearts and minds. That's what they do because they are just that brutal.”
Analysts say the very idea of a reformed ‘Taliban 2.0’ was manufactured by the insurgents themselves.
“We know there are different factions within the Taliban. Some are more media savvy, they have been going around Kabul taking pictures, making statements that they are ready to support security, an image of a government that is in control and responsible to its citizens,” Mr Ibrahimi says.
“But we have also seen evidence of the Taliban in other parts of Afghanistan and also parts of Kabul, going after people, knocking on their doors, letting them know they’ve got a close eye on them.”
Who are the Taliban’s leaders?
The Taliban’s so-called ‘supreme leader’ has been Haibatullah Akhundzada since 2016.
He has not been seen publicly in years. His predecessor was killed in a US drone strike.
The much more public face of the Taliban is Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was their chief negotiator in Doha. He arrived back in Kandahar after the fall of Kabul and is now the de facto political leader of Afghanistan.
The new leader of Taliban fighters, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, in an undated photo. Source: AP
But much of how these leaders operate is shrouded in mystery.
“We know far less about the internal political dynamics of the Taliban movement than many analysts would like to think,” Professor Maley says.
“About a decade ago, the western powers thought they were managing to negotiate with the deputy leader of the Taliban at the time, and it turned out that it was a grocer from the Pakistani city of Quetta who was impersonating the deputy leader of the Taliban, and he walked away with a lot of money.”
Are any other countries willing to work with them?
Many saw the Taliban’s peace deal with the US early last year as giving the insurgents international legitimacy.
“There is some de facto recognition of the Taliban by countries in that region already,” Mr Ibrahimi says.
“We have seen the Taliban travel frequently in high profile trips to Tehran, to Moscow, to Beijing, Pakistan, which is the main supporter of the Taliban, we shouldn't forget.”
But US President Joe Biden this week, while defending the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, said he was "deeply saddened" by the turn of events there and promised to "speak out" on the rights of women now facing a return to Taliban rule.
After the Taliban seized power, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said China was ready for “friendly and cooperative” relations with Afghanistan. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan also said Russia had commenced talks with the Taliban almost immediately after they seized power.
“The countries to watch in this respect are China and Russia, who are licking their lips at the disastrous performance of the United States in Afghanistan, which everyone can tell from their television screens is an unmitigated catastrophe,” Professor Maley says.
“China and Russia will undoubtedly try to position themselves to exploit any opportunities in that part of the world that have been presented by the Americans' dismal performance.”
What can we expect them to do next?
While many took comfort in the Taliban’s press conference on Wednesday, analysts are warning there is no evidence the Taliban plans to behave any differently this time around.
“We're already hearing reports that they've gone into villages, they've kidnapped young girls and they've married them off,” Professor Fair says.
“I also anticipate that what we're going to see from them is actually much worse than what we saw in the 1990s, because for them to achieve their Jurassic fantasy of an Afghanistan trapped in the 8th century, they're going to have to do a lot of killing.
“It's an overwhelmingly youthful population. Over the last 20 years they've grown up expecting a different world than what their parents confronted, and to squash those hopes, it's going to take a lot of violence.”
Professor Maley says we could see relative calm for the next few weeks, but he does expect the situation to take a turn for the worse after that.
Taliban fighters on patrol in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Source: EPA
“The danger moment will be in six to eight weeks time when the foreigners are largely gone, when the international attention has drifted from Afghanistan, and at that point, I think we'll probably witness serious attempts to shut down communications about what's going on in the country through the confiscation of mobile phones,” he says.
“And I think there is a real danger that we could start seeing mass atrocity crimes taking place in Afghanistan as a way of deterring or preventing opposition to the Taliban taking shape.
“If that occurs, then we should be preparing for millions of refugees to leave Afghanistan.”
