the one that was really dangerous for me
was the time that we need to distribute
the books and notebooks to
the very far village
i was working with an international
organization teaching the girls out
there so we put all the books in the
back of the car
of course my father-in-law and the
driver accompany me
during the way crossing the road we
stopped by the taliban
they keep everyone separate so they
cannot listen to each other
so i was the only woman setting out
there
all the trunks in back of our cars were
full of the books
i was really sure that this time they
will definitely will kill me
this was 1999
when the taliban first ruled afghanistan
they oppressed afghans with laws drawn
from tribal codes and a strict
interpretation of islam
their control was total and brutal
two decades later the taliban have taken
back power every year i've seen how the
taliban they grew stronger
they have taken over afghanistan twice
not because they're good at governing
but because of the other actors in
afghanistan because of their
failures to taliban control
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afghanistan soviet troops were
everywhere throughout the capital and
the country moscow claimed they were
there because they've been invited that
version of events found few believers
elsewhere in 1979 the soviet union
invaded afghanistan to back an ally the
new communist afghan government together
they wanted to transform the country
into a social estate
but they faced resistance the afghan
crisis won't be easily dismissed and a
glance at the map shows why afghanistan
is a deeply divided country at the time
only a small fraction of the population
lived in a few major cities including
some who supported the government but
the majority of afghans lived in rural
areas where people were generally poor
conservative and very devoted to islam
and tribal traditions
for many authority came from tribal
leaders of their respective ethnic
groups
not the government in kabul
so when the communist afghan government
tried to enforce land reforms and
abolish social codes rural afghans
revolted
they formed independent militias but
were collectively known as the
mujahideen these are real mujahideen
they are scattered almost impossible to
unite they operate best in small groups
and in their home the mountains the
soviet army managed to occupy the cities
but met fierce resistance from the
mujahideen in rural areas
the soviets responded by pounding the
countryside with bombs raising entire
villages
but it galvanized more people to join
the rebellion
thousands of muslim volunteers from
around the world joined the mujahideen
countries eager to gain influence in
afghanistan started arming and funding
militias
even the u.s sent weapons to drain the
soviets their main rival
the support allowed the mujahideen to
fight for 10 years
around a million afghans died and 6
million were displaced
in 1989 the soviets gave up and left
three years after that the afghan
communist government fell
but the violence didn't end the mujadin
groups turned on each other and by 1992
afghanistan was consumed by civil war
door-to-door
street to street road to road
region to region province to province
there was always fighting this is
swedenori she was born and raised in
afghanistan and has worked there for
years promoting education and women's
rights they start searching the houses
to find if there is a beautiful or young
woman so they can marry by force
it was a really worst time
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kandahar was especially violent
several mujahideen and criminal groups
terrorized the population in the spring
of 1994 a group of locals here had had
enough
they asked this man muhammad omar for
help
he had fought in the soviet war before
becoming a teacher or mullah at an
islamic school called
madrasa he and a few other mullahs
gathered some students and drove out the
mujahideen
when more students joined they captured
the whole district
then kandahar city
this group became known as the taliban
which means the students in pashto
as the sole militia in kandahar they
brought peace for the first time in
years
and that's exactly why many people
supported them
if the mullahs and imam says that the
color of the milk is black all the
people accepting that because it comes
from us why not giving them opportunity
to take over the government
at this point the taliban were all
members of afghanistan's largest ethnic
group the pashtuns
which made it easier for them to take
over the mostly past gen areas in the
south
then they moved west and north defeating
some warlords and bribing others to join
them
as they gained territory they also found
a way to fund their expansion
by taking over these highways they
raised millions through taxes and by
gaining control of afghanistan's poppy
growing regions they profited from the
illegal opium trade but the most crucial
support came from a neighbor
pakistan was worried that one of these
mujahideen groups would take power and
ally with its enemy india effectively
surrounding them
so they gave the taliban tons of weapons
early on
in september 1996 the taliban entered
kabul and took control of afghanistan
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my name is najib i've been covering the
war in afghanistan for 17 years when the
taliban they took kabul in 1996 they set
up a government that was basically only
their members both its leadership and
fighting base were predominantly passed
on teachers and students so it was
basically a very inexperienced
government without any
practical knowledge about how to govern
yet they decided to remake the country
based on a religious ideology that took
shape in their madrasas what makes the
taliban special is that these madrazas
called the ubandi madrasas are inspired
by a certain interpretation of islam
influenced by pashtun culture
music television and even flying kites
were banned men had to grow beards
but the most draconian rules were placed
on women they weren't allowed to go out
without a male relative they couldn't
educate themselves they were practically
banned from working many schools for
girls went underground like the one
sweden ran in kabul it was only 20
meters away from the taliban come
i had good number of the students coming
to my school
it was all done and secret
and one day
the taliban entered
so i stopped them in front of the door
and i asked them to wait and my student
just noticed that they hide the books
take out the holy crowns
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what would have been the punishment if
you had been caught
they would stop
beating me
and same thing they would they would do
with the family of the girls beatings
stonings and public executions were
common punishments under the taliban
regime
it's why most countries except pakistan
saudi arabia and the uae refused to
recognize them as a legitimate
government but the taliban soon found
other allies
the most wanted terrorists in the world
osama bin laden altered by afghanistan's
ruling taliban ruling taliban's refusal
to surrender suspected terrorist bin
laden the u.s will hold afghanistan
responsible for any attack linked to bin
laden
obviously a very disturbing live shot
there that is the world trade center
after the 9 11 attacks a u.s led
coalition invaded afghanistan to hunt
down bin laden and topple the taliban
with the help of these mujahideen
leaders it took less than three months
to capture kabul bin laden escaped but
the taliban regime surrendered and asked
for amnesty the u.s refused so basically
to talba and they don't get a choice
they can either
become prisoners or continue fighting
the taliban leadership fled to pakistan
while most fighters went into hiding in
rural afghanistan
then the u.s promised to rebuild the
country and turn it into a democracy
it worked with the un to set up an
afghan government and army and invited
mujahideen leaders to run the local
governments
then they gave the government billions
of dollars to build roads bridges
hospitals and utilities in the cities
and rural areas
but many of those projects never took
shape
the afghan government was deeply corrupt
and stole millions
and in 2003 the us invaded iraq and
diverted a lot of its money
what remained was spent mostly in the
cities while rural afghanistan was
neglected and increasingly under attack
while the u.s was trying to rebuild
afghanistan it was simultaneously waging
a war on it
the american military was hunting down
the taliban and al qaeda members largely
in these rural areas
and funding and arming these muchadine
leaders in exchange for their help
but it all backfired drone strikes and
night raids increasingly killed innocent
civilians and the mujahideen leaders
started terrorizing people effectively
becoming warlords
the suffering of afghanistan and certain
parts of the country has not ended
we still keep losing our civilian lives
it's becoming to be heavy for us
it's not understandable anymore
basically the americans they created
their own monsters
as early as 2004 the taliban leadership
regrouped in pakistan and started
recruiting fighters
like the 90s they attracted pashtun
fighters in the south and east
but this time they also attracted
non-bastions including afghans from the
west and north but the thing that they
have in common is that they are from
rural afghanistan they had been harassed
by the local authorities they had
relatives being killed by
u.s aerial bombings they were caught
between a rock and a hard place and they
ended up
choosing the hard place and that was the
taliban
soon they were ambushing u.s nato and
afghan troops and introducing more
sophisticated tactics like roadside
bombs and suicide attacks
enlisting diverse groups even those that
didn't share their strict religious
beliefs made it possible for the taliban
to take territory in many parts of the
country
for funding they relied on familiar
tactics taxing highways and trading
poppy
plus they continued to have help from
pakistan who not only protected taliban
leaders but also armed funded and
trained their fighters
by 2008 the taliban controlled huge
swaths of rural afghanistan and even
threatened some cities
and as commander-in-chief i have
determined that it is in our vital
national interest to send an additional
30 000 u.s troops to afghanistan
in 2009 the u.s responded by sending a
surge of troops for 18 months they
cleared major cities but couldn't
dislodge the taliban from the rural
areas
in 2012 the u.s reduced its troops and
relied on the afghan government and army
to lead the fight
but years of corruption had led many
afghans to distrust the government
leaving room for the taliban to start
governing their own territories
but this version of the taliban's
governance was more flexible than their
rule in the 90s
in some places their governments looked
very much like the old taliban in the
mid 90s in other areas they were much
more pragmatic they had girl schools and
they didn't practicize you know rules
about beard and
tv shows it was a proof that you had a
very fragmented taliban that was the key
that allowed them to consolidate power
and wait for the u.s to leave
in february 2020 the trump
administration went straight to the
taliban to strike a deal they agreed to
leave afghanistan
in august 2021 the biden administration
delivered on that deal
as the final troops pulled out the
taliban attacked
the world watched as the afghan army
surrendered the government fled and the
taliban entered kabul unopposed
in september the taliban announced a new
interim government and it looks familiar
its top leadership is mostly pashtun
many of whom served in the 1990s regime
but their base like their fighters is
far more diverse
which makes this new regime
unpredictable
it will be a problem for the taliban if
they don't tolerate the variation of
interpretation of islam in their
movement which could end up with a
violent conflict between the different
parties i'm convinced that they they
haven't agreed on what kind of
afghanistan they want right now
there is a small window of hope if the
international community put force on the
taliban just make sure that the women's
and people have their basic needs access
to education access to job
access to freedom
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