Jan 31, 2012
By: Sayed Maisam Wahidi
Taliban ruled around 90 percent of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and installed a radical Islamic regime. At that time, Taliban’s defeat by the Afghan resistance groups seemed elusive but the incident of 9/11 and Taliban’s loyalty to Al-Qaida led to the collapse of their regime by US Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001. The Taliban, after that, turned from a regime into an insurgent group and began fighting the US and its NATO allies as well as the Afghan government. Since then, the Taliban’s stated goals have been to drive foreign forces out of the country and establish an Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. After the death of Osama Bin Laden and other top official Al-Qaida members, in addition to the international troop surge in southern Afghanistan from 2010, the momentum of the Taliban in eastern and southern parts of Afghanistan has begun to break, provoking the insurgency to agree to hold secret talks with the US. In an interesting revelation, the Taliban signaled a willingness to only hold talks with the US and not with the Afghan government. The opening of a liaison office for the Taliban in Doha shows the Taliban’s willingness to have a diplomatic voice but the question remains, whether the opening of the office in Qatar will give the Taliban an opportunity to join the political arena in Afghanistan.
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