tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/taliban-615/articlesTaliban – The Conversation2024-03-28T12:58:02Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2265702024-03-28T12:58:02Z2024-03-28T12:58:02ZMoscow terror attack showed growing reach of ISIS-K – could the US be next?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584987/original/file-20240328-18-qt434b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C270%2C5115%2C3160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 140 people died in the Crocus City Hall assualt in Moscow on March 22, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-shows-the-burning-crocus-city-hall-concert-hall-news-photo/2097708778?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-moscow-terror-attack-fits-isis-k-strategy-to-widen-agenda-take-fight-to-its-perceived-enemies-226469">deadly attack in Moscow</a> on March 22, 2024, exposed the vulnerability of the Russian capital to the threat of the Islamic State group and its affiliate ISIS-K. But it also displayed the reach of the network, leading some <a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/03/26/isis-k-moscow-attack/">terror experts to ponder</a>: Could a U.S. city be next?</p>
<p>There has not been a mass casualty assault in the U.S. carried out in the name of the Islamic State group since 2017, when a truck <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/sayfullo-saipov-be-sentenced-life-prison-2017-truck-attack-isis">mowed down cyclists and pedestrians on a New York City bikeway</a>, leaving eight dead.</p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.state.gov/the-islamic-state-five-years-later-persistent-threats-u-s-options/">five years after the Islamic State group’s territorial defeat</a> in Baghuz, Syria, had prompted hopes that the terrorist network was in terminal decline, a recent spate of attacks has thrust the group back into the spotlight. On the same day as the Moscow atrocity, an <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/21/at-least-three-killed-in-suicide-bombing-in-afghan-city-of-kandahar">ISIS-K suicide bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan</a>, resulted in the deaths of at least 21 people.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.american.edu/profiles/students/sh5958a.cfm">terrorism expert and a scholar</a> specializing in radical Islamist militant groups and the geographical scope of their attacks, I believe these incidents underscore the growing threat of ISIS-K both within the region it draws support from and on an international scale. </p>
<h2>Amplifying influence</h2>
<p>A successful terror attack on a Western capital is certainly something ISIS-K, or Islamic State Khorasan Province, aspires to. The intent behind the group’s activities is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-moscow-terror-attack-fits-isis-k-strategy-to-widen-agenda-take-fight-to-its-perceived-enemies-226469">bolster its position among jihadist factions</a> by means of audacious and sophisticated attacks.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man sits looking at screens with Tome, Madrid and London on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584899/original/file-20240327-24-xitpw9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An image released by pro-Islamic State media outlet Al Battar Foundation reads ‘After Moscow, who is next?’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.memri.org/jttm/posters-pro-islamic-state-isis-media-groups-celebrate-moscow-attack-threaten-and-incite-further">Al-Battar Foundation</a></span>
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<p>It is a strategy that showcases ISIS-K’s capabilities for spectacular operations, distinguishing it from potential rival groups. But it also enhances ISIS-K’s appeal, attracting both supporters and resources in the shape of funding and fighters.</p>
<p>By establishing a unique identity in a crowded extremist landscape, ISIS-K aims to undercut its competitors’ influence and assert its dominance in the jihadist sphere of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/09/25/the-strange-story-behind-the-khorasan-groups-name/">Khorasan region</a> it targets, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and other Central Asian countries.</p>
<p>ISIS-K’s ambition <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/03/moscow-concert-hall-attack-will-have-far-reaching-impact">extends</a> beyond territorial control, engaging in a broader contest for ideological supremacy and resource acquisition globally.</p>
<h2>An expanding threat</h2>
<p>This global reach and ambition are evident in ISIS-K’s recent planned operations.</p>
<p>These include a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kerman-us-warning-isisk-bombings-bcb47f04165b3eb7b9bc7b4868c8399c">suicide bombing in Iran</a> in January 2024 and thwarted attacks across Europe, notably <a href="https://english.aawsat.com/world/4418496-germany-netherlands-arrest-9-over-alleged-plan-attacks-line-isis">the foiled plots</a> in Germany and the Netherlands in July 2023.</p>
<p>And without a doubt, a successful attack in the United States is <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/islamic-state-khorasan-could-be-first-afghan-terror-group-to-put-us-in-its-sights/6241617.html">seen within ISIS-K’s hierarchy as a major goal</a>.</p>
<p>Since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/25/1240780292/us-officials-warn-of-isis-k-threat">officials in the Biden administration have repeatedly</a> warned of ISIS-K’s escalating danger to American interests, both at home and abroad.</p>
<p>ISIS-K’s <a href="https://www.militantwire.com/p/islamic-state-khurasan-mocks-us-hysteria">propaganda has persistently framed</a> the U.S. as its principal enemy – a narrative that is fueled by America’s <a href="https://ca.usembassy.gov/fact-sheets-the-global-coalition-working-to-defeat-isis/">extensive</a> military and economic efforts to dismantle Islamic State operations since 2014.</p>
<p>The United States’ involvement, especially in <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/commentary-no-good-choices-the-counterterrorism-dilemmas-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan/">collaboration</a> with the Taliban — ISIS-K’s primary regional adversary — has <a href="https://www.congress.gov/event/115th-congress/house-event/108344/text">placed America firmly</a> in the group’s crosshairs. </p>
<p>Employing <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/CTC-Beyond-the-Caliphate-Belgium.pdf">tactics refined during</a> the period that the Islamic State group was most active, ISIS-K seeks to inspire lone-wolf attacks and radicalize individuals in the U.S.</p>
<p>The 2015 mass shooting in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/05/us/san-bernardino-shooting/index.html">San Bernardino</a>, California, which left 14 dead, and the 2016 shooting at a nightclub in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/index.html">Orlando</a>, Florida, that resulted in at least 49 deaths, were both attacks inspired by the Islamic State group.</p>
<h2>Targeting major powers</h2>
<p>Taking its lead from the Islamic State group, ISIS-K in 2022 <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/09/islamic-state-afghanistan-khorasan-propaganda-russia-ukraine-war/">publicly condemned</a> America, calling it an enemy of Islam.</p>
<p>Of course, ISIS-K had by then already demonstrated its intention to harm U.S. interests, notably in a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/15/us-to-conduct-new-interviews-into-the-deadly-2021-bombing-at-kabul-airport">2021 Kabul airport attack</a> in which 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans were killed.</p>
<p>ISIS-K views the U.S. in much the same way as it does Russia: both as a military and an ideological foe.</p>
<p>Russia became a prime target due in part to its <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/10/1/what-has-russia-gained-from-five-years-of-fighting-in-syria">partnering with the Bashar al-Assad government</a> in Syria in operations against Islamic State group affiliates. Similarly, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/22/taliban-isis-drones-afghanistan/">Washington has worked with the Taliban</a> in Afghanistan in countering ISIS-K operations.</p>
<p>While it is easier for ISIS-K to penetrate Russian territory, given the country’s geographical proximity to major <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/24/islamic-state-recruiting-militants-from-tajikistan-and-other-central-asian-countries">Islamist recruitment centers, such as Tajikistan</a>, the potential for strikes in the United States remains significant. </p>
<p>In 2023, U.S. authorities <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/29/politics/migrants-us-southern-border-smuggler-isis-ties/index.html">investigated</a> a group of Uzbek nationals suspected of entering the country from Mexico with the assistance of traffickers linked to the Islamic State group, underscoring the group’s threat.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The wreckage of a truck under a blue sheet is seen being towed away." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C2314%2C1367&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584913/original/file-20240328-28-g95pq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Eight people died in a truck attack in New York City in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BikePathAttack/c09a4360d6b74c0c968a3897dbfa37f0/photo?Query=hudson%20bike%20%20attack&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=38&currentItemNo=27">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Targeting American interests serve multiple purposes for ISIS-K. By striking against the U.S., ISIS-K not only retaliates against Washington’s counterterrorism efforts but also aims to deter U.S. involvement in regions of interest to ISIS-K.</p>
<p>It also taps into historical grievances against the U.S. and Western interventions in Muslim countries – from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to the stationing of U.S. troops in significant Islamic centers in the Middle East, <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osama-bin-laden">notably Saudi Arabia</a>.</p>
<h2>Countering a persistent threat</h2>
<p>In response to the growing threat of Islamic State group affiliates, the United States has <a href="https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/June_2017_1225_Report_to_Congress.pdf">adopted a comprehensive strategy</a> combining military, intelligence and law enforcement efforts. </p>
<p>Military operations have targeted ISIS-K leaders and infrastructure in Afghanistan, while security cooperation with regional and international <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-uzbekistan-relations/">partners such as Uzbekistan</a> continues to monitor and counter the group’s activities. </p>
<p>On the home front, law enforcement and homeland security agencies remain vigilant, <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023-03-28%20-%20Testimony%20-%20Mayorkas.pdf">working to identify</a> and thwart potential ISIS-K plots.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-cia-terrorism-government-and-politics-87fb25aa94f4e4a8a46d82368f907be9">many experts had warned</a>, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 has posed new challenges, <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/al-qaeda-a-defeated-threat-think-again/">inadvertently transforming</a> that country once again into a safe haven and operational base for terrorist groups.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/commentary-no-good-choices-the-counterterrorism-dilemmas-in-afghanistan-and-pakistan/">retreat has also resulted</a> in a significant loss of on-the-ground intelligence amid <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-general-islamic-state-afghan-affiliate-closer-to-attacking-western-targets/7008633.html">doubts</a> over the efficacy of relying on the Taliban for counterterrorism operations.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-enduring-duel-islamic-state-khorasans-survival-under-afghanistans-new-rulers/">Taliban are struggling</a> to prevent or counteract ISIS-K attacks within their own borders.</p>
<p>The successful ISIS-K plots against Iran and Russia also reveal another vulnerability: When a country is distracted or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/isis-k-allowed-slipped-into-moscow-massacre-because-war-zelenskyy-2024-3#:%7E:text=The%20war%20in%20Ukraine%20distracted,in%20his%20Saturday%20night%20address.">preoccupied with other security concerns or conflicts</a>, it can potentially compromise the effectiveness of its counterterrorism efforts.</p>
<p>Recent years have witnessed a decrease in high-profile attacks by groups like the Islamic State, leading many to <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/u-s-sees-islamic-state-effectiveness-decreasing-but-analysts-warn-resurgence-still-possible-/7238289.html">conclude</a> that the threat was waning. As a result, global attention — and with it, intelligence and security resources — has shifted toward escalating power rivalries and conflicts across the Pacific, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.</p>
<p>Yet, this shift risks underestimating the enduring threat terrorist groups pose, laying bare the dangers of complacency.</p>
<p>The Moscow attack emphasizes ISIS-K’s resolve to expand its influence, raising concerns about the potential threat to Western nations, including the United States. Considering ISIS-K’s track record and clear aspirations, it would be naive to dismiss the possibility of an attack on American soil.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Harmouch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A spate of terror operations carried out by the Islamic State group affiliate has raised concerns over a potential attack on US soil.Sara Harmouch, PhD Candidate, School of Public Affairs, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2205862024-01-11T13:25:21Z2024-01-11T13:25:21ZIran terror blast highlights success – and growing risk – of ISIS-K regional strategy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568725/original/file-20240110-15-hzt6wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=60%2C160%2C6720%2C4285&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than 100 people were killed in the blast in Kerman, Iran, on Jan. 3, 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kerman-iran-people-disperse-near-the-scene-where-explosions-news-photo/1898126156?adppopup=true">Mahdi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-the-taliban-is-crucial-in-understanding-their-success-now-and-also-what-might-happen-next-166630">Taliban takeover of Afghanistan</a> in 2021, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province</a>, or ISIS-K, has sought to internationalize its operational and recruitment campaign. Utilizing a sweeping propaganda campaign to appeal to audiences across South and Central Asia, the group has tried to position itself as the <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/06/growing-threat-islamic-state-afghanistan-and-south-asia">dominant regional challenger</a> to what it perceives to be repressive regimes.</p>
<p>On Jan. 3, 2024, ISIS-K demonstrated just how far it had progressed toward these goals. In a brutal demonstration of its capability to align actions with extreme rhetoric, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Kerman, Iran, which resulted in the deaths of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-leaders-vow-revenge-funeral-bomb-attack-victims-state-media-2024-01-05/">over 100 people</a>.</p>
<p>The blast, which was reportedly carried out by two <a href="https://twitter.com/khorasandiary/status/1743236790591324604">Tajik ISIS-K members</a>, occurred during a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/04/iran-kerman-attack-islamic-state-suspicion-border-afghanistan-pakistan">memorial service</a> for Qassem Soleimani, a Lieutenant General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who was <a href="https://theconversation.com/qassem-soleimani-air-strike-why-this-is-a-dangerous-escalation-of-us-assassination-policy-129300">killed in a U.S. drone strike</a> in 2020. ISIS-K claimed the attack as an <a href="https://twitter.com/khorasandiary/status/1742948108697252211">act of revenge</a> against Soleimani, who <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Iran-Entangled.pdf">spearheaded</a> Iran’s fight against the Islamic State group and its affiliates prior to his death.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.clemson.edu/cbshs/about/profiles/index.html?userid=ajadoon">experts in ISIS-K</a> <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/team/dr-nakissa-jahanbani/">and Iran</a>, we believe the attack highlights the success of ISIS-K’s recruitment strategies and its growing ability to strike declared enemies and undermine regional stability.</p>
<h2>A growing threat</h2>
<p>The attack in Iran was not completely unexpected to those monitoring ISIS-K. A paper <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-enduring-duel-islamic-state-khorasans-survival-under-afghanistans-new-rulers/">one of us co-wrote</a> in 2023 noted that that despite setbacks, including <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-envoy-taliban-kill-8-key-islamic-state-leaders-in-afghanistan/7266218.html">the loss of key personnel</a>, ISIS-K was expanding and intensifying its regional influence. It was achieving this by leveraging its ethnically and nationally diverse membership base and <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/The_Islamic_State_in_Afghanistan_and_Pakistan_Strategic_Alliances_and_Rivalries">ties to other militant groups</a>.</p>
<p>The Kerman blast <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/14/iran-blames-isil-for-shrine-attack-arrests-foreign-nationals">follows two other recent</a> attacks on the <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202308146240">Shahcheragh shrine in Shiraz</a>, Iran, in October 2022 and August 2023 – both purportedly involving Tajik perpetrators.</p>
<p><iframe id="CNUqY" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/CNUqY/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The involvement of <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/tajik-national-attack-iran-shrine/32547498.html">Tajik</a> nationals in the Kerman attack underscores Iran’s <a href="https://www.mei.edu/events/irans-isis-challenge-afghanistan">long-standing concerns</a> over ISIS-K’s recruitment strategies, which have seen the group swell its members by reaching out to discontented Muslim populations across South and Central Asian countries and consolidating diverse grievances into a single narrative.</p>
<h2>Strategic diversity</h2>
<p>This strategy of “<a href="https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/islamic-states-central-asian-contingents-their-international-threat">internationalizing</a>” ISIS-K’s agenda – its aim is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">establishment of an Islamic caliphate</a> in Central and South Asia – has been pursued with <a href="https://eurasianet.org/islamic-state-threatens-central-asian-and-chinese-ventures-in-afghanistan">renewed</a> vigor since 2021. This is in part due to a more permissive environment following the U.S. withdrawal and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government.</p>
<p>This process of internationalizing ISIS-K’s agenda involves the group <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/the-islamic-state-threat-in-taliban-afghanistan-tracing-the-resurgence-of-islamic-state-khorasan/">targeting</a> regional countries directly, or their presence within Afghanistan. To date, this has seen interests from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/world/asia/pakistan-bombing-isis.html">Pakistan</a>, <a href="https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/07/20/indias-cautious-return-to-afghanistan/">India</a>, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/ISIS-K-threat-to-Uzbek-railway-dream-opens-doors-for-Taliban">Uzbekistan</a>, <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/tajikistan/">Tajikistan</a>, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Terrorism/China-s-mining-ambitions-in-Afghanistan-haunted-by-militants#:%7E:text=In%20December%2C%20ISIS%2DK%20claimed,independent%20verification%20of%20this%20claim.">China</a> <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Terrorism/Russia-s-ISIS-K-problem-intensifies-after-Kabul-embassy-bombing">and Russia</a> targeted by terrorist attacks. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, strikes against <a href="https://www.militantwire.com/p/islamic-state-in-afghanistan-promises">Iran</a> have long been foreshadowed in ISIS-K propaganda.</p>
<p>In parallel, the group’s <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/islamic-state-khorasans-expanded-vision-in-south-and-central-asia/">multilingual propaganda campaign</a> interwove a tapestry of local, regional and global grievances to recruit and mobilize supporters from a vast demographic spectrum, and potentially <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-66113791">inspire supporters from afar</a>.</p>
<p>In other instances, this has seen the terror group <a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy.clemson.edu/doi/full/10.1080/14799855.2023.2173581">partnering with</a> anti-government and sectarian militant networks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, collaborating with groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. </p>
<p>But moreover, ISIS-K is attempting to capture <a href="https://gnet-research.org/2023/05/22/the-state-of-play-islamic-state-khorasan-provinces-anti-india-propaganda-efforts/">the South</a> and <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/04/islamic-state-in-afghanistan-looks-to-recruit-regional-tajiks-inflict-violence-against-tajikistan/">Central Asian</a> militant market for itself. By utilizing fighters representative of regional religious and ethnic populations and publicizing their attacks, ISIS-K is signaling its commitment to a comprehensive jihadist agenda.</p>
<h2>The Tajik connection</h2>
<p>The involvement of Tajik recruits in the Kerman attack can be understood within this broader context of ISIS-K’s intentional strategic diversification.</p>
<p>Concerns around Tajik nationals’ recruitment into ISIS-K have <a href="https://www.icct.nl/publication/expeditionary-inspired-situating-external-operations-within-islamic-states-insurgency">existed</a> for a while, with the Taliban’s draconian treatment of Afghanistan’s minorities, including Tajiks, likely creating an unwitting <a href="https://peacepolicy.nd.edu/2022/11/17/human-rights-defenders-and-the-future-of-multi-ethnic-democracy-in-afghanistan/">recruitment boon</a> for the terror group.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.icct.nl/publication/expeditionary-inspired-situating-external-operations-within-islamic-states-insurgency">Several Tajik nationals</a> were arrested in relation to a <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-april-2020-islamic-state-terror-plot-against-u-s-and-nato-military-bases-in-germany-the-tajik-connection/">plot against U.S. and NATO</a> targets in Germany in April 2020. More Tajik ISIS-K members were arrested by German and Dutch authorities in <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/german-dutch-authorities-arrest-9-suspected-of-planning-terror-attacks/7169306.html">July 2023</a> as part of an operation to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/germany-netherlands-terror-group-arrests-20856495d2f7530df8cf4635b26d3fb6">disrupt a plot and ISIS-K fundraising</a>.</p>
<p>The attack in Iran represents a continuation of this process of <a href="https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/islamic-states-central-asian-contingents-their-international-threat">internationalizing</a> ISIS-K’s violent campaign.</p>
<p>But the bombing is significant for another reason: It takes ISIS-K’s fight directly to a symbol of Shia leadership.</p>
<p>A deadly attack against Iran, a formidable Shia state, lends ideological credence to ISIS-K’s words in the eyes of its followers. It also potentially facilitates the recruitment of individuals who are proponents of anti-Shia ideologies in the Muslim world.</p>
<p>More than any other Islamic State affiliate, ISIS-K is uniquely positioned to <a href="https://newlinesinstitute.org/nonstate-actors/terrorism-and-counterterrorism/islamic-state-in-khorasan-attempting-to-absorb-rival-groups/">exploit the vestiges</a> of the deeply embedded, decades-old Sunni-Shia divide in the region. </p>
<h2>Iran’s proxies and the Taliban</h2>
<p>This isn’t to say that the attack on Iran was purely opportunistic. ISIS-K has deep-rooted antipathy toward Iran due to Tehran’s religious, social and political involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. </p>
<p>Iran’s involvement has been multifold, from <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/sectarian-violence-and-intolerance-pakistan">supporting political and militant groups</a> such as <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/marriage-of-convenience-the-evolution-of-iran-and-al-qaidas-tactical-cooperation/">al-Qaida</a> and the <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/06/iran-and-afghanistans-long-complicated-history">Taliban</a> to <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/03/fatemiyoun-army-reintegration-afghan-society">recruiting fighters</a> from <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/irans-afghan-and-pakistani-proxies-syria-and-beyond">Afghanistan and Pakistan</a> for operations against Sunni militants.</p>
<p>Additionally, during the two decades of war in Afghanistan, several Taliban factions reportedly <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/R44017.pdf">received weapons and funding</a> through Iran’s Quds Force, which carries out missions outside Iran as an arm of the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/irans-revolutionary-guards/">paramilitary security institution</a> Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. By 2018, leaders in Tehran <a href="https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1396/12/16/1667788/">viewed the Taliban</a> as a buffer against ISIS-K.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in fatigues stands on rubble, broken walls are behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568726/original/file-20240110-29-obe6yi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Taliban fighter checks a destroyed ISIS-K safehouse on Feb. 14, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/699c02b437504085a34732c9264ae1d9?ext=true">AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Iran’s strategic interest in Afghanistan is also reflected in the career trajectories of the Quds Force’s top brass. Soleimani was the <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/beyond-soleimani-implications-irans-proxy-network-iraq-syria/">chief architect</a> behind Iran’s network of proxies, some of which were leveraged against ISIS.</p>
<p>His successor, Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, spent part of <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/who-esmail-qaani-new-chief-commander-irans-qods-force">his career</a> managing proxies in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.</p>
<p>Iran’s recruitment and encouragement of Shia proxies has exacerbated tensions with ISIS-K.</p>
<p>During the Syrian civil war, the Quds Force <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Iran-Entangled.pdf">recruited, trained and deployed</a> the <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/how-the-return-of-iranian-backed-militias-from-syria-complicates-u-s-strategy/">Fatemiyoun and</a> <a href="https://www.fdd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Zeynabiyoun.pdf">Zeinabiyoun brigades</a>, composed of Afghan and Pakistani Shia fighters, respectively. There were <a href="https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/death-qassem-soleimani-what-expect-afghanistan-and-pakistan">concerns</a> among international observers that the <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/afghans-fear-irgc-may-deploy-fatemiyoun-fighters-afghanistan">Fatemiyoun Brigade</a> may be deployed to Afghanistan after the U.S.’s withdrawal. Thus far, Iran appears to leverage the two brigades to <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4231.html">stabilize its partners</a> in areas <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/future-security/reports/whither-irgc-2020s/">outside of Iran’s immediate vicinity</a>. Nevertheless, the Fatemiyoun Brigade retains the potential to be mobilized as a mobile force within Afghanistan, contingent upon Iran’s evolving strategic calculus.</p>
<h2>The perfect storm?</h2>
<p>The attack in Iran raises two critical issues with grave security implications: the growing regional reputation and capability of ISIS-K, and the extent to which Iran’s use of militant proxies in Afghanistan may encourage a regional backlash among Sunni extremists.</p>
<p>Improving <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/looking-legitimacy-taliban-diplomacy-fall-kabul">relations</a> between the Taliban and Tehran suggests that a collaborative stance against ISIS-K may be possible, driven by a mutual desire for stability.</p>
<p>But intervention in Afghanistan, or Iranian deployment of proxy militant forces in the region, could have widespread security repercussions, the type of which we have seen play out in the Iranian attack.</p>
<p>For Pakistan, too, it may fester a renewed cycle of <a href="https://twitter.com/abdsayedd/status/1743275054119497797">sectarian violence</a>, creating opportunities for militant groups active in the country like ISIS-K, <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-tehrik-i-taliban-pakistan-after-the-talibans-afghanistan-takeover/">Tehrik-e-Taliban</a> and fighters involved in <a href="https://newlinesinstitute.org/nonstate-actors/pakistan-faces-rising-separatist-insurgency-in-balochistan/">the Baloch insurgency</a>.</p>
<p>For the U.S., Iran’s increased involvement in Afghanistan and the violent attack by ISIS-K likewise poses a strategic concern. It risks destabilizing the region and undermining <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/27/isis-islamic-state-al-qaeda-terrorism-strength-threat-afghanistan-africa-syria-iraq-biden/">efforts to constrain transnational</a> terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views, conclusions, and recommendations in this article are the authors’ own and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amira Jadoon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The terrorist attack in Iran follows a concerted effort by the Islamic State affiliate to ‘internationalize’ its strategy.Amira Jadoon, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clemson UniversityNakissa Jahanbani, Assistant Professor at the Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy West PointLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175322023-11-13T23:40:48Z2023-11-13T23:40:48ZWhy Western countries share the blame for the plight of 1.7 million Afghans being deported from Pakistan<p>On November 1, Pakistan began a nationwide operation to deport over 1.7 million Afghans it says are living in the country illegally. There are now an estimated <a href="https://www.rescue.org/press-release/afghans-returning-pakistan-after-expulsion-order-have-nowhere-go-warn-aid-agencies#:%7E:text=The%20daily%20number%20of%20arrivals,million%20people%20could%20be%20affected.">10,000 people returning to Afghanistan</a> each day.</p>
<p>Pakistan has indicated the deportations are designed to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/world/asia/pakistan-deport-afghan-refugees.html">reduce cross-border incursions from Taliban fighters</a> based in Afghanistan. But it is more likely the interim military government is succumbing to populist politics around inflation, housing shortages and cost of living pressures in the country. </p>
<p>There were already over a million Afghans living in Pakistan before the Taliban came back into power in Afghanistan in August 2021. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been unable to process all of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Afghans who have fled to Pakistan since then. It is estimated only about a third of Afghan refugees in Pakistan are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/pakistan-government-must-not-deport-afghan-refugees/">registered with the refugee agency</a>. </p>
<p>The level of documentation that Afghans in Pakistan have varies extensively. Some entered the country without visas and passports. Some entered on visas and have been waiting indefinitely for renewal, others are on expired visas. </p>
<p>The UNHCR has subcontracted much of the registration of refugees to <a href="https://sharp-pakistan.org/">other organisations in Pakistan</a>. Often, payment to a local broker is the only way refugees are able to get an appointment. This is entirely unreasonable when countries like Australia require UNHCR registration of refugees to <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-and-support/afghanistan-update">facilitate priority processing</a>.</p>
<p>Many refugees experience lengthy waiting periods to be registered, formally recognised as refugees and then issued an ID card, let alone referred for onward resettlement. Shelter, food and medical assistance are not even considered. </p>
<p>Refugee identity documents are not even enough to protect people from deportation. There have been <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-expels-afghan-refugees-concerns-uscirf/32675032.html">reports of police detaining and threatening people with valid Pakistani visas</a>. Activists told me of incidents in which police have torn up valid visas and Afghan passports.</p>
<p>Many Afghans have applied for resettlement in countries that were members of the NATO-led force that maintained security in Afghanistan, such as the US, Canada, Australia and countries in the European Union. But as the world has turned its eye to other conflicts, those countries have <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/15/international-community-still-hasnt-fulfilled-its-promises-afghan-refugees">fallen drastically short</a> of their promises to Afghan refugees. It is estimated only <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/pakistan-drop-threat-deport-afghans#:%7E:text=While%20200%2C000%20have%20been%20resettled,contributed%20to%20their%20military%20efforts.">200,000 Afghans have been resettled globally</a> since August 2021.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-feel-suffocated-afghans-are-increasingly-hopeless-but-theres-still-a-chance-to-preserve-some-rights-166171">'I feel suffocated': Afghans are increasingly hopeless, but there's still a chance to preserve some rights</a>
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<h2>A trickle of visas approved for Afghans</h2>
<p>Human Rights Watch has also highlighted the unreasonably slow processing times for Afghan refugees in resettlement countries, such as the US, UK, Germany, Australia and other EU countries. This is particularly true for women and girls, the organisation <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/pakistan-drop-threat-deport-afghans">says</a>: </p>
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<p>Afghan women and girls have often faced greater barriers to obtaining asylum, as destination countries have often prioritised assisting Afghans – overwhelmingly men – who contributed to their military efforts. </p>
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<p>Since the Taliban returned to power, only 12,200 Afghan applicants <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/dari/en/podcast-episode/why-hasnt-australia-announced-its-refugee-quota-for-fy-2023-24/wbir7ft5q">have received a humanitarian visa</a> to enter Australia. During the 2022 federal election campaign, Labor promised to increase the total refugee and humanitarian intake to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.au/campaigns/raising-the-humanitarian-intake/">27,000 people annually</a>. But this hasn’t happened. </p>
<p>Australia has <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-23-Budget-summary-1.pdf">promised</a> just 26,500 humanitarian and 5,000 family places for Afghans from 2021-26.</p>
<p>Yet, there are more than 147,000 Afghan applicants still <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-and-support/afghanistan-update">in the queue</a> waiting to be processed from the 189,000 applications received since August 2021. And earlier this year, the <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-and-support/afghanistan-update">Department of Home Affairs</a> quietly removed human rights defenders from its list of groups to receive priority visa processing from Afghanistan.</p>
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<h2>A dire situation for women and girls</h2>
<p>Former US President George W. Bush said in the early 2000s that the US went to Afghanistan to <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/afghanistan/20040708.html">liberate the country’s women</a>, but those women have been forgotten now. </p>
<p>Today, Afghanistan remains in one of the world’s most <a href="https://www.rescue.org/article/top-10-crises-world-cant-ignore-2023">dire humanitarian crises</a>. </p>
<p>The United Nations has described a system of <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/07/experts-taliban-treatment-women-may-be-gender-apartheid">gender apartheid</a> under Taliban rule, in which women are prevented from participating in any public life, education or economic activity outside the home. </p>
<p>Infant and maternal mortality rates have skyrocketed because women are not allowed to travel to seek medical attention, female doctors are not allowed to work and male doctors are not allowed to treat female patients. </p>
<p>Leaders of NGOs that work on women’s education and other women’s rights continue to be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/24/afghan-womens-rights-activists-forcibly-disappeared#:%7E:text=The%20Taliban's%20response%20to%20the,through%20unlawful%20use%20of%20force.">disappeared</a>. Women who are brave enough to protest on the street are beaten. Journalists are routinely detained for covering such issues.</p>
<p>Last year, the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund <a href="https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1t/k1tuye65yb">launched</a> a new program dedicated to supporting women’s human rights defenders around the world. However, I’ve been told this program is now facing a US$14 million (A$22 million) funding shortfall.</p>
<p>This fund provides small grants to a number of Afghan women’s human rights defenders to fund their ongoing advocacy work and relocate them or help them flee when their lives are in danger. Often, these women need this money to pay exorbitant prices for visa extensions to stay in Pakistan, or for exit permits to leave the country if they are given a resettlement place elsewhere. </p>
<p>If countries like Australia and the US help make up this shortfall, more women will have access to these grants and be able to escape extreme security risks.</p>
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<h2>What now for Afghans living in limbo?</h2>
<p>Western countries must keep their promises to process refugee visa applications for Afghans in a timely fashion. </p>
<p>Australia <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=committees/estimate/26889/&sid=0001">refuses</a> to grant refugee visas to people currently in Afghanistan. Yet, the government is still taking years to process the claims of incredibly high risk individuals outside the country who meet several priority processing criteria. Those people fled to countries like Pakistan and Iran and are now being deported because the process has taken so long. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-the-taliban-returns-20-years-of-progress-for-women-looks-set-to-disappear-overnight-165012">As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight</a>
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<p>Similarly, Afghans who are eligible for special immigrant visas to the US can also wait for years. Even if they get an appointment with the US embassy in Islamabad, there is no guarantee of a timeline when they will be sent to the US. </p>
<p>These timelines have to change. Globally, poorer countries shoulder the burden as the hosts of the overwhelming majority of refugees. Pakistan is now deporting Afghans. Iran, host to more than <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/afghanistan">three million Afghan refugees</a>, will likely <a href="https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-185910">follow soon</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Hutchinson is executive director of Azadi-e Zan, an NGO dedicated to helping Afghan women's human rights defenders. This is an unpaid role. She is also a member of the Australian Civil Society Coalition for Women, Peace and Security.</span></em></p>Some 189,000 Afghans have applied for visas to Australia, but the government has only approved 31,500 refugee spots for the next four years. Women face the biggest hurdles to resettlement.Susan Hutchinson, PhD Candidate, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2161562023-10-27T11:03:49Z2023-10-27T11:03:49ZTaliban: why China wants them as a friend and not as a foe<p>The <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-and-the-talibans-economic-dreams/">Taliban’s presence</a> at the massive October jamboree in Beijiing to celebrate the 10th year of China’s ambitious trade plan, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is part of Beijing’s regional strategy.</p>
<p>This was one of only a handful of foreign <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/2/taliban-fm-to-meet-pakistan-china-foreign-ministers-media">visits</a> made by the Taliban since taking power after Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Interim Afghan minister for commerce Haji Nooruddin Azizi even <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-says-plans-formally-join-chinas-belt-road-initiative-2023-10-19/">talked about </a> the Taliban’s desire for Afghanistan to join the BRI.</p>
<p>The idea of an Islamist group such as the Taliban allying with the nominally secular and communist China might appear surprising. But this is a logical outcome of China’s strategic fears over <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/19/afghan-militants-china-imperialism-islamic-state/">Islamic militancy</a> at home and abroad. </p>
<p>It is also part of a deepening of ties between China and many Islamic nations in recent years. Historically, Beijing has had no problems working with religious groups or religious-led countries, despite its <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/23/10-things-to-know-about-chinas-policies-on-religion/">suspicion</a> of religion at home. </p>
<p>To understand Beijing’s motivations for cementing ties with Taliban-led Afghanistan, one only needs to look to Afghanistan’s recent history. With the conclusion of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Soviet-invasion-of-Afghanistan">Soviet-Afghan War</a> (1979-1989) and the collapse of the Moscow-installed Najibullah government in 1992, Afghanistan became a <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan">hotbed</a> of Islamic radicalism. It <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24469676">became a magnet for</a> militants from all over the world, from Chechen separatists battling Yeltsin’s Russia to the Islamist Abu Sayaf, based in the Philippines.</p>
<p>China had been one of the biggest <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02634930120095349">supporters</a> of the Mujaheddin, the Islamic group which ran Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992, providing the group with training and weaponry. This was partly <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2018/09/how-the-1980-laid-the-groundwork-for-chinas-major-foreign-policy-challenges/">motivated</a> by Beijing’s desire to bolster its ties with the United States and to strike a blow against the Soviet Union, its major communist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/20th-century-international-relations-2085155/The-Sino-Soviet-split">rival</a>. </p>
<p>Beijing is less worried about Russia these days. Not only does it have Russia as an ally, but is <a href="https://theconversation.com/putin-and-xi-beijing-belt-and-road-meeting-highlighted-russias-role-as-chinas-junior-partner-216187">the dominant partner</a> in the relationship. But it was the assistance to the Mujaheddin that provided some of the groundwork for the security challenges that China faces today as it created a breeding ground for extremism, close to its borders.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-is-extending-its-dealings-with-the-taliban-as-it-increases-its-superpower-status-197664">China is extending its dealings with the Taliban as it increases its superpower status</a>
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<p>The threat of Islamic militancy from across the Afghan border has posed a very real challenge for Beijing. This was demonstrated by a wave of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45073494">attacks</a> carried out by Uighur militants in China’s western Xinjiang province throughout the 1990s and 2000s, culminating in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/world/asia/china-executes-3-over-deadly-knife-attack-at-train-station-in-2014.html">2014 Kunming knife attack</a>, which killed 31 and injured 141 people.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Taliban leaders were in Beijing at the Belt and Road Initiative celebrations.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Attacks such as those at Kunming led to China’s <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/FP_20190930_china_counterterrorism_byman_saber-1.pdf">controversial</a> and repressive policies used against Uighurs in Xinjiang. They also reinforced Beijing’s fears of <a href="https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/09/25/chinas-reluctant-taliban-embrace/">extremism</a> spilling over the borders from Afghanistan. </p>
<p>These would threaten Chinese interests in central Asia and China’s western border regions, which have become <a href="https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2019/11/29/xinjiang-casts-uncertainty-over-the-belt-and-road-initiative/">pivotal</a> for the BRI. The presence of the Taliban at the BRI summit can be seen as an example of how China hopes to create an ally in an attempt to shore up its political and economic interests.</p>
<h2>China’s ties with Islamic world</h2>
<p>The Taliban’s presence at the BRI summit also demonstrates China’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2022/12/05/ask-the-experts-is-chinas-growing-influence-in-the-middle-east-pushing-out-the-united-states/">growing ties</a> with the Islamic world, which has drawn notable attention in recent years. </p>
<p>Beijing <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/06/iran-saudi-arabia-deal-agreement-china-meeting-beijing/">mediated</a> between Iran and Saudi Arabia over their long-standing rivalry in the region. It was also involved in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/24/analysis-wall-of-brics-the-significance-of-adding-six-new-members">agreement</a> to add several Islamic nations to the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) partnership. </p>
<p>More recently, China’s military ties with the region were further underlined by the deployment of Chinese warships as part of a <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3237401/chinese-and-saudi-navies-launch-joint-counterterrorism-exercise-against-backdrop-israel-hamas-war">naval exercise</a> with Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Muslim nations have been an important source of markets and natural resources for Beijing, with China <a href="https://asiatimes.com/2023/05/china-seizing-us-arms-markets-in-the-middle-east/">moving</a> into Middle Eastern markets that had traditionally been dominated by the United States. There has also been a growth in cultural ties, with <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3233421/mandarin-learning-boom-china-extends-its-soft-power-middle-east">interest</a> in learning Mandarin Chinese growing throughout the Middle East.</p>
<p>These developments can also be seen as a wider effort by Beijing to present China as a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19448953.2021.1888248">partner</a> to Muslim nations at a time where the <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2022/08/13/the-diplomatic-retreat-of-the-us-in-the-middle-east/">grip</a> of the region’s traditional power bases appears to have weakened.<br>
Such an effort can be seen in the recent tensions over Gaza, where Beijing has taken a more <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/24/israel-hamas-war-china-urges-israel-to-abide-by-international-laws.html">critical tone</a> over Israel’s conduct, which marks a notable change from its more cautious language in the past. This has also been accompanied by a <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3237949/israel-hamas-war-chinese-social-media-erupts-war-words-palestine-crisis-divides-opinion">wave</a> of support for Palestine on Chinese social media.</p>
<p>The initial gains from China’s efforts to portray itself as a friend to the Islamic world could be seen in how a UK-led <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/uyghur-news-recap-oct-13-20-2023/7320010.html">statement</a> condemning China’s policies in Xinjiang, mainly attracted the support of western nations, but very few Islamic nations. This shows the diplomatic <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/china-muslim-countries-tilt-uyghur-abuses-ignored-us-influence-fades">influence</a> that China has built in the Muslim world.</p>
<p>Recent developments have shown that China continues to boost its diplomatic clout in Islamic nations, which could pose a further strategic challenge for western nations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Harper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beijing is happy to partner up with religious-led nations if it is in its strategic interests.Tom Harper, Lecturer in International Relations, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2162452023-10-26T12:32:16Z2023-10-26T12:32:16ZUN warns that Gaza desperately needs more aid − an emergency relief expert explains why it is especially tough working in Gaza<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555675/original/file-20231024-27-axqx74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Palestinian boy sits in a World Health Organization truck near a hospital in the southern area of the Gaza Strip. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/palestinian-boy-sits-in-a-truck-of-the-world-health-news-photo/1741639361?adppopup=true">Ahmed Zakot/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>United Nations agencies on Oct. 24, 2023, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-palestinian-refugee-agency-calls-unimpeded-flow-aid-gaza-2023-10-24/">pleaded for more aid</a> to be allowed into Gaza, saying that more than 20 times the amount of food, water and medical supplies and other items that are currently reaching people is needed.</em></p>
<p><em>Egypt first opened its borders for <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trucks-enter-gaza-carrying-medical-supplies-food-hamas-2023-10-21/">aid deliveries into Gaza on Oct. 21</a>, and since then, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/third-gaza-bound-aid-convoy-enters-rafah-crossing-egypt-sources-2023-10-23">54 trucks</a> with medical supplies had entered Gaza as of Oct. 23, according to the U.N.</em></p>
<p><em>But the U.N. and other <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/we-desperately-need-more-humanitarian-aid-come-gaza">international aid groups are warning</a> that the 2.3 million people living in Gaza remain in dire need of more clean water, food, fuel and medical care. The U.N.’s relief agency in Gaza, UNRWA, is also saying that without more fuel, it will have to <a href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-18">stop its work</a> on everything from providing medical care to setting up shelters for displaced people on Oct. 25.</em> </p>
<p><em>Safely delivering aid in Gaza has unique complications – including the fact that the U.S. and the European Union classify Hamas as a terrorist group.</em> </p>
<p><em>The Conversation spoke with <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/664/paul-b-spiegel">Paul Spiegel</a>, an expert on complex humanitarian emergencies at the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to better understand the particular challenges this reality creates and how it affects delivering aid to civilians in Gaza.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People wearing yellow vests wave Egyptian flags at a large white truck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555676/original/file-20231024-29-xm3ju6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People greet trucks loaded with humanitarian aid preparing to enter Gaza from Egypt on Oct. 22, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trucks-loaded-with-humanitarian-aid-prepare-to-enter-gaza-news-photo/1740638103?adppopup=true">Ahmed Gomaa/Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are the challenges with providing aid in conflict zones like Gaza?</h2>
<p>Providing humanitarian assistance in any sudden emergency, like the one <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-captives-border-aid-f5976ed58ba508f14d45b72b428125ac">currently happening in Gaza</a>, is complex – in terms of security, logistics and financing. </p>
<p>Often, there are simply not enough appropriate supplies available to quickly get into an acute emergency, which might be in a remote area or might be in a restricted area, as is the case with Gaza. There are <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/aid-worker-security-report-2022-collateral-violence-managing-risks-aid-operations-major-conflict">often security issues</a> that may affect an aid group’s access to a population. And there is the risk that <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/syria-attack-humanitarian-convoy-attack-humanity">aid workers will be attacked</a>, as has <a href="https://www.aidworkersecurity.org/incidents/report">happened increasingly</a> over the last several years. </p>
<p>Typically, a U.N. agency like the World Health Organization would try to get assurances from all groups that are part of a conflict, so that those providing assistance will not be targets of violence. These assurances do not always happen, and then the agencies need to decide if they deliver <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/aid-worker-security-report-2023-figures-glance">the aid or wait until they get a guarantee</a> they won’t be attacked. </p>
<p>There are also concerns about aid, which is intended only for civilians, being diverted for military purposes. This can vary from combatants secretly taking small amounts of supplies for their troops or stealing large truckloads of goods.</p>
<h2>How do politics affect humanitarian work, which is supposed to be neutral?</h2>
<p>Humanitarians try to follow basic principles of <a href="https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/humanitarian-principles/">humanity, independence, neutrality and impartiality</a>. We are not addressing the underlying causal issues related to a crisis. But the politics surrounding an emergency are still often a major, complicating factor in our work. </p>
<p>For example, at the Egyptian <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67121372">Rafah crossing into Gaza</a>, various issues needed to be resolved, such as searching aid convoys for weapons, which items Hamas or other groups could divert from civilians and the assurance that refugees would not cross into Egypt. These and other aspects continue to delay much-needed aid for civilians in Gaza.</p>
<p>In this conflict, I have also seen aid workers express concern that the <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/interview-israel-palestine-lack-fuel-gaza-now-critical-says-wfp">limited amount of aid</a> currently allowed into Gaza would stay in the south, and consequently be a pull factor for people being displaced from their homes. Or, there is a concern that the aid may not get to where it is most needed, such as all hospitals throughout Gaza. </p>
<p>In other crises, like those in the <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/humanitarian-assistance/democratic-republic-of-the-congo">Democratic Republic of Congo</a> or in Syria, we have heard concerns from all sides of a conflict about how aid may be unevenly or inequitably distributed, depending on where people live or what particular ethnic or religious group they belong to. This can cause tensions and even fighting among different communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two children sit on the ground between rows of white tents and clothing hung on white laundry lines." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555677/original/file-20231024-22-hd2tks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children play around tents on Oct. 19, 2023, at a U.N. camp set up for Palestinians who fled to the southern Gaza Strip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kids-play-around-tents-at-a-camp-set-up-by-the-united-news-photo/1733642681?adppopup=true">Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How does Hamas factor into this planning?</h2>
<p>The U.S. and the <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/fight-against-terrorism/terrorist-list/#applied">European Union</a> have very <a href="https://www.state.gov/executive-order-13224/">strict rules</a> that will block the financial assets of organizations that give money or support to Hamas, or any other organization they classify as a terrorist group. </p>
<p>These sanctions also prohibit any direct contact between aid groups and a listed <a href="https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/">terrorist organization like Hamas</a>.</p>
<h2>Can you give an example of what this looks like in practice?</h2>
<p>I arrived in Afghanistan immediately after the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan">Taliban took over</a> in 2021 with the World Health Organization. When that happened, the nongovernmental organizations and U.N. agencies – which receive the largest <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/funding-united-nations-what-impact-do-us-contributions-have-un-agencies-and-programs">amount of money from the U.S.</a> than from any other country – were not allowed to officially work with the Taliban and their ministries, or to give any money to them. </p>
<p>Previously, most of the global funding for health, for instance, was given to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, which then had systems in place to disburse the money and monitor how it was spent. These new restrictions made it harder for aid to be delivered. We needed to find new ways of doing work, in order to bypass the Taliban and the Ministry of Public Health, which the former now controlled. This disruption created challenges in terms of both distributing aid quickly and in terms of sustainability, as many of the employees at the ministry left.</p>
<h2>What are the long-term effects of navigating around governments that are classified by some countries as terrorist groups?</h2>
<p>When international assistance is not allowed to go through local governments because of sanctions, the U.N. and international nongovernmental organizations develop and run parallel services, like schools or hospitals. </p>
<p>While this may work in the short term and save lives, these parallel systems have longer-term, negative effects. Government officials may leave their jobs for higher-paying jobs in the U.N. and with NGOs, for example. </p>
<p>We have seen the negative, long-term effects of this firsthand in numerous countries, like Afghanistan, South Sudan and other places where the U.S. and other governments are concerned about terrorism, and consequently have imposed sanctions. </p>
<p>At this point in time, I think that lifesaving aid desperately needs to be provided to civilians in Gaza. Despite the various challenges I have mentioned in this discussion, I believe that humanity must prevail, over all other aspects. It truly is a matter of life and death.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Spiegel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Government sanctions against Hamas, which the US and the European Union consider a terrorist group, mean that aid groups are not able to directly work with Hamas.Paul Spiegel, Director of the Center for Humanitarian Health, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155782023-10-16T12:33:13Z2023-10-16T12:33:13ZA reflexive act of military revenge burdened the US − and may do the same for Israel<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553706/original/file-20231013-15-slni2v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C35%2C5982%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Israeli tanks gather near the border with the Gaza Strip on Oct. 13, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/graphic-content-israeli-army-merkava-battle-tanks-deploy-news-photo/1722767899">Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the shocking invasion of southern Israel by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-gantz-agree-form-emergency-israel-government-statement-2023-10-11/">vowed to destroy Hamas</a>. </p>
<p>“We are fighting a cruel enemy, worse than ISIS,” Netanyahu proclaimed four days after the invasion, comparing Hamas with the Islamic State group, which was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/21/isis-caliphate-islamic-state-raqqa-iraq-islamist">largely defeated</a> by U.S., Iraqi and Kurdish forces in 2017. </p>
<p>On that same day, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant went further, stating, “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-gantz-agree-form-emergency-israel-government-statement-2023-10-11/">We will wipe this thing called Hamas</a>, ISIS-Gaza, off the face of the earth. It will cease to exist.” They were strong words, issued in the wake of the horrific terrorist attack that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip/card/latest-death-toll-in-israel-and-gaza-eoVPFI8WcXN0mzIR73pY">killed more than 1,300 Israelis</a> and culminated in the kidnapping of more than 150 people, including several Americans. </p>
<p>And in a telling comparison, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan compared the attack with the toppling of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon in 2001, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/08/1204579022/u-s-calls-on-countries-with-influence-over-hamas-to-condemn-its-assault-on-israe">declaring</a>, “This is Israel’s 9/11.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://history.osu.edu/people/mansoor.1">scholar of military history</a>, I believe the comparison is interesting and revealing. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaida on the United States, President George W. Bush made a <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html">similar expansive pledge</a>, declaring, “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” </p>
<p>The U.S. response to 9/11 included the American invasion of Afghanistan in league with the Afghan United Front, the so-called Northern Alliance. The immediate goals were to force the Taliban from power and destroy al-Qaida. Very little thought or resources were put into what happened after those goals were attained. In his 2010 memoir, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/200372/decision-points-by-george-w-bush/">Decision Points</a>,” former President Bush recalled a meeting of the war cabinet in late September 2001, when he asked the assemblage, “‘So who’s going to run the country (Afghanistan)?’ There was silence.”</p>
<p>Wars that are based on revenge can be effective in punishing an enemy, but they can also create a power vacuum that sparks a long, deadly conflict that fails to deliver sustainable stability. That’s what happened in Afghanistan, and that is what could happen in Gaza.</p>
<h2>A war of weak results</h2>
<p>The U.S. invasion toppled the Taliban from power by the end of 2001, but the war did not end. An interim administration headed by Hamid Karzai took power as an Afghan council of leaders, called a <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-loya-jirga-explainer/25174483.html">loya jirga</a>, fashioned a new constitution for the country. </p>
<p>Nongovernmental and international relief organizations began to deliver humanitarian aid and reconstruction support, but their efforts were uncoordinated. U.S. trainers began <a href="https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/Mar-Apr-2019/74-Afghanistan-Army/">creating a new Afghan National Army</a>, but <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW115-Afghanistan-National-Defense-and-Security-Forces-Mission-Challenges-and-Sustainability.pdf">lack of funding, insufficient volunteers and inadequate facilities</a> hampered the effort.</p>
<p>The period between 2002 and 2006 was the best opportunity to create a resilient Afghan state with enough security forces to hold its own against a resurgent Taliban. Because of a <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/easier-get-war-get-out-case-afghanistan">lack of focus, inadequate resources and poor strategy</a>, however, the United States and its allies squandered that opportunity.</p>
<p>As a result, the Taliban was able to <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan">reconstitute its forces</a> and return to the fight. As the insurgency gained momentum, the United States and its NATO allies <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24910832">increased their troop levels</a>, but they could not overcome the weakness of the Kabul government and the lack of adequate numbers of trained Afghan security forces.</p>
<p>Despite a surge of forces to Afghanistan during the first two years of the Obama administration and the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban remained undefeated. As Western forces largely departed the country by the end of 2014, Afghan forces took the lead in security operations, but their numbers and competence proved insufficient to stem the Taliban tide. </p>
<p>Negotiations between the United States and the Taliban went nowhere, as Taliban leaders realized they could seize by force what they could not gain at the bargaining table. The <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-afghanistan">Taliban entry into Kabul in August 2021</a> merely put an exclamation point on a campaign the United States had lost many years before.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XvGLDUhHOwQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. exit from Afghanistan in July and August 2021 was chaotic and dangerous, and it left the Afghan state at the mercy of the Taliban.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A goal that’s hard to achieve</h2>
<p>As Israel pursues its response to the Hamas attack, the Israeli government would be well advised to remember the past two decades of often indecisive warfare conducted by both the United States and Israel against insurgent and terrorist groups. </p>
<p>The invasion of Afghanistan ultimately failed because U.S. policymakers did not think through the end state of the campaign as they exacted revenge for the 9/11 attacks. An Israeli invasion of Gaza could well lead to an indecisive quagmire if the political goal is not considered ahead of time.</p>
<p>Israel has invaded Gaza twice, in 2009 and 2014, but quickly withdrew its ground forces once Israeli leaders calculated they had reestablished deterrence. This strategy – called by Israeli leaders “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/">mowing the grass</a>,” with periodic punitive strikes against Hamas – has proven to be a failure. The newly declared goal of destroying Hamas as a military force is far more difficult than that.</p>
<p>As four U.S. presidential administrations discovered in Afghanistan, <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/easier-get-war-get-out-case-afghanistan">creating stability in the aftermath of conflict</a> is far more difficult than toppling a weak regime in the first place.</p>
<p>The only successful conflict against a terrorist group in the past two decades, against the Islamic State group between 2014 and 2017, ended with both Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq <a href="https://time.com/longform/mosul-raqqa-ruins-after-the-war-of-annihilation/">reduced to rubble</a> and thousands of men, women and children <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/iraq-syria-al-hol-return/">consigned to detention camps</a>.</p>
<p>Israel has the capacity to level Gaza and round up segments of the population, but that may not be wise. Doing so might serve the immediate impulse of exacting revenge on its enemies, but Israel would likely receive massive international condemnation from <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/%7Egrout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/monsgraupius/calgacus.html">creating a desert in Gaza and calling it peace</a>, and thus forgo the moral high ground it claims in the wake of the Hamas attacks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Mansoor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US response to 9/11 included a declaration that America would destroy its enemies. The effort took decades, and thousands of lives on both sides, and never really succeeded.Peter Mansoor, Professor of History, General Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155112023-10-13T15:38:47Z2023-10-13T15:38:47ZAfghanistan earthquakes: Taliban interference in aid efforts is affecting disaster response<p>Over 1,000 people are thought to have been killed in the latest earthquake to hit Afghanistan. Humanitarian aid agencies are scrambling to help the affected villages. But the realities of Taliban rule are starting to have an impact on the ground, as relations between the authorities and NGOs fray.</p>
<p>Two earthquakes <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/eq-2023-000184-afg">struck Afghanistan’s western province of Herat</a> on October 7 and a third on October 11. Zindajan district, 50km west of Herat, was the worst affected area. It is a rural area of scattered hamlets, where most people live in traditional single-storey mud-brick structures. In villages near the epicentre, the damage was total. Mud structures simply collapsed on their occupants. As the October 7 quakes occurred late in the morning, the victims were mainly women and children, who were indoors. Men working in the fields were spared.</p>
<p>Over 1,000 people died <a href="https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-flash-update-3-earthquake-herat-province-western-region-afghanistan-10-october-2023">under the falling masonry</a>. More than twice this number were injured or were trapped and had to be dug out and the UN estimates that 12,000 people have been affected. There is a regional tradition of mud domed construction (gombad) which, when well-constructed, is considered to be earthquake resistant. However, many contemporary village houses employ heavy wooden, or indeed concrete, beams to support the roof, especially if they have added an upper storey. Many casualties were probably caught under these beams. </p>
<p>Responders were struck by the intensity of the destruction and the sight of Zindajan villages with barely a single home left standing. About twice as many have been killed as died in the earthquake in <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/eq-2022-000232-afg">Paktika province</a> last year. </p>
<h2>The rescue</h2>
<p>Afghanistan’s legacy of decades of conflict and natural disasters means that humanitarian aid agencies, the private sector and even the Taliban authorities are grimly familiar with disaster response. Deputy Prime Minister <a href="https://x.com/afghanistanndma/status/1710955971923644715?s=46">Mullah Baradar visited the affected area</a> on October 8 and promised to help rebuild houses and pledged cash assistance. The Taliban inherited a functional government infrastructure and so their officials from the Disasters Department showed up to survey the area and coordinate.</p>
<p>Businesses active in Herat, including <a href="https://bnn.network/breaking-news/climate-environment/azizi-bank-pledges-aid-to-earthquake-victims-in-herat-amidst-disease-outbreak-in-livestock/">the Azizi Bank</a>, pledged cash and material assistance to the survivors. Humanitarian organisations already active in Afghanistan, including UN agencies, the<a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/herat-earthquake-flash-update-4-earthquake-herat-province-western-region-afghanistan-11-october-2023#:%7E:text=On%2010%20October%2C%20ECHO%20announced,Ireland%2C%20%E2%82%AC500%2C000%3B%20and%20Japan"> EU’s humanitarian wing ECHO</a>, the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and NGOs deployed personnel and provided essential medical supplies to hospitals overstretched by the influx of injured. </p>
<p>They have delivered tents and non-food items for those who have lost their houses. And they have distributed food and cash, to help people survive until they can go back to work and restart their lives. </p>
<h2>The hunger emergency</h2>
<p>While the Herat earthquakes have brought suffering to those directly affected, the survivors join the much larger numbers of Afghans already struggling to survive in a broader humanitarian crisis. The UN has estimated that over <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-un-food-aid-cuts/32542537.html#:%7E:text=WFP%20estimates%20that%20more%20than,on%20the%20brink%20of%20starvation.">15 million are affected by the hunger</a> emergency caused by drought and an economic collapse.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Pakistan has threatened to expel <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-intends-deport-17-million-afghans#:%7E:text=Will%20global%20condemnation%20and%20financial,1%20November%20or%20face%20deportation.">1.7 million undocumented Afghan migrants</a> and Iran regularly deports thousands of Afghans which it says have entered the country illegally or overstayed. </p>
<p>Grim as the situation may be today in the Herat hospitals and flattened villages, the aid agencies on the ground have the capacity to respond to Heratis’ immediate needs and appeal for resources to prepare for winter. But responding to the collapse of livelihoods, hunger and mass migration is even more daunting, given the scale of the problem and difficulties inherent in working in Taliban-run Afghanistan.</p>
<p>On the positive side, the earthquake response illustrates that, when both sides are on board, the Taliban and humanitarian agencies can operate alongside each other to deliver for the population. The fact that Taliban leaders are subject to UN sanctions does not prevent pragmatic engagement and coordination on the ground. International agencies meet with Taliban officials of relevant departments such as Public Health. But they avoid handing over aid money to them, instead relying on their own operations and NGOs to deliver resources.</p>
<h2>Strained relations</h2>
<p>The fact is relations between the Taliban authorities and humanitarian organisations have become strained. The Taliban increasingly demand a say in how aid is delivered and to whom. Agencies have experienced a shrinking of “humanitarian space” (the freedom to operate independently according to agreed principles) leading donors to question whether their resources will reach the most vulnerable Afghans. Donor commitments to humanitarian operations in Afghanistan are <a href="https://fts.unocha.org/countries/1/summary/2023">sharply down on last year</a>. </p>
<p>Donor fatigue has probably been exacerbated by both Taliban interference and their persistent opposition to universal norms by restricting girls’ education and women’s employment.</p>
<p>Taliban policies and governance style also directly contribute to the problem by hurting the economy. The <a href="https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/210d5f24dc33a3460beff3447fceadcf-0310012023/original/Afghanistan-Development-Update-20231003-final.pdf">World Bank’s latest assessment</a> warns of “economic uncertainty”. </p>
<p>Initial Taliban performance, in funding a national budget, without external support, was impressive. But now the Taliban’s aggressive tax collection is depressing demand. And in a <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/08/two-years-taliban-rule-new-shocks-weaken-afghan-economy">replay of the “guns v butter” problem</a>, the Taliban are channelling resources to their security forces leaving little for the civilian population.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the World Bank estimates that more than half the population is in extreme poverty. Continued drought and another poor harvest are compounding the problem of hunger. Climate change vulnerability makes the longer-term outlook even more bleak. </p>
<p>All this drives thousands of Afghans to migrate, dodging border controls and taking their chances in the Iranian labour market or trying to head further west. An inflexible Afghan administration which is isolated at home and internationally is ill-prepared to cope with these burgeoning humanitarian challenges.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Semple does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Taliban is increasingly demanding a say in how aid is delivered and to whom.Michael Semple, Visiting Research Professor, The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace Security and Justice, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116232023-09-19T12:14:56Z2023-09-19T12:14:56ZUS policy of ‘pragmatic engagement’ in Afghanistan risks legitimatizing Taliban rule<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548369/original/file-20230914-15-hde5rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C29%2C4911%2C3257&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters celebrate the second anniversary of Taliban rule on Aug. 15, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/taliban-supporters-parade-through-the-streets-of-kabul-on-news-photo/1601157436?adppopup=true">Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For two decades, the conflict in Afghanistan <a href="https://theconversation.com/calculating-the-costs-of-the-afghanistan-war-in-lives-dollars-and-years-164588">occupied international attention and U.S. resources</a>. But ever since <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2573268/biden-announces-full-us-troop-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-by-sept-11/">American troops withdrew</a> in 2021, the conflict has seemingly been viewed in Washington more as a concern <a href="https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/afghanistan-after-us-withdrawal-five-conclusions/">localized to the region of Central and South Asia</a>.</p>
<p>This is due in large part to <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/shifting-priorities-the-us-and-the-middle-east-in-a-multipolar-world/">the U.S.’s shifting global priorities</a>. The invasion in Ukraine and Chinese ambitions in the Pacific have meant that Afghanistan is no longer a top priority for the U.S. administration.</p>
<p>Naturally, the U.S.’s exit from Afghanistan has left the Biden administration with weaker leverage in the country. Indeed, some observers are now <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/23/afghanistan-biden-taliban-akhundzada-haqqani/">calling for the U.S. to diplomatically recognize</a> the Taliban government – something the Biden administration has stated it has <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-afghanistan/">yet to make a decision on</a>.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.unomaha.edu/international-studies-and-programs/about-us/directory/sherjan-ahmadzai.php">expert on international relations and Afghanistan</a>, I would argue recognizing the Taliban without pushing for a political road map and guarantees from them would be a mistake. As a partner in the Doha agreement – the peace deal <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf">signed by the U.S. and the Taliban in 2020</a> leading to American troop withdrawal – Washington has an obligation to hold the Taliban to account over its side of the bargain: Preventing terrorists from operating in Afghanistan and engaging in intra-Afghan talks to end decades of conflict.</p>
<p>Yet over the past two years, the U.S.’s <a href="https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-afghanistan/">policy of “pragmatic engagement</a>” in Afghanistan – which amounts to working with the Taliban on limited security concerns while urging a course correction on human rights – has done little to discourage Taliban policies that have <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/south-asia/afghanistan/report-afghanistan/">degraded the rights of Afghan citizens</a>. Nor has it pushed the Taliban to long-promised talks with other factions and parties in Afghanistan aimed at ending decades of turmoil.</p>
<h2>Evolving US interests</h2>
<p>America was drawn into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attack on the U.S mainland. Its goal was to <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan">dismantle and destroy al-Qaida</a> and its affiliate groups. But at the same time, it was considered to be in the U.S.’s interest to also assist Afghans in <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/17/bush-on-nation-building-and-afghanistan/">creating a more equal and just political system</a> after decades of civil war and instability. The vision was for a government that respected human rights, guaranteed access to education for all and promoted democracy. </p>
<p>Some of those ideals made it into the Doha agreement and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-16/afghanistan-taliban-spokesperson-says-they-respect-women/100298394">public statements by the Taliban delegation before the deal was signed</a>. Yet, more than three years after the agreement was inked in the Qatari capital, the Taliban appears to show no intention of following through on its promises. It has <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/03/afghanistan-un-experts-say-20-years-progress-women-and-girls-rights-erased">restricted the rights of women and girls</a> to education and <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202308317600">rejected the idea of an inclusive government</a> with input from other Afghans. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/31/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-end-of-the-war-in-afghanistan/">U.S. government’s policy of pragmatic engagement</a> amounts to combating terrorism through an “<a href="https://mwi.westpoint.edu/over-the-horizon-counterterrorism-new-name-same-old-challenges/">over-the-horizon” strategy</a> directed from outside the country and intervening in Afghan affairs only through the Taliban itself, an unconventional partner for the U.S. in this effort.</p>
<p>In July 2023, President Biden implied that working with the Taliban in counterterrorism efforts <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/06/30/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-supreme-courts-decision-on-the-administrations-student-debt-relief-program/">had borne fruit</a>: “I said al-Qaida would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban.”</p>
<h2>Taliban failing on pledges</h2>
<p>Yet, after <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/02.29.20-US-Afghanistan-Joint-Declaration.pdf">vowing in the Doha agreement</a> to send a “clear message” to groups such as al-Qaida that “threaten the security of the United States and its allies,” the Taliban <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-the-fall-of-kabul-talibans-false-commitments-on-terrorism-have-been-fully-exposed-188132">has yet to publicly sever ties</a> with the group <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan">or banish militants</a> from Afghanistan. </p>
<p>The Taliban has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65382277">killed a few individuals</a> identified as being threats to the U.S., notably by targeting the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">terrorist group ISIS-K</a>. But it has been less helpful in cracking down on al-Qaida members. Indeed, <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-ayman-al-zawahri-where-does-his-death-leave-al-qaida-and-what-does-it-say-about-us-counterterrorism-188056">al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri</a> was hiding out in Kabul – something that couldn’t have happened without the involvement of high-ranking Taliban officials – until a U.S. operation in July 2022 killed him.</p>
<p>In maintaining contacts with the Taliban for counterterrorism goals without pressuring the group on human rights issues, the U.S. might serve to legitimatize the Taliban’s leadership of the country at times when the group <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/25/taliban-dissolves-afghanistan-election-commission">still lacks an internal mandate</a>.</p>
<p>Despite these concerns, the U.S. is seemingly pushing ahead with this policy of “pragmatic engagement.”</p>
<p>In July 2023, A U.S. delegation led by Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West and Rina Amir, the special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, <a href="https://www.state.gov/meeting-of-u-s-officials-with-taliban-representatives/">met with the Taliban</a> foreign minister in Doha. A State Department press release <a href="https://www.state.gov/meeting-of-u-s-officials-with-taliban-representatives/">framed the meeting</a> as a confidence-building exercise, noting positive developments such as growth in trade, a “decrease in large-scale terrorist attacks” and a “reduction in opium cultivation.”</p>
<p>Mention was made of the U.S. urging the Taliban to “reverse policies responsible for deteriorating human rights.” But as <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-meeting-with-taliban-puts-high-gloss-on-dismal-conditions-in-afghanistan/ar-AA1eJzbi?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=a3af02c159b04490a661e7cb28c5ba85&ei=268">one critic noted</a>, such language “fall(s) atrociously short of describing the Taliban’s vast inhumanity toward Afghans.”</p>
<h2>Lack of regional consensus</h2>
<p>The void left by the U.S. is being <a href="https://www.mei.edu/events/iran-russia-and-china-post-us-withdrawal-afghan-landscape">filled by regional powers and countries that share a border</a> with Afghanistan: China, India, Russia, Pakistan and Iran.</p>
<p>But every one of these countries has its own interests in Afghanistan. Sometimes these are directly conflicting, such as with Pakistan and India, which have <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/01/india-pakistan-rivalry-afghanistan">long been suspicious</a> of the other’s influence in Afghanistan. Historically, all border countries have <a href="https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/game-old-empire-return-proxy-wars-afghanistan">looked upon warring Afghan factions as proxies</a> to further their own aims – a tactic that has only added to the instability of the country.</p>
<p>The result is a lack of coordination between regional players on Afghanistan’s path forward and little pressure on the Taliban to continue down the political road map as set out by the Doha agreement.</p>
<h2>Repeating past mistakes</h2>
<p>This failure to hold the Taliban accountable risks repeating past mistakes in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In the 50 years since the last <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/18/archives/afghan-king-overthrown-a-republic-is-proclaimed-afghanistan-king-is.html">Afghan monarch was dethroned in 1973</a>, the country has been ruled by a succession of single-party governments that have excluded other political groups. In 2001, the international community excluded the Taliban from the <a href="https://inss.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/693627/a-review-of-the-2001-bonn-conference-and-application-to-the-road-ahead-in-afgha/">Bonn Conference</a>, which set the pathway to governance for the country after the U.S. invasion.</p>
<p>Masoom Stanekzai, a former chief peace negotiator for the Afghan government, <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/10/missteps-and-missed-opportunities-peace-afghanistan">called the exclusion of the Taliban</a> “a strategic mistake” – and for good reason, I believe: History has shown that excluding factions in Afghanistan has led only to civil strife.</p>
<p>Since 2021, the Taliban has been allowed to continue Afghanistan down this path of single-party governance. As Andrew Watkins, senior expert on Afghanistan for the U.S. Institute of Peace, noted, the Taliban <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/08/one-year-later-taliban-reprise-repressive-rule-struggle-build-state">has shown in its governance one intent</a>: “To establish uncontested and unquestioned authority over Afghanistan’s state and society.”</p>
<p>With such ambitions, the Taliban leaves little room for the intra-Afghan dialogue needed for Afghanistan to move forward. </p>
<h2>The US role</h2>
<p>By signing the 2020 deal with the Taliban, the U.S took on joint responsibility for the delivery of promises made in the agreement. The pledge by Washington to withdraw forces has been fulfilled. But two years on from that, the Taliban has yet to deliver on its commitments. </p>
<p>This leaves the Biden administration with a choice: Try to keep the Doha deal alive by pressuring the Taliban into intra-Afghan talks, or accept that the deal is now dead. Either way, “pragmatic engagement” with the Taliban has shown itself to be wanting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211623/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sher Jan Ahmadzai is affiliated with Afghan-American Foundation. </span></em></p>The Biden administration has not ruled out diplomatic recognition of the Taliban. Doing so risks legitimizing the group’s rule without holding it accountable.Sher Jan Ahmadzai, Director, Center for Afghanistan Studies, University of Nebraska OmahaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113912023-08-14T13:11:20Z2023-08-14T13:11:20ZAfghanistan: two years after Taliban takeover the west is letting down the democratic opposition<p>The consequences of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/afghan-government-collapses-taliban-seize-control-5-essential-reads-166131">Taliban takeover of Afghanistan two years ago</a> are bad enough for the people who live there, especially women and girls, but also for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-years-after-taliban-takeover-why-afghanistan-still-poses-a-threat-to-the-region-and-beyond-211052">region and the world</a>, in the flow of migrants and threat of terrorism. </p>
<p>Yet there is little appetite in western capitals to give a platform to opposition groups who want a different and better future for their country, and protect the social benefits achieved at such cost over 20 years of fledgling democracy.</p>
<p>The Taliban administration cannot last – it rules only by fear and violence. It faces internal divisions, with open expressions of dissent by senior figures – some of whom have been sidelined and simmer with resentment. And there is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-assassination-of-al-qaida-chief-reveals-tensions-at-the-top-of-the-taliban-188133">worsening conflict</a> between the Kabul-based Haqqani network and the political centre under the supreme leader Haibatullah Akhunzada, in Kandahar in the south. </p>
<p>In an indication of how serious this is becoming, a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/051/23/pdf/N2305123.pdf?OpenElement">recent UN survey</a> reported that Haibatullah is now protected by an elite suicide bomber unit, who were brought back from action against Islamic State group in the east of the country.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghan-government-collapses-taliban-seize-control-5-essential-reads-166131">Afghan government collapses, Taliban seize control: 5 essential reads</a>
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<p>There is opposition to the Taliban inside the country – most powerfully from brave girls and women protesting about their total loss of personal freedom and rights. <a href="https://www.weforum.org/people/shaharzad-akbar">Shaharzad Akbar</a>, the former head of Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission, says that they exist without outside support and <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/anthony-hyman-memorial-lecture-2023-repression-and-resistance-struggle-womens-rights">lack political coherence</a>, but continue to channel the anger and frustration of a generation suddenly deprived of opportunity. </p>
<p>Outside Afghanistan it is a similar story. In the more than four decades of conflict since the Soviet invasion of 1979, successive waves of political refugees have washed up on western shores. These include people opposed to the communists, those who lives were disrupted by the civil war of the early 1990s and then those who could not live under the Taliban’s first regime in the late 1990s. Some returned to Afghanistan and have now fled again in the face of the Taliban. </p>
<p>The difference this time is that those have fled the country look back on two decades which – although marred by corruption, foreign mistakes and poor government decisions – opened the door for <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2023/702579/EXPO_STU(2023)702579_EN.pdf">unprecedented social reform</a>. Many of the key leaders of the potential opposition, who carry the flame of the lost republic, are under 40 years old. They are the first generation of Afghans since the 1970s to know of the opportunities of education and progress.</p>
<h2>Opposition in exile</h2>
<p>After the shock of the collapse two years ago, this new wave of political refugees were <a href="https://www.context.news/socioeconomic-inclusion/a-year-in-exile-afghan-refugees-tell-of-fresh-starts">scattered across the planet</a>. They include former ministers, civil servants, soldiers, spies, women activists, journalists, artists, writers and filmmakers. They took time to settle in new countries, but connected by the internet, they are now organising. They refuse to be called a “diaspora” – they prefer the word “exiles”, barred from their homeland by extremist violence. </p>
<p>The atmosphere at a <a href="https://www.aissonline.org/en/aiss-news">recent conference at King’s College London</a> was buzzing as former ministers, government officials and civil society activists networked and planned for a better future. Meetings in <a href="https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-180946">Dushanbe in Tajikistan</a> and <a href="https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-179895">Vienna in Austria</a> have similarly brought together people who want to write a democratic plan for Afghanistan. The resulting “<a href="https://www.wearenrf.org/publications/declaration-of-the-second-vienna-conference">Vienna Process</a>” is a <a href="https://www.oiip.ac.at/en/news-en/afghanistan-conference/">mechanism</a> to unite Afghan opposition groups to develop a road map for a return to constitutional government.</p>
<p>But all these gatherings are supported only by private foundations. The US has effectively turned its back on Afghanistan. US president, Joe Biden, still believes that the withdrawal was right. He is <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/biden-cant-ignore-the-talibans-terrorist-links-for-ever/">deluding himself</a> that the Taliban are cooperating with the US to prevent terrorism spreading from Afghanistan. Speaking at the King’s College conference, the US’s special investigator general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, revealed that he had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jul/11/us-aid-policies-undermined-success-of-afghanistan-mission-says-watchdog-chief">no cooperation from the Pentagon or State Department</a> when he investigated the 2021 collapse of Afghan forces. They would prefer to forget.</p>
<h2>Mission impossible</h2>
<p>But dialogue with the Taliban is impossible. The “Islamic Emirate” has no concept of a space for other voices. Taliban exceptionalism makes them unique. But still the US is trying to work with the Taliban on a range of issues as well as terrorism, and continues to be the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-is-not-playing-straight-with-the-west-over-easing-of-sanctions-and-women-and-girls-are-paying-much-of-the-price-199843">biggest aid donor</a> to Afghanistan. </p>
<p>This is “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/19/un-urged-impose-travel-ban-taliban-leadership-oppression-women">creeping recognition</a>”, according to <a href="https://www.interpeace.org/member/afghanistan/">Nasir Andisha</a>, the Afghan ambassador to Geneva – one of a number of envoys still still flying the flag of the former republic. And the US policy of soft engagement comes <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/24/afghanistan-taliban-un-foreign-aid-assistance-development/">despite evidence</a> that the aid is being siphoned off by the Taliban. </p>
<p>But the US is not “the west”. There is an opportunity for other countries – the UK, EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – who all gave blood and treasure for Afghan freedom since 9/11. The alternative is that other countries, Russia, China and Iran, fill the vacuum of leadership.</p>
<p>Support for democratic opposition will involve taking a pragmatic view of those who have and will take up arms to take back their country. It is not necessary to support the <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2023-08/scattered-forces-opposing-taliban-need-support-now">armed opposition</a> – but at the same time it would be counterproductive to boycott constitutional opposition groups that have an armed wing.</p>
<p>There are enormous challenges in building a different track. Non-Taliban Afghanistan is riven with ethnic and political disputes – 40 years of conflict has left much unfinished business. But the former MP, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniefillion/2022/09/01/one-year-after-leaving-afghanistan-fawzia-koofi-is-determined-to-go-back/">Fawzia Koofi</a>, says that focusing on division misses the point. “It could be that it is the Taliban who are divided,” she says, “while we are actually more united than we think”. </p>
<p>There is very wide agreement on the need to protect women’s rights and oppose the Taliban. But forging a new Afghanistan will not come without cash and support to meet and deliver a different future to what is now on offer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211391/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Loyn is an advisor to the Vienna Process, a mechanism to bring together Afghan opposition figures.</span></em></p>Two years after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan the west is not doing enough to help exiled leaders form a unified opposition.David Loyn, Senior Visiting Research Fellow, Department of War Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2110522023-08-11T16:17:55Z2023-08-11T16:17:55ZTwo years after Taliban takeover: why Afghanistan still poses a threat to the region and beyond<p>The dramatic and rapid Taliban offensive in the spring of 2021 <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/south-central-asia_talibans-afghanistan-takeover-timeline/6209678.html">culminated</a> in its takeover of Kabul on August 15. The chaos of the western withdrawal that surrounded the return of the Taliban represented a sad endpoint of two decades of failed US-led attempts to impose a liberal democratic system on a country that had hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and facilitated his masterminding of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. </p>
<p>For Afghanistan, the return of the Taliban marked the beginning of a deeply illiberal regime that is particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-talibans-war-on-women-in-afghanistan-must-be-formally-recognized-as-gender-apartheid-210688">hostile to women</a> and <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-shiite-persecution-discrimination/32507042.html">minorities</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/swift-taliban-takeover-proves-us-and-uk-analysis-badly-wrong">swiftness</a> of the Taliban takeover <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/swift-taliban-takeover-proves-us-and-uk-analysis-badly-wrong">confounded</a> more optimistic US and UK predictions about the survival of the Afghan government. But most of its consequences were entirely predictable, and indeed predicted – from the worsening <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/13/afghanistan-taliban-takeover-worsens-rights-crisis">human rights</a> situation to an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58328246">economic crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Five million Afghans fled the country and over three million were internally displaced, according to the <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/102160">UN refugee agency’s update</a> in July 2023. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is now at an unprecedented critical level: more than 18 million people – just under half the Afghan population – face acute <a href="https://www.wfp.org/countries/afghanistan">food-insecurity</a>. </p>
<h2>Least peaceful country</h2>
<p>After an initial upsurge, violence <a href="https://acleddata.com/dashboard/#/dashboard/0B428DC54C4FF4146CBB3EAE58256BCF">has significantly declined</a> in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Yet, Afghanistan remains “the least peaceful country in the world in 2023”, according to the <a href="https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/GPI-2023-Web.pdf">Global Peace Index</a>. </p>
<p>This reflects, in part, the ongoing rivalry between the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) group. This branch of the Islamic State remains the most potent domestic challenger to the Taliban. It <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/125/36/PDF/N2312536.pdf?OpenElement">comprises</a> somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 fighters, including former regime officials and members of ethnic minorities opposed to the Taliban regime. IS-K has been <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-briefing-notes/2023/06/afghanistan-impact-improvised-explosive-devices-civilians">responsible</a> for the majority of civilian casualties in terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan and <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/32460999.html">has established itself</a> firmly in the northern and northeastern provinces of Afghanistan.</p>
<p>From a regional perspective, IS-K poses an equally important security threat to Afghanistan’s <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/islamic-state-khorasan-taliban-central-asia-attacks/31844898.html">northern neighbours in central Asia</a>. At the end of July 2023 it <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-bajaur-rally-blast/32526408.html">claimed</a> a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan that killed more than 50 people.</p>
<p>IS-K, however, is not the most significant security threat to Pakistan. Rather, the Taliban’s longstanding ally has been afflicted by an upsurge in violent attacks committed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist group allegedly <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-afghanistan-islamabad-peshawar-shehbaz-sharif-b2385883.html">enjoying safe havens in Afghanistan</a>. According to a recent <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/189/74/PDF/N2318974.pdf?OpenElement">UN report</a>, the TTP has reabsorbed several splinter groups and seeks to regain a measure of territorial control along the Afghan-Pakistan border. </p>
<p>Since the Taliban takeover, other, more regionally oriented terrorist groups, such as the <a href="https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/islamic-movement-uzbekistan">Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan</a> and the <a href="https://www.hstoday.us/featured/understanding-the-turkistan-islamic-party-from-global-jihad-to-local-anti-chinese-resistance/">Turkestan Islamic Party</a> (formerly known as the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement), have also benefited from a more permissive environment in which to operate. These and numerous other groups are smaller in size – numbering in their tens and hundreds, rather than thousands. But they tend to <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/038/91/PDF/N2303891.pdf?OpenElement">coordinate and cooperate</a> with each other and increasingly also with IS-K. </p>
<p>This is of particular concern to China. Beijing <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-china-taliban-uyghurs-security/32444038.html">is worried</a> that the Uyghur extremist Turkestan Islamic Party will eventually use Afghanistan as a base for attacks against China and Chinese interests in the wider region. </p>
<h2>Water wars</h2>
<p>Beyond terrorism, competition over scarce water resources is the other major source of conflict. The Taliban’s plan to build the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-canal-water-central-asia/32350996.html">Qosh Tepa Irrigation Canal</a> will <a href="https://www.intellinews.com/taliban-threaten-water-resources-of-uzbekistan-turkmenistan-and-tajikistan-273219/">decrease</a> water available to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan from the transboundary Amu Darya River by as much as 15%. This will have <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/04/what-afghanistans-qosh-tepa-canal-means-for-central-asia/">major</a> social, economic and public health consequences for both countries. </p>
<p>A similar crisis is <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/05/a-compulsive-embrace-beneath-the-afghanistan-iran-water-conflict/">brewing between Tehran and Kabul</a>. The Taliban is reportedly <a href="https://time.com/6302192/taliban-suicide-bombers-water-dispute-iran/">preparing toops, including suicide bombers</a> for what looks certain to be a conflict with Iran over water shortages caused by the Taliban allegedly <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-taliban-water-dispute-/32435442.html">reneging</a> on a 1973 water treaty. </p>
<h2>Fear and intimidation at home and abroad</h2>
<p>After two years of Taliban rule, Afghanistan, is a different – but not a lesser – problem. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51689443">deal signed</a> between the Taliban and the US on February 29 2020, after two years of talks pushed by the then US president, Donald Trump, precipitated the withdrawal of western troops but did not bring about intra-Afghan reconciliation. </p>
<p>On the contrary, since the takeover in August 2021 the Taliban has <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/afghanistan-one-year-of-the-talibans-broken-promises-draconian-restrictions-and-violence/">ruled with fear and intimidation</a>. And it has failed in its commitment to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists. </p>
<p>This has not, however, stopped international efforts to engage with the Taliban regime. Central Asian states have been at the forefront of efforts <a href="https://thegeopolitics.com/afghanistan-should-be-reintegrated-into-regional-trade-and-security-structures/">to integrate Afghanistan</a> into regional trade and security structures and <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/the-trans-afghan-railway-line-back-on-track/">pushed the idea</a> of a trans-Afghan railway line. In early August, 2023, Kazakhstan hosted a Taliban delegation for a business forum. The two countries signed US$200 million (£157 million) worth of <a href="https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-signs-200-million-in-contracts-with-afghanistan">deals</a>, primarily to supply grain and flour to Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Afghanistan has vast <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/11/afghanistan-taliban-mining-resources-rich-minerals/">mineral deposits</a>, including critical <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/rare-earth-afghanistan-sits-1-trillion-minerals-n196861">rare earth</a> minerals. These have <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinese-investment-in-afghanistans-lithium-sector-a-long-shot-in-the-short-term/">attracted Chinese investment</a> in Afghanistan’s lithium sector. Beijing and Kabul also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/afghanistans-taliban-administration-oil-extraction-deal-with-chinese-company-2023-01-05/">agreed a deal</a> in January 2023, enabling a Chinese company to drill for oil in the Amu Darya basin.</p>
<p>While these efforts do not imply recognition of the Taliban regime – even by its closest neighbours – they suggest a slow but inevitable trend in that direction. This all the more likely now that even Washington has begun to re-engage with the Taliban. This has included <a href="https://www.state.gov/meeting-of-u-s-officials-with-taliban-representatives/">signalling</a>, at recent high-level talks in Doha, Qatar, an “openness to a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilisation issues”.</p>
<p>Washington is still <a href="https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-august-1-2023/#post-466596-AFGHANISTAN">ruling out</a> recognition “right now for a number of reasons, including the treatment of their own people, including their many flagrant human rights violations”. But this represents a significant shift in US policy. </p>
<p>Two years of Taliban rule have seen the regime in Kabul double down on its repressive domestic policies and do little to assuage its near and far neighbours’ concerns over new and old security <a href="https://osce-network.net/file-OSCE-Network/Publications/OSCE-CA-2023.pdf">risks</a>. So this apparent willingness to re-engage with the Taliban will send all the wrong signals and is unlikely to bring about more security and stability for Afghans and their neighbours. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>When originally published, this article mistakenly carried a photograph of a Palestinian funeral procession instead of an image of girls being turned away from their school. This has now been rectified.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p>Two years on from taking control of Afghanistan the Taliban continues to rule through fear and threatens the stability of the whole region.Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106882023-08-08T18:31:40Z2023-08-08T18:31:40ZThe Taliban’s war on women in Afghanistan must be formally recognized as gender apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541516/original/file-20230807-23-aa6m4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4992%2C3300&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, in May 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-talibans-war-on-women-in-afghanistan-must-be-formally-recognized-as-gender-apartheid" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/afghanistan-marks-1-year-anniversary-of-taliban-takeover">second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan</a> is fast approaching. Since then, Afghan women have been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-deprive-women-livelihoods-identity">denied the most basic human rights</a> in what can only be described as gender apartheid. </p>
<p>Only by labelling it as such and making clear the situation in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity can the international community legally fight the systematic discrimination against the country’s women and girls.</p>
<p>Erasing women from the public sphere is central to Taliban ideology. Women’s rights institutions in Afghanistan, notably the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, have been dismantled while the dreaded <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58600231">Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice</a> has been resurrected. </p>
<p>The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has been dissolved and the country’s 2004 constitution repealed, while legislation guaranteeing gender equality <a href="https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/files/2022/12/Bennoune-Finalized-12.09.22.pdf#page=9">has been invalidated</a>. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2022/07/women-and-girls-under-taliban-rule-afghanistan/">Afghan women are denied a post-secondary education, they cannot leave the house without a male chaperone, they cannot work, except in health care and some private businesses</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/25/taliban-beauty-salon-ban-women-rights/24823d78-2aca-11ee-a948-a5b8a9b62d84_story.html">they are barred</a> from parks, gyms and beauty salons.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A closed beauty salon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541722/original/file-20230808-17-u58pge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A general view of a closed beauty salon in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, in July 2023. The Taliban has closed all beauty salons in Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Siddiqullah Khan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women targeted</h2>
<p>Of the approximately 80 edicts issued by the Taliban, 54 specifically <a href="https://feminist.org/our-work/afghan-women-and-girls/taliban-edicts/">target women</a>, severely restricting their rights <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/events/2023/afghanistan-under-taliban-state-gender-apartheid">and violating</a> Afghanistan’s international obligations and its previous constitutional and domestic laws. </p>
<p>The Taliban <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/19/afghan-women-suffer-under-taliban/">appear undeterred</a>, continuing where they left off 20 years ago when they first held power. The results of their ambitions are nearly apocalyptic. </p>
<p>Afghanistan is facing one of the world’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/15/hard-choices-afghanistans-humanitarian-crisis#:%7E:text=Afghanistan%20has%20largely%20disappeared%20from,girls%20remain%20most%20at%20risk.">worst humanitarian crises</a>. About <a href="https://www.rescue.org/article/afghanistan-entire-population-pushed-poverty">19 million</a> people are suffering from acute food insecurity, while more than <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/04/afghanistan-economic-crisis-underlies-mass-hunger">90 per cent</a> of Afghans are experiencing some form of food insecurity, with <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/wfp-afghanistan-situation-report-18-january-2023">female-headed households and children</a> most impacted. </p>
<p>Gender-based violence has increased exponentially with corresponding impunity for the perpetrators and lack of support for the victims, while ethnic, religious and sexual minorities are suffering <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/situation-human-rights-afghanistan-report-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-afghanistan-richard-bennett-ahrc5284-advance-edited-version">intense persecution</a>. </p>
<p>This grim reality underscores the urgent need to address <a href="https://spia.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/2023-02/SPIA_NaheedRangita_PolicyBrief_07.pdf#page=3">how civil, political, socioeconomic and gender-based harms</a> are interconnected.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a blue niqab bottle-feeds a baby. Another fussing baby is in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541521/original/file-20230807-25161-ue4ret.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mothers and babies suffering from malnutrition wait to receive help and check-ups at an international humanitarian clinic in Kabul, Afghanistan, in January 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>International crime</h2>
<p>Karima Bennoune, an Algerian-American international law scholar, has advocated recognizing gender apartheid as a <a href="https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/the-international-obligation-to-counter-gender-apartheid-in-afghanistan/">crime under international law</a>. Such recognition would stem from states’ international legal commitments to gender equality and the United Nations’ <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/">Sustainable Development Goal 5</a> aimed at achieving global gender equality by 2030. </p>
<p>Criminalizing gender apartheid would provide the international community with a powerful legal framework to effectively respond to Taliban abuses. While the <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2023-01-12/the-secretary-generals-remarks-the-security-council-the-promotion-and-strengthening-of-the-rule-of-law-the-maintenance-of-international-peace-and-security-the-rule-of">UN has already labelled the situation in Afghanistan gender apartheid,</a> the term is not currently recognized under the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/rome-statute-international-criminal-court">Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court</a> as being among the worst international crimes.</p>
<p>Presenting his report at the UN Human Rights Council, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1137847">Richard Bennett</a> — the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan — stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A grave, systematic and institutionalized discrimination against women and girls is at the heart of Taliban ideology and rule, which also gives rise to concerns that they may be responsible for gender apartheid.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Criminalizing gender apartheid globally would allow the international community to fulfil its obligation to respond effectively and try to eradicate it permanently. It would provide the necessary legal tools to ensure that international commitments to women’s rights in all aspects of life are upheld.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/2324266/world">Shaharzad Akbar</a>, head of the <a href="https://rawadari.org/">Rawadari human rights group</a> and former chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, has urged the Human Rights Council to acknowledge the situation in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.</p>
<p>She’s noted that the “Taliban have turned Afghanistan to a mass graveyard of Afghan women and girls’ ambitions, dreams and potential.” </p>
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<h2>South African support</h2>
<p>A number of Afghan women’s rights defenders have also called for the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/06/human-rights-council-opens-fifty-third-session-hears-presentation-annual-report-high">inclusion of gender apartheid in the UN’s Draft Convention on Crimes Against Humanity</a>. </p>
<p>Most remarkably, <a href="https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/hrc53-un-experts-open-council-session-with-dedicated-discussion-on-the-situation-of-women-girls-in-afghanistan/">Bronwen Levy</a>, South Africa’s representative at the Security Council, has urged the international community to “take action against what (Bennett’s) report describes as gender apartheid, much like it did in support of South Africa’s struggle against racial apartheid.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671121452731359232"}"></div></p>
<p>Elsewhere, the <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/delegations/en/joint-statement-of-2-february-2023-women/product-details/20230203DPU35201">chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, as well as the head of its Delegation for Relations with Afghanistan</a>, have described the “unacceptable” situation in Afghanistan as one of gender apartheid.</p>
<p>Whenever and wherever apartheid systems emerge, it represents a failure of the international community. The situation in Afghanistan must compel it to respond effectively to the persecution of women. </p>
<p>Recognizing Taliban rule as gender apartheid is not only critical for Afghans, it is equally critical for the <a href="https://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/files/2022/12/Bennoune-Finalized-12.09.22.pdf#page=11">credibility of the entire UN system</a>. As Afghan human rights activist <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15222.doc.htm">Zubaida Akbar</a> told the Security Council:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If you do not defend women’s rights here, you have no credibility to do so anywhere else.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Taliban’s brutal two years in power in Afghanistan have taught us that ordinary human rights initiatives, while important, are insufficient for addressing gender apartheid. The world needs resolute collective international action to end the war on women. Not in two months. Not in two years. But now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vrinda Narain is affiliated with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), a transnational research and solidarity network, as a Board Director. </span></em></p>The Taliban’s two years ruling Afghanistan have taught us ordinary human rights initiatives are insufficient to address gender apartheid. We need resolute collective international action.Vrinda Narain, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2056692023-05-22T15:22:13Z2023-05-22T15:22:13ZWomen’s secret war: the inside story of how the US military sent female soldiers on covert combat missions to Afghanistan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526309/original/file-20230515-30399-k7swu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C220%2C3573%2C2171&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US marines with a female engagement team in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan, in May 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/654340/aerohunter-aif-iso-rct-5">Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A US Army handbook from 2011 opens one of its chapters with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem <a href="https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_youngbrit.htm">The Young British Soldier</a>. Written in 1890 upon Kipling’s return to England from India, an experienced imperial soldier gives advice to the incoming cohort:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://publicintelligence.net/ufouo-u-s-army-commanders-guide-to-female-engagement-teams/">handbook</a>, distributed in 2011 at the height of the US’s counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, invoked Kipling and other imperial <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/magazine/professor-nagl-s-war.html">voices</a> to warn its soldiers that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Neither the Soviets in the early 1980s nor the west in the past decade have progressed much beyond Kipling’s early 20th-century warning when it comes to understanding Afghan women. In that oversight, we have ignored women as a key demographic in counterinsurgency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Around this time, a growing number of US military units were – against official military policy – training and posting all-women counterinsurgency teams alongside their male soldiers.</p>
<p>Women were still banned from direct assignment to ground combat units. However, these female soldiers were deployed to access Afghan women and their households in the so-called “battle for hearts and minds” during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Afghanistan-War">Afghanistan war</a>, which began on October 7 2001 when the US and British militaries carried out an air assault, followed by a ground invasion, in response to the September 11 attacks.</p>
<p>And these women also played critical roles in gathering intelligence. Their sexuality – ironically, the basis of the excuse the US military had long given for avoiding integrating women into combat units – was now seen as an intelligence asset, as the army handbook made clear:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like all adolescent males, young Afghan males have a natural desire to impress females. Using this desire to interact with and impress females can be advantageous to US military forces when done respectfully to both the female soldier and the adolescent Afghan males. Female soldiers can often obtain different and even more in-depth information from Afghan males than can male soldiers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether collecting intelligence or calming victims of a US special forces raid, female soldiers – often despite a lack of proper training – played a central yet largely invisible role in the Afghanistan war. Their recollections of what they experienced on these tours call into question official narratives both of women breaking through the “brass ceiling” of the US military, and the war having been fought in the name of Afghan women’s rights and freedom.</p>
<p>Since the US’s final withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-single-women-and-widows-are-struggling-to-find-their-next-meal-under-taliban-restrictions-198279">rollback of women’s rights</a> has concluded a brutal chapter in a story of competing feminisms over the past two decades of war.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C71%2C1997%2C1257&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="US female marines crouching with their weapons" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C71%2C1997%2C1257&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526308/original/file-20230515-39291-krcr2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of a US marine female engagement team in combat training before a tour, October 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/480702/fet-practices-live-fire">Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Female counterinsurgency teams in Afghanistan</h2>
<p>Between 2010 and 2017, while conducting research at six US military bases and several US <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/war-college">war colleges</a>, I met a number of women who spoke of having served on special forces teams and in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was surprising as women were then still technically banned from many combat roles – US military regulations only <a href="https://www.history.com/news/u-s-military-lifts-ban-on-women-in-combat">changed in 2013</a> such that, by 2016, all military jobs were open to women.</p>
<p>Fascinated by their experiences, I later interviewed 22 women who had served on these all-female counterinsurgency teams. The interviews, alongside other observations of development contractors on US military bases and the ongoing legacies of US imperial wars, inform my new book <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501767746/at-war-with-women/">At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War</a>.</p>
<p>By 2017, enough time had lapsed that the women could speak openly about their deployments. Many had left the military – in some cases disenchanted by the sexism they confronted, or with the idea of returning to an official job in logistics having served on more prestigious special forces teams.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In 2013, Ronda* supported a mission deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. She was one of only two women living on a remote base with the Operational Detachment Alpha – the primary fighting force for the <a href="https://www.americanspecialops.com/special-forces/">Green Berets</a> (part of the US Army’s special forces).</p>
<p>For Ronda, one of the most rewarding aspects of this deployment was the image she carried of herself as a feminist example for Afghan women. She recalled:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just letting the girls see there’s more out there [in the wider world] than what you have here, that was very empowering. I think they really appreciated it. In full kit I look like a dude, [but] that first instance when you take off your helmet and they see your hair and see you are female … A lot of times they have never seen a female before who didn’t just take care of the garden and take care of the kids. That was very empowering.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=118%2C107%2C3443%2C2091&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Female soldiers talking to a local woman in front of a helicopter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=118%2C107%2C3443%2C2091&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526305/original/file-20230515-23617-4ties.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2012, the US military presented its female counterinsurgency teams as feminist emblems while keeping their combat roles hidden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/654343/aerohunter-aif-iso-rct-5">Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Amanda, who had been on a similar mission to Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan a year earlier, also described inspiring local women – in her case, via stories she shared through her interpreter of life in New York City, and what it was like to be a female soldier. Amanda lived alongside the male soldiers in an adobe hut with a thatched roof, and was unable to shower for the full 47 days of the mission. But she recalled going out into the village with pride:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You see the light, especially in the females’ eyes, when they see other females from a different country – [it] kind of gives them perspective that there is more to the world than Afghanistan.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Publicly, the US military presented its female counterinsurgency teams as feminist emblems, while keeping their combat roles and close attachment to special forces hidden. A 2012 army <a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/news/86128">news article</a> quoted a member of one female engagement team (FET) describing the “positive responses from the Afghan population” she believed they had received:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think seeing our FET out there gives Afghan women hope that change is coming … They definitely want the freedom American women enjoy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, the US military’s mistreatment of its female workforce undermines this notion of freedom – as do the warped understandings of Afghan culture, history and language that both male and female soldiers brought with them on their deployments. Such complexity calls into question US military claims of providing feminist opportunities for US women, and of acting in Afghan women’s best interests.</p>
<p>As a logistics officer, Beth had been trained to manage the movement of supplies and people. She said she was ill-prepared for the reality she confronted when visiting Afghan villages with one of the cultural support teams (CSTs), as they were also known, in 2009.</p>
<p>Beth’s pre-deployment training had included “lessons learned” from the likes of Kipling and Lawrence of Arabia. It did not prepare her to understand why she encountered such poverty when visiting Afghan villages. She recalled:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Imagine huts – and tons of women, men and children in these huts … We had to tell these women: ‘The reason your children are getting sick is because you’re not boiling your water.’ I mean, that’s insane. Look at when the bible was written. Even then, people knew how to boil their water – they talked about clean and unclean, kosher, and that they know what’s going to rot. How did Jesus get the memo and you didn’t?</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A female Afghan role-player wraps a headscarf around a female soldier while a third female soldier looks on." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526208/original/file-20230515-29-glpwzx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Afghan role-player with soldiers during female engagement training at a US Army base.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jennifer Greenburg</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Ambassadors of western feminism’</h2>
<p>By observing lessons in military classrooms, I learned how young US soldiers (men and women) went through pre-deployment training that still leaned on the perspectives of British colonial officers such as <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/who-was-lawrence-of-arabia">T.E. Lawrence</a> and <a href="https://www.rusi.org/podcasts/talking-strategy/episode-2-c-e-callwell-small-wars-and-integrated-sea-land-operations">C.E. Callwell</a>. There was a tendency to portray Afghan people as unsophisticated children who needed parental oversight to usher them into modernity.</p>
<p>US military representations of Afghan women as homogeneous and helpless, contrasting with western women as models of liberation, also ignored Afghan and Islamic feminist frameworks that have <a href="http://signsjournal.org/podcast/jennifer-fluri-discusses-the-gender-politics-of-the-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-with-sandra-mcevoy/">long advocated for women’s rights</a>. The notion of US female soldiers modelling women’s rights was often linked with representations of Afghan people as backward and needing models from elsewhere.</p>
<p>To skirt the military policy that in the mid-2000s still banned women from direct assignment to ground combat units, female soldiers were “temporarily attached” to all-male units and encouraged not to speak openly about the work they were doing, which typically entailed searching local women at checkpoints and in home raids.</p>
<p>Rochelle wrote in her journal about her experiences of visiting Afghan villages: “Out the gate I went, [with] headscarf and pistol …” Like Beth’s use of a biblical reference to explain the Afghan villages she confronted, Rochelle placed Afghanistan far backward in time. In one diary entry about a village meeting, she reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For years, I have always wondered what it would be like to live in the Stone Age – and now I know. I see it every day all around me. People walking around in clothes that haven’t been washed, ones they have worn for years. Children with hair white from days of dust build-up. Six-year-old girls carrying around their baby brothers. Eyes that tell a story of years of hardship. Houses made of mud and wooden poles, squares cut out for windows. Dirty misshapen feet.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A cultural considerations matrix." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526214/original/file-20230515-13823-9gqh6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Cultural considerations’ training material.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">USAID</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Rochelle was not accompanying the male patrols, she was visiting girls’ schools and holding meetings with Afghan women about how her unit could help support income-generating opportunities for women, such as embroidery or selling food. Her logic, that this would reduce Taliban support and recruitment, echoed <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/policy/countering-violent-extremism">USAID programmes</a> that still today claim targeted economic opportunity can “counter violent extremism”.</p>
<p>Amelia, a female soldier attached to a special forces mission, spoke of how she was an asset because:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were not threatening, we were just there. For Afghan men, we were fascinating because we were these independent women in a different role than they see for most women there. And we were non-threatening to them, so they could talk to us openly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Strikingly, Amelia admitted that she and other female soldiers played a similar role for their American counterparts too:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the [male] marines, just having us there helped kind of calm things down. We would do things to try to give back to them – like we baked for them frequently. That was not our role and I don’t want anyone to think that we were a “baking team”, but we would do things like that and it really helped. Like a motherly touch or whatever. We would bake cookies and cinnamon buns. It really helped bring the team together and have more of a family feeling.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Amelia’s clear apprehension at her unit being seen as the “baking team” speaks to how they were incorporated into combat through reinforcement of certain gender stereotypes. These women used “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/11/arlie-hochschild-housework-isnt-emotional-labor/576637/">emotional labour</a>” – the work of managing, producing and suppressing feelings as part of one’s paid labour – both to counsel the male soldiers with whom they were stationed, and to calm Afghan civilians after their doors had been broken down in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>But the women I met also revealed a culture of sexist abuse that had been exacerbated by the unofficial nature of their combat roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers who <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531-marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.html">did not want women in their midst</a> would joke, for example, that CST actually stood for “casual sex team”. Such treatment undermines the US military’s representations of military women as models of feminist liberation for Afghan women.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A soldier stands in front of a mock Afghan village, holding his rifle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526210/original/file-20230515-15-5gvp0g.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A provincial reconstruction team deploying to Afghanistan patrols a mock Afghan village on a US military base.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jennifer Greenburg</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘It was the best and the worst deployment’</h2>
<p>Beth’s first deployment to Afghanistan in 2009 was to accompany a small group of Green Berets into an Afghan village and interact with the women and children who lived there. One of her strongest memories was figuring out how to shower once a week by crouching under a wood palate and balancing water bottles between its slats.</p>
<p>Beth’s role was to gather information about which villages were more likely to join the US military-supported <a href="https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_22.pdf">internal defence forces</a> – a cold war counterinsurgency strategy with a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/12/06/the-truth-of-el-mozote">history</a> of brutalising countries’ own citizens. To elicit feelings of security and comfort in those she encountered when entering an Afghan home or searching a vehicle, she described adjusting her voice tone, removing her body armour, and sometimes placing her hands on the bodies of Afghan women and children.</p>
<p>But this “kinder and gentler” aspect of her work was inseparable from the home raids she also participated in, during which marines would kick down the doors of family homes in the middle of the night, ripping people from their sleep for questioning, or worse.</p>
<p>Women like Beth were exposed to – and in a few cases, killed by – the same threats as the special forces units to which they were unofficially attached. But the teams’ hidden nature meant these women often had no official documentation of what they did.</p>
<p>If they returned home injured from their deployment, their records did not reflect their attachment to combat units. This meant they were unable to prove the crucial link between injury and service that determined access to healthcare. And the women’s lack of official recognition has since posed a major barrier to being promoted in their careers, as well as <a href="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5ddda3d7ad8b1151b5d16cff/5e67d54e8c296ffede3c4f62_Reference-Guide-2017.pdf">accessing</a> military and veteran healthcare.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Female soldier saluting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526315/original/file-20230515-37865-m00axn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lack of official recognition posed a barrier to some women being promoted in their military careers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/american-soldiers-salute-us-army-military-1711680580">Bumble Dee/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Beth said she was “lucky” to have come home with her mental health and limbs intact, many of her peers described being unable to sleep and suffering from anxiety, depression and other symptoms of <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp">post-traumatic stress disorder</a> (PTSD) as a result of their continued exposure to stressful combat situations such as night raids.</p>
<p>Six months into her deployment, Beth’s female partner was riding in a large armoured vehicle when it ran over an explosive device. “Luckily”, as Beth put it, the bomb exploded downwards, blowing off four of the vehicle’s wheels and sending a blast through the layer of rubber foam on which her partner’s feet rested. She was medevacked out of the combat zone with fractured heels, along with six other men.</p>
<p>Technically, Beth was always supposed to have a female partner when working for a cultural support team, but no replacement came. Her mission changed and she became the only woman assigned to support a group of marines stationed on a remote base. There were only a handful of other women on the base, and Beth lived alone in a repurposed shipping container sandwiched between housing for 80 men.</p>
<p>Beth said the marines spread false rumours about her. Other women I spoke with indicated that there was a widespread culture of degrading women like Beth in the US military at this time – just as its leaders were publicly disavowing the military’s epidemic of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/11/military-sexual-assault-survivors-epidemic">sexual assault and rape</a>.</p>
<p>As Beth described her treatment on the second part of her deployment in Afghanistan, her eyes widened. She struggled to find the words that eventually came out:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was the best and the worst deployment. On some level, I did things that I will never do again – I met some great people, had amazing experiences. But also, professionally, as a captain in the Marine Corps, I have never been treated so poorly in my life – by other officers! I had no voice. Nobody had my back. [The marines] didn’t want us there. These guys did not want to be bringing women along.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Beth described how one of the male soldiers lied to her battalion commander, accusing her of saying something she didn’t say – leading to her being removed from action and being placed under a form of custody:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I got pulled back and sat in the hot-seat for months. It was bad. That was a very low point for me.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Women as a third gender’</h2>
<p>A narrow, western version of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/">feminism</a> – focused on women’s legal and economic rights while uncritical of the US’s history of military interventions and imperialistic financial and legal actions – helped <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3318265">build popular support for</a> the Afghanistan invasion in 2001. On an individual level, women like Beth made meaning of their deployments by understanding themselves as modern, liberated inspirations for the Afghan women they encountered.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A female soldier cleans the wound of a child" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526313/original/file-20230515-20222-5gvp0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A female engagement team member treats a child during a medical aid mission, October 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/337619/female-engagement-team-finds-strength-behind-burka">Staff Sgt. Whitney Hughes/DVIDS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in reality, the US military did not deploy women like Beth with the intention of improving Afghan women’s lives. Rather, special forces recognised Afghan women as a key piece of the puzzle to convince Afghan men to join the internal defence forces. While male soldiers could not easily enter an Afghan home without being seen as disrespecting women who lived there, the handbook for female engagement teams advised that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Afghan men often see western women as a “third gender” and will approach coalition forces’ women with different issues than are discussed with men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And a 2011 Marine Corps Gazette <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hqiRxoTLeb8C&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=Julia+Watson+Marine+Corps+Gazette+2011+%E2%80%9CFemale+Engagement+Teams:+The+Case+for+More+Female+Civil+Affairs+Marines,%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=tXO3YJJjBW&sig=ACfU3U0XPU65h1cNLncfpbRLhvXAU4VjRQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFxObLxaT9AhUPQkEAHbs8A_sQ6AF6BAgGEAM#v=onepage&q=Julia%20Watson%20Marine%20Corps%20Gazette%202011%20%E2%80%9CFemale%20Engagement%20Teams%3A%20The%20Case%20for%20More%20Female%20Civil%20Affairs%20Marines%2C%E2%80%9D&f=false">article</a> underlined that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Female service members are perceived as a “third gender” and as being “there to help versus there to fight”. This perception allows us access to the entire population, which is crucial in population-centric operations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The use of “third gender” here is surprising because the term more often refers to gender identity outside of conventional male-female binaries. In contrast, military uses of such language reinforced traditional gender expectations of women as caregivers versus men as combatants, emphasising how women entered what were technically jobs for men by maintaining these gender roles.</p>
<p>The female counterinsurgency teams were intended to search Afghan women and gather intelligence that was inaccessible to their male counterparts. Beth had volunteered for these secretive missions, saying she was excited to go “outside the wire” of the military base, to interact with Afghan women and children, and to work with US special operations.</p>
<p>Initially, she was enthusiastic about the tour, describing her gender as an “invaluable tool” that allowed her to collect information which her male counterparts could not. She went on home raids with the marines and would search women and question villagers.</p>
<p>Technically, the US military has strict rules about who is allowed to collect formal intelligence, limiting this role to those trained in intelligence. As a result, Beth explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just like any other team going out to collect information, we always steer clear of saying “collect” [intelligence]. But essentially that’s exactly what we were doing … I won’t call them a source because that is a no-no. But I had individuals who would frequent me when we were in particular areas … [providing] information we were able to elicit in a casual setting instead of running a source and being overt.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘A completely different energy’</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Recruitment poster for a female engagement team." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526212/original/file-20230515-5879-9gqh6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Female engagement team recruitment poster, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US Army</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cindy deployed with a US Army Ranger regiment to Afghanistan in 2012. Having recently graduated from one of the military academies, an advertisement caught her eye: “Become a part of history. Join the US Army Special Operations Command Female Engagement Team Program.”</p>
<p>She was drawn in by the high physical bar and intellectual challenge of jobs in special operations from which the military technically excluded her. Describing the process of being selected for the female unit as a “week from hell”, Cindy said she was proud of “being where it’s hardest” and “the sense of duty, obligation”.</p>
<p>While she was completing her training, Cindy’s friend from airborne school was killed by an explosion in October 2011, while accompanying an Army Ranger team on a night raid of a Taliban weapons maker’s compound in Kandahar. This was Ashley White-Stumpf, subject of the bestselling book <a href="https://gaylelemmon.com/ashleyswar">Ashley’s War</a>, which is now being adapted into a film starring Reese Witherspoon. She was the first cultural support team member to be killed in action, and her funeral brought this secret programme into a very public light.</p>
<p>Her death cast a shadow on the excitement Cindy had initially felt. To confuse matters, the dangers that White-Stumpf (and now Cindy) faced were publicly invisible, given that women were banned from being officially attached to special forces combat units. When female soldiers did appear in public relations photographs, it was often handing out soccer balls or visiting orphanages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="US soldiers unveil a monument to their dead colleague" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526231/original/file-20230515-13823-5pl73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soldiers unveil a memorial to 1st Lt. Ashley White-Stumpf, September 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/1023069/nc-national-guard-soldiers-honor-fallen-comrade-with-memorial">Staff Sgt. Kelly Lecompte/DVIDS via Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet once deployed, Cindy was attached to a “direct action” unit – the special forces portrayed in action movies kicking down doors, seizing documents and capturing people. This meant that while special forces carried out their mission, her job was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To interact with women and children. To get information, or [find out] if there were nefarious items that were hidden under burkas and things of that nature.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She explained how “you have different tools as a woman that you can use that I don’t think a man would be successful in” – offering the example of a little boy in a village who her team thought knew something. A <a href="https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/army-rangers.html">ranger</a> was questioning the little boy, who was terrified of how, in her words, this male soldier “looked like a stormtrooper, wearing his helmet and carrying a rifle”. In contrast, Cindy explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For me to kneel next to the little kid and take off my helmet and maybe put my hand on his shoulder and say: “There, there” – I can do that with my voice, [whereas] this guy probably could not or would not. And that kid was crying, and we couldn’t get anything out of him. But you can turn the tables with a completely different energy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Cindy told me proudly how it took her just 15 minutes to identify the correct location of the Taliban activity, when her unit had been in the wrong location. She, like many of the women I spoke to, painted a picture of using emotional labour to evoke empathy and sensitivity amid violent – and often traumatic – special operations work.</p>
<h2>‘I’ve had so much BS in my career’</h2>
<p>The women I interviewed were operating in the same permissive climate of sexual harassment and abuse that later saw the high-profile murders of the servicewoman <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/vanessa-guillens-fort-hood-murder-motive-b2086929.html">Vanessa Guillén</a> at Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2020, and the combat engineer <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2023/04/13/ana-fernanda-basaldua-ruiz-fort-hood-sexual-harrassment-murder-vanessa-guillen/">Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz</a> in March 2023.</p>
<p>Before their deaths, both Latinx women had been repeatedly sexually harassed by other male soldiers and had reported incidents to their supervisors, who failed to report them further up the chain of command. Such cases overshadowed any excitement about the recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/01/26/women-combat-military-special-forces/">ten-year anniversary</a> of women formally serving in ground combat roles in the US military.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protesters carry a poster in memory of murdered US soldier Vanessa Guillén" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526319/original/file-20230515-22982-2iwegm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters march in support of the murdered US soldier Vanessa Guillén, July 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-yorkunited-states07102020peaceful-march-vanessa-1778387528">Jewjewbeed/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mollie deployed to Afghanistan as part of a female engagement team in 2009. Her career up to then had been chequered with discriminatory experiences. In some cases, there were subtle, judgmental looks. But she also described overt instances, such as the officer who, when told of her impending arrival on his unit, had responded bluntly: “I don’t want a female to work for me.”</p>
<p>Mollie said she saw the FET as a way to showcase women’s skill and value within a masculinist military institution. She felt tremendous pride for the “20 other strong women” she worked with, whose adaptability she was particularly impressed with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>During the FET, I saw such great women. It frustrates me that they have to put up with this [sexism] … I’ve had so much BS like that throughout my career. Seeing how amazing these women were in high-stress situations – I want to stay in and continue to fight for that, so junior marines don’t have to put up with the same sorts of sexist misogynist comments that I did.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mollie said the experience on the FET changed her, describing herself emerging as an “unapologetic feminist” responsible for more junior servicewomen. This encouraged her to re-enlist year after year. But for other women, deploying in capacities from which they were normally excluded, only to then return to gender-restricted roles, was a good reason to quit after their contract was up. As was, for many, the continued background of resistance and abuse from male colleagues.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3162.html">2014 study</a> of the US military found that “ambient sexual harassment against service women and men is strongly associated with risk of sexual assault”, with women’s sexual assault risk increasing by more than a factor of 1.5 and men’s by 1.8 when their workplace had an above-average rate of ambient sexual harassment. In 2022, the US military admitted that the epidemic of sexual assault within military ranks had <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/09/01/the-militarys-sexual-assault-problem-is-only-getting-worse/">worsened</a> in recent years, and that existing strategies were not working.</p>
<h2>‘Magnitude of regrets’</h2>
<p>Amid the chaotic withdrawal of US and international forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, marines threw together another female engagement team to search Afghan women and children. Two of its members, maintenance technician Nicole Gee and supply chief Johanny Rosario Pichardo, died in a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/single-suicide-bomber-killed-us-troops-afghans-isis/story?id=82676604">suicide bomb attack</a> during the evacuation that killed 13 soldiers and at least 170 Afghans.</p>
<p>Media <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/28/female-marines-killed-in-kabul/">coverage</a> remembered Gee cradling an Afghan infant as she evacuated refugees in the days leading up to the attack, underscoring how female soldiers like her did high-risk jobs that came into being through gender expectations of women as caregivers.</p>
<p>Writing to me in 2023, ten years after her deployment to Afghanistan, Rochelle reflected that the departure of US soldiers could be “a whirlwind of emotions if you let it”. She added: “My anger lies with the exit of our own [US forces]. The magnitude of regrets, I hope, lay heavy on someone’s conscience.”</p>
<p>The experiences of Rochelle and other female soldiers in Afghanistan complicate any simplistic representations of them as trailblazers for equal rights in the US military. Their untreated injuries, unrecognised duties, and abusive working conditions make for a much more ambivalent blend of subjugation and pathbreaking.</p>
<p>And even as their position helped formalise the role of US women in combat, this happened through the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and racist representations of Afghan people. In fact, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tql5uPP0qE">Afghan women had long been mobilising</a> on their own terms – largely unintelligible to the US military – and <a href="https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-03-16/the-persecution-of-female-protestors-in-afghanistan-the-taliban-ran-me-over-and-tried-to-kill-me.html">continue to do so</a>, with extraordinary bravery, now that the Taliban is back in control of their country.</p>
<p>It is devastating, but not surprising, that the military occupation of Afghanistan did not ultimately improve women’s rights. The current situation summons feminist perspectives that challenge war as a solution to foreign policy problems and work against the forms of racism that make people into enemies.</p>
<p>Following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, US Army female engagement teams have been reassembled and deployed to train foreign militaries from <a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/5693812/fearless-females-unite-empower-one-another">Jordan</a> to <a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/image/3252982/24th-meu-female-engagement-team-trains-with-romanian-troops">Romania</a>. As we enter the third decade of the post-9/11 wars, we should revisit how these wars were justified in the name of women’s rights, and how little these justifications have actually accomplished for women – whether in the marine corps barracks of Quantico, Virginia, or on the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan.</p>
<p><em>*All names and some details have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-my-20-years-in-afghanistan-taught-me-about-the-taliban-and-how-the-west-consistently-underestimates-them-167927?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">What my 20 years in Afghanistan taught me about the Taliban – and how the west consistently underestimates them
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/can-wars-no-longer-be-won-126068?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Can wars no longer be won?
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<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-inside-story-of-the-cia-v-russia-from-cold-war-conspiracy-to-black-propaganda-in-ukraine-188550?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">The inside story of the CIA v Russia – from cold war conspiracy to ‘black’ propaganda in Ukraine
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<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Greenburg has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Association of American Geographers, Stanford University, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and the Department of Geography and the Graduate Division at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War (Cornell University Press).</span></em></p>Women who served in unofficial combat and intelligence roles during the Afghanistan war offer brutally honest accounts of their experiences.Jennifer Greenburg, Lecturer in International Relations, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1998432023-04-14T11:45:23Z2023-04-14T11:45:23ZThe Taliban is not playing straight with the west over easing of sanctions – and women and girls are paying much of the price<p>The economic and political isolation of Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in August 2021 has worsened a humanitarian crisis in the country. The World Food Program <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/wfp-afghanistan-situation-report-18-january-2023">has projected</a> that between November 2022 and March 2023 the number of food-insecure Afghans would rise to 20 million – 3.2 million of them under the age of five. Some 6 million people were classed in urgent need of assistance. </p>
<p>Arguments that the west should attempt to engage more effectively with the Taliban were mounted throughout the US-backed governments in Kabul which were put in place after the 2001 coalition invasion following on from the 9/11 terror attack on New York. </p>
<p>These were the driving force behind the <a href="https://www.usip.org/programs/afghanistan-peace-efforts">Doha peace talks</a> in 2018 which led to a deal in which the US agreed to withdraw its forces by May 2021. The US failed to meet this deadline and as the newly installed Biden administration delayed American forces were forced to make a chaotic withdrawal before the Taliban took control of Kabul in August that year.</p>
<p>The Taliban has been designated a terrorist organisation since 2001. Nevertheless, there have been repeated calls for a degree of engagement by the west. Arguments <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/06/taliban-afghanistan-women-ban-mahbouba-seraj-nobel-diplomacy/">for engagement</a> are twofold. Firstly on purely humanitarian grounds. But also due to the belief that continuing total isolation would lead to the Taliban tightening its already oppressive policies. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://cic.nyu.edu/resources/the-worlds-humanitarian-economic-and-political-engagement-with-afghanistan/">advocates</a> are arguing that engagement should progress beyond the current focus of merely providing humanitarian support into the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/afghanistan/let-afghanistan-rebuild">political and diplomatic</a> arena. Washington was even poised to open diplomatic channels for the potential <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/27/taliban-bar-girls-education-us-plan-diplomatic-recognition">recognition of the Taliban regime</a> back in March 2022. But the plan was shelved when the Taliban banned secondary school for girls. </p>
<p>Many of the US sanctions imposed against the Islamic Emirate (IE) have been <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/afghanistan-related-sanctions">softened</a> over the past 18 months through the issuing of US Treasury General Licences. These are meant to permit broad financial relations between the US and other countries and entities around the world. </p>
<p>Afghanistan-related licenses since December 2021 effectively allow most financial transactions that involve the Taliban and its affiliate, the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/haqqani_network.html">Haqqani Network</a> (a group that officially remains under the Taliban leadership but has its own chain of command and semi-autonomy). But direct money transfers to these groups, who are still designated as terrorist entities, remain prohibited. </p>
<p>The IE even received an exemption from the US sanctions regime designed to punish Russian businesses following the invasion of Ukraine. Under <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/1032">GL28</a>, individuals and corporations can <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/1032">continue</a> dealing with Russia’s TransKapitalBank (TKB). </p>
<p>But the 18 months of Taliban rule in Afghanistan indicates that this easing has not been met with any concessions on the part of the Taliban administration. The idea that engagement might be reciprocated by the Taliban appears to have gravely underestimated the group’s determined adherence to its repressive core ideology – even at the cost of ignoring deteriorating realities on the ground. </p>
<p>Afghanistan’s extremist rulers have intensified their repressive policies rather than reacting positively to the easing of sanctions. This has been particularly marked in the case of policies relating to women, as the table below shows: </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Table showing timeline of Taliban reprepssionof women and US concessions on sanctions" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520550/original/file-20230412-22-mbl830.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taliban decisions curtailing women’s rights parallel to US sanctions waivers through Treasury Department general licenses (GL).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kambaiz Rafi</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kabul has meanwhile received more than <a href="https://fts.unocha.org/countries/1/summary/2022">US$3.7 billion</a> (£2.98 billion) from donor countries during 2022 – close to one-third of it from the US. This is less than half of the more than <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/02/afghanistan-study-group-final-report-pathway-peace-afghanistan">US$8bn</a> that the former western backed republic received annually before 2021. But it indicates that there is still a degree of international goodwill that any less oppressive regime could make better use of.</p>
<h2>Is the Taliban playing ball?</h2>
<p>Reluctance among the Taliban’s leadership for genuine engagement can be seen in the fact that the Taliban office in Doha, Qatar, which was instrumental in negotiating the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/us-taliban-deal.html">US withdrawal agreement</a> in February 2020, has been marginalised since the takeover. The man who led the talks from the Taliban side between 2015 and 2020, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sher_Mohammad_Abbas_Stanikzai">Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai</a> – who has <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-rifts-exposed-afghanistan/31880018.html">been critical</a> of the way the regime is treating girls – has been downgraded to the relatively obscure post of deputy minister of foreign affairs.</p>
<p>Administration of the Taliban’s government is now firmly in the grip of Hibatullah Akhundzadeh, who has <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-leader-akhundzada-oppression-isolation/32234403.html?fbclid=IwAR0Xow9Eoyuc3aBQInMayLTt5sPbG0wVoEqPaDaJ3TKPXUfN6rb0otz-DFc">shifted the group’s power base</a> to southern Kandahar province, where conservative loyalists tend to dominate. He is now seen as having <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2023/02/14/en-afghanistan-les-talibans-traversent-leur-premiere-crise-de-regime_6161731_3210.html">consolidated his faction’s grip</a> on the IE’s domestic and regional policy.</p>
<p>Akhundzadeh’s attitude to women could be seen in his refusal to meet <a href="https://amu.tv/en/33255/">UN deputy director-general Amina Mohammad</a> – the UN’s highest-ranking woman – <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/dsg/press-encounter/2023-01-25/deputy-secretary-general-amina-mohammed%E2%80%99s-press-conference-upon-her-return-afghanistan">when she visited</a> in January, chiefly to engage the regime’s leadership. </p>
<p>Prominent women’s activist, Mehbouba Seraj – who has been <a href="https://www.prio.org/news/3009">shortlisted for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize</a> – remains an <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/06/taliban-afghanistan-women-ban-mahbouba-seraj-nobel-diplomacy/">advocate of engagement</a> with the Taliban. “If we don’t sit down and talk to them and see what it is exactly that we can do and they can do, the ones who are going to be paying for it, and who are paying a huge price, are the poor people of Afghanistan, the women and children,” she said in February. </p>
<p>But realities on the ground since August 2021 show that ideological extremism cannot be countered by wishful thinking. Any continued western engagement should come with a price tag for the IE, not offered on the cheap. It should be based on clear communication of reforms by the regime, particularly to improve the conditions for women and an entire generation of girls who are being denied an education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199843/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kambaiz Rafi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The west wants to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. But every move towards engagement with the Taliban is met with further oppression.Kambaiz Rafi, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2018522023-03-21T12:41:54Z2023-03-21T12:41:54ZA string of assassinations in Afghanistan point to ISIS-K resurgence – and US officials warn of possible attacks on American interests in next 6 months<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516086/original/file-20230317-14-oncfo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3407%2C1875&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A suicide attack in early March 2023 killed a Taliban governor in his office and two other victims.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-shift-a-wounded-man-inside-a-hospital-in-mazar-i-sharif-news-photo/1247932977">Atif Aryan/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have struggled to contain the Islamic State Khorasan province, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">ISIS-K</a> – the official Islamic State group affiliate operating in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Now, a fresh wave of assassination attempts on top Taliban officials has rocked multiple regions across the country and prompted fears of the group’s potential to attack targets outside Afghanistan, including U.S. and Western interests. </p>
<p>On March 9, 2023, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/09/afghanistan-balkh-governor-taliban-blast/">suicide bombing</a> that killed Mohammad Dawood Muzammil, the Taliban governor of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, along with two others. One day earlier, the group’s fighters carried out a <a href="https://english.news.cn/20230308/9e3080c046c047b09200a297e200adb0/c.html">targeted killing</a> against the head of the water supply department in Afghanistan’s western Herat province. And most recently, on March 15, the group claimed a <a href="https://twitter.com/khorasandiary/status/1636492992146993158?s=51&t=QMYqOVuyPsPEZEWrZj4yYA">failed attack</a> on a Taliban district governor in the eastern province of Nangarhar, a former ISIS-K stronghold. </p>
<h2>ISIS-K’s resurgence</h2>
<p>ISIS-K seeks to advance the Islamic State group’s goal of creating a global caliphate based on its own interpretation of Islamic law.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.amirajadoon.net/">scholars who have studied</a> <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/andrew-mines">ISIS-K for years</a>, we know that the recent attacks are only a few in a long line of attacks the group has carried out or attempted in Afghanistan since forming in 2015. </p>
<p>ISIS-K has <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/The_Islamic_State_in_Afghanistan_and_Pakistan_Strategic_Alliances_and_Rivalries">tried – often successfully – to kill</a> government and military officials, media influencers, religious leaders and other civil society figures. The group is also responsible for the bombing that left <a href="https://apnews.com/article/europe-france-evacuations-kabul-9e457201e5bbe75a4eb1901fedeee7a1">13 U.S. service members and scores of Afghans</a> dead in August 2021, following the collapse of the former government and the U.S.-led withdrawal from Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Some of ISIS-K’s ambitious plots have failed. Notable examples include claimed attempts against <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2017/9/27/16374772/mattis-afghanistan-kabul-airport-attack-taliban-isis">NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis</a> in 2017, former Afghanistan vice president <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-dostum-claim/islamic-state-claims-suicide-bombing-targeting-afghan-vice-president-amaq-idUSKBN1KC0Q4">Abdul Rashid Dostum</a> in 2018, former Afghanistan president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/dueling-presidential-inaugurations-planned-in-kabul/2020/03/09/f3b71a14-61ba-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html">Ashraf Ghani</a> in 2020 and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/middleeast/isis-assassination-attempt-us-intl/index.html">Ross Wilson</a> in 2021. </p>
<p>Despite both being Islamist organizations, ISIS-K and the Taliban are strategic rivals locked in a battle that has <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2021/10/the-taliban-cant-take-on-the-islamic-state-alone/">persisted since ISIS-K’s inception</a>. Targeted assassinations of Taliban security and political officials, across multiple ranks and levels, have been a consistent feature of <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-islamic-state-threat-in-taliban-afghanistan-tracing-the-resurgence-of-islamic-state-khorasan/">ISIS-K’s resurgence</a>. The recent killings are simply a continuation of the group’s attack priorities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man wearing combat vest over traditional Afghan clothes and holding assault rifle looks through door of heavily damaged building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516137/original/file-20230317-4809-hu3ken.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afghan security forces stormed a hideout used by ISIS-K militants in Kabul in January 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-afghan-security-force-member-stands-guard-near-the-site-news-photo/1246031900">Zahir Khan Zahir/Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Aim of assassinations</h2>
<p>Assassinations are a fundamental pillar of the Islamic State group’s <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/The_Long_Jihad.pdf">insurgency doctrine</a>, which is adopted by its affiliates and serves multiple purposes. </p>
<p>For one, they’re a way to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221126080">retaliate against heavy losses</a>. Just days before the latest string of attacks, ISIS-K <a href="https://twitter.com/abdsayedd/status/1632741455419650050?s=51&t=QMYqOVuyPsPEZEWrZj4yYA">threatened to amplify its violence</a> after <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-forces-kill-top-is-commanders-in-afghanistan-/6981441.html">Taliban raids</a> in January and February killed key Islamic State leaders and attack planners. </p>
<p>For another, assassinations can whittle away key leaders in the enemy’s ranks, as well as foreign influence. The latest issue of the Islamic State group’s <a href="https://jihadology.net/">weekly newsletter, Al-Naba</a>, claimed that Gov. Muzammil was not only a significant player in the Taliban’s campaign against ISIS-K in Nangarhar, but that he was also acting on behalf of Iran. Countering actual or perceived foreign state influence in Afghanistan – even the lifesaving work of <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/Islamic-State-anti-humanitarian-campaign-Afghanistan">international humanitarian groups</a> – has been a consistent feature of ISIS-K propaganda and violence. </p>
<p>In addition, assassinations of high-profile opponents serve to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09636410903369068">raise morale among fighters, prevent defections and boost recruitment</a>. The ability to assassinate top Taliban leaders and commanders showcases ISIS-K’s strength to potential recruit, including from within the <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/evolving-taliban-isk-rivalry">Taliban’s ranks</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, high-profile attacks signal to the Islamic State’ group’s core leadership in Iraq and Syria that its affiliate in Afghanistan deserves continued support and investment. ISIS-K leaders have frequently <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/The_Islamic_State_in_Afghanistan_and_Pakistan_Strategic_Alliances_and_Rivalries">sent letters</a> to Islamic State group leadership boasting of their successful assassinations and other operations. After the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">attack on the Kabul airport</a> in August 2021, ISIS-K <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N21/416/14/PDF/N2141614.pdf?OpenElement">received new cash payments</a> from top Islamic State group leaders – either as a reward, investment or both. </p>
<h2>Consequences for the US</h2>
<p>How successful ISIS-K is in rebuilding its insurgency and replicating the caliphate model in Iraq and Syria will depend on a number of factors. </p>
<p>Most important is its continued ability to leverage its <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/The_Islamic_State_in_Afghanistan_and_Pakistan_Strategic_Alliances_and_Rivalries">strategic alliances and rivalries</a>. Partnering with <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/allied-lethal-islamic-state-khorasans-network-organizational-capacity-afghanistan-pakistan/">other jihadist groups</a> in the region helps ISIS-K sustain its capacity for violence. And <a href="https://www.militantwire.com/p/iskp-criticizes-talibans-acceptance">accusing the Taliban of apostasy</a> for accepting foreign investment and humanitarian aid from “infidel” or enemy governments – including China, the U.S., Iran, Turkey and others – helps distinguish ISIS-K’s own brand from its rivals. Targeting killings of such opponents further reinforces this distinction.</p>
<p>A strengthened ISIS-K insurgency in Afghanistan has direct consequences for U.S. and Western security interests. A February 2023 <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2023-Unclassified-Report.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">U.S. intelligence report</a> warned of ISIS-K’s desire to attack the West. And on March 16, U.S. CENTCOM commander <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-general-islamic-state-afghan-affiliate-closer-to-attacking-western-targets/7008633.html">Gen. Michael Kurilla testified</a> that ISIS-K will be able to attack American and Western interests outside Afghanistan in less than six months.</p>
<p>Whether or not this assessment is accurate, the recent claimed assassinations by ISIS-K are one of many indicators that point to its growing threat in Afghanistan – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-the-fall-of-kabul-talibans-false-commitments-on-terrorism-have-been-fully-exposed-188132">threat that we believe</a> the Taliban <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2021/10/the-taliban-cant-take-on-the-islamic-state-alone/">can’t take on alone</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ISIS-K’s recent killings of Taliban brass are part of the extremist group’s long-term strategy. Will Taliban leaders contain the resurgence of violence?Andrew Mines, Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism, George Washington UniversityAmira Jadoon, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clemson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982552023-02-07T20:48:04Z2023-02-07T20:48:04ZDespite the Taliban’s pledge to eradicate opium, the poppy trade still flourishes in Afghanistan<p>The Taliban have always had a complicated relationship with the opium trade. As a narcotic, opium is haram, or <a href="https://azislam.com/prohibition-of-drugs-in-islam">forbidden under Islamic law</a>. But at the same time opium production has <a href="https://1997-2001.state.gov/www/regions/sa/facts_taliban_drugs.html#:%7E:text=Since%201997%20over%2096%20percent%20of%20the%20opium-poppy,decrees%20from%20the%20Taliban%20leadership%20banning%20poppy%20cultivation.">tended to increase</a> in areas they have controlled, where local leaders reportedly raise money to fund their operations by imposing “taxes” on poppy farmers and others involved in the trade.</p>
<p>When it retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban leadership said it would <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/03/asia/taliban-bans-drug-cultivation-opium-afghanistan-intl/index.html">prohibit the production of opium</a> and duly announced the ban in April 2022. Islamic law notwithstanding, this was <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/talibans-poppy-ban-afghanistan/">widely interpreted</a> as part of the regime’s push for international recognition and the unfreezing of Afghanistan’s foreign assets – which remain subject to international sanctions.</p>
<p>But recent figures released by the United Nation’s <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Opium_cultivation_Afghanistan_2022.pdf">Office on Drugs and Crime</a> (UNODC) suggest that – thus far – the ban has been ineffective. By 2022, the area of land under opium cultivation had increased by 32%, or 56,000 hectares, compared to the previous year. The 2022 crop was the third-largest area under cultivation since UNODC began monitoring in 1994, as the graph below shows.</p>
<p>Previous efforts to control cultivation have had limited success in persuading farmers to stop growing poppies. The <a href="https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-18-52-LL.pdf">failure of the US-led eradication</a> effort that took place from 2003 to 2009 highlighted the difficulty of physically destroying crops before harvest as a means of reducing cultivation. The total campaign cost almost US$300 million (£245 million), representing more than $31,000 per hectare of eradication. </p>
<p>This effort had little impact, in part because of the scale of cultivation across Afghanistan (<a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Opium_cultivation_Afghanistan_2022.pdf">UNODC estimates</a> 20% of arable land in Helmand is used to cultivate poppies) and a lack of viable alternatives for farmers. It was also difficult for the eradication teams to operate in hostile areas. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506169/original/file-20230124-366-nteg99.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total area of opium cultivation for Afghanistan between 1994 and 2022 from the UNODC’s annual opium surveys. Taliban bans opium in July 2000 and April 2022.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Programmes to promote alternatives to the poppy crop have also had a limited overall effect in areas where opium growing is concentrated. Afghanistan’s southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar are the source of the majority of the world’s opium and its production dominates the agricultural system. </p>
<h2>Cash crop</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I research technological ways of monitoring illicit crops. Security issues make doing this from the ground difficult in Afghanistan so, in 2005, we started work that aimed to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01431161003713028">address gaps</a> in generic knowledge of how to measure poppy, poppy yield and poppy eradication from satellite imagery. This resulted in an integrated application of high, medium and coarse spatial resolution satellite data to provide critical information on cereal and poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Our research between 2005 and 2010 identified areas in Helmand where up to 30% of the cultivated area was used for growing poppy, with the rest mostly wheat. At this time, prices were decreasing and pressure on opium production in the more established areas caused an expansion of cultivation into areas of former desert. Growers in these new areas use water drawn from deep wells for irrigation, which is a source of concern for future water security. </p>
<p>Afghan farmers are now more than ever <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/when-water-runs-out-rise-and-inevitable-fall-deserts-southwest-afghanistan-and">dependent on opium for their livelihoods</a> as there are no viable alternatives for generating income. These marginal areas require investment in higher-cost farming techniques, such as pumps to draw water for irrigation, which only cash from opium can provide.</p>
<p>Despite the lack of success in reducing opium cultivation, there has been an expectation that the Taliban might succeed where others have failed. This is not just wishful thinking. Their previous ban <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395904000945">halted cultivation in 2001</a>, as the graph above shows, although from a lower level of overall opium production than now. </p>
<p>The widespread effectiveness of their ban on opium cultivation was the result of brutal enforcement in areas under their control. Individual farmers were first warned and those violating the ban were forced to destroy their crops alongside corporal punishment and prison.</p>
<p>One of the difficulties in measuring the impact of the new ban is the inevitable lag between any enforcement and the release of official figures. The Taliban’s April 2022 ban came when the growing season was already well underway so it’s still too early to properly assess the extent to which it has been obeyed. The ban announced in July 2000 halted production in the 2021 season.</p>
<h2>Time will tell</h2>
<p>Opium cultivation in the south effectively starts each October, when farmers decide on what they are going to plant. The poppy seedlings remain dormant over winter and begin growing as temperatures rise in the spring. They <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01431161.2014.951099">flower in March or April</a> and are harvested shortly afterwards. </p>
<p>The UNODC’s annual survey measures the area of poppy cultivation when the crops are still green, at a time when they are distinct in the satellite images used to detect them. But the final results come much later because of the huge effort required to <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/drug-cultivation-production-and-manufacture.html">produce robust estimates</a>. These surveys require extensive data collection, mapping of fields at sample locations, and thorough quality control before countrywide results can be released.</p>
<p>It is possible that we have not yet seen any impact of the current policy and that the 2023 growing season might be a better test of the Taliban’s ban.</p>
<p>Conditions on the ground have also changed since 2001. The <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Opium_cultivation_Afghanistan_2022.pdf">UN’s analysis</a> points to the growth in the illicit economy since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover as the legitimate economy has shrunk, alongside an increase in the price of opium (tripling 2022 incomes), as reasons to be cautious about the effect of any new policy. </p>
<p>With no sign of any reduction in demand, much will depend on how the ban has been enforced in late 2022 and early 2023. The Taliban’s long-term commitment to their previous ban was not tested as they were toppled by the US in 2001. So we will have to wait until the UNODC publishes its next set of figures to assess how committed the Taliban has been to eradicating opium cultivation – and how successful they have been in a country that remains riven with conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Simms does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The area of land under opium cultivation increased by 32% last year.Daniel Simms, Lecturer in Remote Sensing , Cranfield UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982792023-02-03T12:23:34Z2023-02-03T12:23:34ZAfghanistan: single women and widows are struggling to find their next meal under Taliban restrictions<p>Jamila*, a widow living in Herat, lost her husband in a suicide attack about eight years ago. She has an 18-year-old daughter who is blind and a 20-year-old son who lost both legs in a mine blast. </p>
<p>Jamila used to be a housemaid and bake bread for people in their homes. With this income she was able to feed her daughter and son, according to research carried out by Ahmad*, a former lecturer at the University of Herat and shared with me. </p>
<p>Since the Taliban gained control of the country, Afghanistan has been on the brink of universal hardship. As many as <a href="https://www.undp.org/press-releases/97-percent-afghans-could-plunge-poverty-mid-2022-says-undp">97%</a> of people are now estimated to be living <a href="https://www.undp.org/press-releases/millions-afghan-lives-and-livelihoods-danger-without-support-says-un-development-programme-chief">in poverty</a>, up from 72% in 2018. </p>
<p>The recent Taliban ban on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64086682?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA">women working</a> in international and national organisations and women moving about <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Gender-alert-2-Womens-rights-in-Afghanistan-one-year-after-the-Taliban-take-over-en_0.pdf">public spaces</a> has also affected women being able to find employment. </p>
<p>Because of the current situation Jamila has lost her clients and is now struggling to cope. She could not pay her rent and the landlord asked her to leave her home. She now lives in a small room that a kind family gave her in their yard. She has no source of income. </p>
<p>Previously about 10% of educated women <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/Countries/Country-Main.cfm?ctry_id=71">in Afghanistan</a> worked in national or international organisations to support their children. If less educated, they had a range of formal and informal jobs including working as housemaids, baking bread, washing clothes, cleaning bathrooms and babysitting, and in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-0059-0">rural communities</a> rearing small livestock and growing wheat, maize and vegetables. </p>
<p>Jamila said that previously under the former government her family received a monthly salary from the state ministry of martyrs and disabled affairs, which pays families of military veterans or those killed in the fighting, and that gave them enough money for bread. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The new government (the Taliban) has now stopped this salary … they don’t believe our lost ones are martyrs.</p>
<p>My son also had a job with the municipality office in a city parking lot, taking care of vehicles and collecting money from people parking their vehicles there. There were many handicapped people doing this kind of job. But now all of them, including my son, have lost their jobs. </p>
<p>The Taliban has appointed their own personnel in these parking areas. We have very few options left. A neighbour now drops my son near a bridge in the city where he begs people to help him with coins. He brings him back here in the evening. With the coins he brings, we can get only bread to survive until the next day.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jamila is not an exception. She is one of thousands of women who have <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/11/a-year-of-taliban-takeover-the-missing-women-in-afghan-workforce">lost their jobs</a> as a result of the new decrees. Many are acutely malnourished and don’t know where their next meal is coming from. </p>
<p>Single women and widows have practically no way of earning money. On-the-ground reports reveal that many households are supported by women as male members of their family were either killed or injured in the ongoing conflict.</p>
<p>It is not just food, but also shelter, water, fuel and warmth that contribute to survival, especially in bitterly cold temperatures. Ahmad, the former lecturer in Afghanistan, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since COVID-19, my wife and I have tried to raise funds from friends to help poor families (especially widows). Very <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/more-than-160-afghans-die-bitterly-cold-weather-2023-01-26/">cold weather</a> has been forecast for the western zone of Afghanistan in February. </p>
<p>There has been snow and the temperature has dipped to -25°C at night early in 2023. One of my friends, who is in the US, helped us with some money locally to buy charcoal to help poor widows like Jamila cook food and warm up their rooms. My wife is also very frustrated and helpless in the current situation. </p>
<p>But, the plight of women-headed households, lacking adult males, is especially dire. In the absence of any social connection, they are increasingly food insecure, with few options to feed and care for their children.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This follows Taliban decrees banning women from education at the secondary and university level and not allowing them to travel without a <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Gender-alert-2-Womens-rights-in-Afghanistan-one-year-after-the-Taliban-take-over-en_0.pdf"><em>mahram</em></a> (male close relative as chaperone). The Taliban also ordered the closure of all beauty salons, public bathrooms, and <a href="https://saharareporters.com/2023/01/10/afghanistan-authorities-ban-women-working-malls-close-beauty-salons-females-10-days">sports centres for women</a>, important sectors of employment for women. </p>
<p>Overall, the dire situation in Afghanistan has increased the incidence of <a href="https://www.globalhungerindex.org/pdf/en/2021.pdf">extreme hunger</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8733523/">malnutrition</a> for both men and women, but women without husbands are being pushed into even more extreme poverty.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-shifts-tactics-in-its-determination-to-control-and-oppress-women-188411">The Taliban shifts tactics in its determination to control and oppress women</a>
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<p>According to UN resident and humanitarian coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov, “a staggering 95% of Afghans are not <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8733523/">getting enough to eat</a>, with that number rising to almost 100% in <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113982#:%7E:text=Afghanistan%3A%20Food%20insecurity%20and%20malnutrition%20threaten%20%E2%80%98an%20entire%20generation%E2%80%99">female-headed households</a>”. </p>
<p>The January 2023 high-level UN delegation led by Deputy Secretary-General <a href="https://unama.unmissions.org/un-deputy-secretary-general-amina-mohammed%E2%80%99s-press-conference-upon-her-return-afghanistan">Amina Mohammed</a> called on the Taliban authorities to reverse the various decrees limiting women’s and girl’s rights for the sake of peace and sustainable development. While the backlash against women’s rights needs to be urgently addressed, the crisis of food and nutrition security facing single women, widows and separated women, is not being recognised by many outside the country.</p>
<p>According to the 2015 Demographic Health Survey, only <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.HOU.FEMA.ZS?view=chart&locations=AF">1.7%</a> of Afghan households were headed by women. The January 2022 report from the UN World Food Programme places this at <a href="https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000136715/download/">4%</a>.</p>
<p>As a former employee of the Afghanistan Central Statistical Organisation, responsible for population data collection in four districts of Bamiyan province, told us: “It is very difficult to collect accurate population data.” She said that previous data concerning women-headed households was now likely to be invalid. </p>
<p>While women’s rights are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357718.2022.2107172">under attack in Afghanistan</a>, the full effect of the ban on women’s work and mobility on single women, widows and separated women, is yet to be fully recognised. While appeals for help to the United Nations by teachers, professionals and civil society activists are rising by the day, negotiations are not progressing, and the delivery of humanitarian assistance is becoming increasingly challenging. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to estimate how long local communities, themselves struggling to survive, can keep women-led households and their families alive.</p>
<p>**All names in this article have been changed for security reasons</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nitya Rao has received funding from DFID for a project entitled 'Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA)' between 2014-18.. </span></em></p>Widows and single women are losing their homes, after being told they can no longer work by the Taliban, and are living on the poverty line.Nitya Rao, Professor of Gender & Development, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1945532022-11-25T11:02:45Z2022-11-25T11:02:45ZAfghanistan: after a year of Taliban government, women are more oppressed than ever<p>The recent announcement that women and girls in Afghanistan have been banned by the Taliban government from visiting parks and gyms – even if accompanied by a male “chaperone” – has understandably been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/taliban-ban-women-from-parks-and-gyms-in-kabul-qndcvt2bn">greeted with outrage</a>. </p>
<p>The UN special representative in Afghanistan for women, Alison Davidian, said it was “yet another example of the Taliban’s continued and systematic erasure of women from public life,” adding, “We call on the Taliban to reinstate all rights and freedoms for women and girls.”</p>
<p>In the past 50 years, from the occupation by Soviet troops and US-led international forces, to the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, women’s rights have been often exploited for political gain packaged as a justification for war. At times things have slightly improved for women, but most of the time their rights have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/08/16/one-year-under-the-taliban-rule-situation-of-women-and-girls-in-afghanistan/?sh=677834257a60">significantly been violated</a>. </p>
<p>Women’s rights were enshrined in the <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Afghanistan_2004.pdf?lang=en">post-invasion constitution</a> introduced with US backing in 2004. The constitution allocated 25% of parliamentarian and provincial council seats to women, as well as 30% of civil service positions. </p>
<p>The constitution also obliged the Afghan government to respect and implement international conventions on women’s rights. Alongside this, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs was created as the main body responsible for women’s <a href="https://ppr.lse.ac.uk/articles/10.31389/lseppr.59/">rights and empowerment</a>.</p>
<p>After the Taliban takeover, this progress was <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/south-asia/afghanistan/report-afghanistan/">quickly overturned</a>. Only a month after coming to power, the Taliban government disbanded the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/18/taliban-replace-ministry-for-women-with-guidance-ministry">replaced it</a> by what they called a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice”. Women were <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2022/08/16/one-year-under-the-taliban-rule-situation-of-women-and-girls-in-afghanistan/?sh=62283c8e7a60">completely excluded</a> from working for the Taliban’s interim government, except for those cleaning female bathrooms. </p>
<p>The government told reporters that women should refrain from attending work until “proper systems” were put in place to “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/18/taliban-replace-ministry-for-women-with-guidance-ministry">ensure their safety</a>”. Women were barred from their workplaces, sent, or escorted home by and told they would <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa11/4727/2021/en/?utm_source=annual_report&utm_medium=epub&utm_campaign=2021&utm_term=english">be replaced</a> by their male relatives.</p>
<p>Similarly, women and girls’ access to education was curtailed. Upon taking power, Taliban leaders <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/south-asia/afghanistan/report-afghanistan/">announced</a> that a “safe learning environment” was required before women and girls could return to education. </p>
<p>In September 2021, the authorities announced that secondary education (above grade 6) would resume for boys, but access for girls was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/17/taliban-says-classes-resume-afghan-boys-no-mention-girls">not mentioned</a>. Without access to education, girls are at a higher risk of <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Gender-alert-2-Womens-rights-in-Afghanistan-one-year-after-the-Taliban-take-over-en.pdf">child marriage and abuse</a>.</p>
<p>In May 2022, the Taliban <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Gender-alert-2-Womens-rights-in-Afghanistan-one-year-after-the-Taliban-take-over-en.pdf">commanded women</a> to cover their faces in public and instructed them to remain in their homes except in cases of necessity. Women were banned from travelling long distances without a male chaperone. </p>
<p>Shelters supporting women and girls fleeing domestic abuse <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2022/07/women-and-girls-under-taliban-rule-afghanistan/">were closed</a>, and staff were forced to send many survivors back to their “abusers”. Fariha was nine months pregnant when she told Amnesty International: <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/12/afghanistan-survivors-of-gender-based-violence-abandoned-following-taliban-takeover-new-research/">“Before, there was a shelter … They said it’s not running now … There are no options for me now.” </a></p>
<p>Child and forced marriages, meanwhile, have <a href="https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/press-releases/girls-increasingly-risk-child-marriage-afghanistan">reportedly increased</a> in the past year, despite the Taliban’s claim to oppose them. Amid all this, an increase of suicides among women <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1121852">has been reported</a>.</p>
<h2>Fighting the patriarchy</h2>
<p>Yet Afghan women continue to make history with their acts of courage, peacefully protesting against restrictions, while being harassed, threatened, arrested, detained and tortured. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2022/07/women-and-girls-under-taliban-rule-afghanistan/">Stripped of their rights</a>, under constant threat of violence, Afghan women and girls are claiming their agency and <a href="https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/freshta-karim-international-womens-day-afghanistan">sharing their stories</a> in news outlets and online.</p>
<p>All this has been happening as many Muslim countries are witnessing a <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/muslim-feminism-womens-rights">revival of feminism</a>. Young women, in particular, are becoming increasingly interested in feminist ideas as a way of making sense of their lives. </p>
<p>In the 1980s and 1990s, an Islamic feminism emerged using Islam and its doctrines as the single essential element in women’s lives and identities. But a new wave of young Aghan women are adopting feminist ideas which do not necessarily operate from a religious standpoint. </p>
<p>But the Taliban are not the only issue for Afghan women. Indeed, feminists in many Muslim countries face a dual problem. There is the patriarchal cultural setup which sees women as subordinate to men. And then there is the difficulty of fighting for women’s rights in the face of a religious establishment which demonises them for challenging what they see as “fundamental” Islamic teaching. In turn the religious authorities in Afghanistan are accusing these feminists of being <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315583945-26/secular-iranian-women-activist-speak-caught-political-power-islamic-feminist-leila-mouri-kristin-soraya-batmanghelichi">westernised, inauthentic and sometimes anti-nationalist</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-the-west-needs-to-stop-seeing-women-as-in-need-of-saving-170731">Afghanistan: the west needs to stop seeing women as in need of 'saving'</a>
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<p>Frustratingly, the western world has always found it hard to look past what it sees as Afghan women’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-the-west-needs-to-stop-seeing-women-as-in-need-of-saving-170731">victimhood</a>. This has become the default western attitude towards women in virtually all traditional Islamic societies, because the west remains fixated on the idea that freeing women from oppression is a byproduct of defeating fundamentalist Islam – which it sees as indelibly linked with terrorism.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the growing isolation of Afghanistan from the west – and the harsh economic sanctions that are crippling the country financially – makes life all the harder as it is denying young Afghan women any agency they might be able to achieve in a flourishing economy. This makes it all the more urgent that the world hears, understands and supports voices of Afghan women, rather than imposing a version of western feminism which has already <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36695989.pdf">proved unfit</a> in Muslim contexts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hind Elhinnawy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Afghanistan’s new rulers have broken their pledge to uphold women’s rights.Hind Elhinnawy, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917002022-10-24T10:52:19Z2022-10-24T10:52:19ZAfghanistan: with civil war on the cards, the west needs to identify a moderate ally to support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490888/original/file-20221020-21-90h06v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C3697%2C2660&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Resistance leader: the NRF's Ahmad Massoud.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NRF/Twitter</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has become axiomatic that in Afghanistan, once an armed resistance group gains a foothold in an area it becomes hard to route out. This is more so if it musters a degree of local support and is in a geographically remote region. During the past year, an anti-Taliban force led by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Resistance_Front_of_Afghanistan">National Resistance Front</a> (NRF) appears to have achieved just that in Panjshir, Baghlan, and neighbouring provinces in the country’s north-east, despite significant odds and without much outside support. </p>
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<p>More than a year after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the country faces what the <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/afghanistan-emergency.html#:%7E:text=Afghanistan%20is%20experiencing%20a%20humanitarian,whom%20are%20women%20and%20children.">United Nations has identified</a> as a mounting humanitarian crisis as well as the security risk of a resurgence of jihadism. But working to alleviate this would require closer relations and possible recognition of the Taliban regime. This would appear unlikely given the group’s <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/afghanistan-international-community-must-urgently-action-upon-the-un-special-rapporteurs-recommendations/">growing extremism</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/sr_afghanistan/status/1584194164048429057?s=46&t=c2VJ5fDHePddTBKBZ4B_DA">violations</a> of human rights. </p>
<p>Supporting the NRF can be a way out of this dilemma. Ideologically, NRF embraces a moderate central Asian Islamic tradition espousing reason and cultural propagation (<em>Islam’e akhlaaq’mehwar</em>) rather than the mere exercise of political and military power for ideological ends. It advocates a decentralised political system in Afghanistan based on elections as well as promoting equality regardless of gender, ethnicity, sectarian or linguistic origin. </p>
<p>The NRF could establish territorial enclaves if given money and armaments in its north-eastern strongholds where – with assistance from the United Nations – it could restore some public services. Most importantly it could bring back education for girls and provide refuge for those in immediate risk of persecution – particularly Afghanistan’s <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/afghanistan-taliban-responsible-for-brutal-massacre-of-hazara-men-new-investigation/">Shia community</a>. International humanitarian help in NRF-controlled areas might also offer a solution to the likely migration of millions of Afghans to neighbouring regions and to Europe. </p>
<p>Some observers <a href="https://mailchi.mp/unitascommunications/press-release-afghanistan-is-on-the-brink-of-a-civil-war-former-afghan-national-security-advisor-warns?e=a1b80f593c">predict</a> a civil war in Afghanistan. If this is the case the NRF will be the main ideologically moderate group in a conflict otherwise dominated by extremist contenders. Over time and with growing clout, the resistance by the group can provide a model for other regions of Afghanistan to forge a multi-ethnic alliance. </p>
<p>While there must be legitimate concerns for the west about getting involved in any military sense in Afghanistan, the alternative would mean accepting the necessity of dealing with the Islamic Emirate of Taliban (IE) – and the security threats that poses if the country becomes a sanctuary for global jihadist organisations. There is also the moral dilemma of recognising a regime that, for example, has banned girls from attending secondary school.</p>
<p>Any hope that the IE might gradually morph into a more moderate government for all Afghans was dashed with the publication of a hardline manifesto in June this year by the chief of the supreme court and major IE ideologue, <a href="https://tribune.com.pk/story/2324906/abdul-hakim-haqqani-appointed-afghanistans-chief-justice">Abdul Hakim Haqqani</a> (he is from Kandahar and not a member of the Haqqani network). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Twitter image of Taliban supreme court chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani eating with his right hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/491035/original/file-20221021-24-wpvczf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ideologue: chief justice of the Taliban’s supreme court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
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<p>An introduction by the Taliban’s supreme leader <a href="http://www.afghan-bios.info/index.php?option=com_afghanbios&id=3523&task=view&total=725&start=56&Itemid=2">Hibatullah Akhundzada</a> is seen as its seal of approval by the IE leadership.</p>
<p>In line with Haqqani’s vision, the IE leader <a href="https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cp4zxpqlg2vo">announced</a> in mid-October for all ministerial regulations to abide by Sharia Law. The manifesto is written in Arabic, a language spoken in Afghanistan mainly by the clergy – a little like Latin in medieval England – and where the common languages are Persian and Pashto. </p>
<p>The book declares the implementation of God’s law based on Hanafi jurisprudence, one of the major Sunni schools of religious law, as the IE’s main objective. The Pashtun tribal code (Pashtunwali) rooted in archaic notions of tribal hierarchy is deemed important, and obedience to the IE supreme leader is declared obligatory. Defiance to him is punishable by death. Women are required to remain at home unless accompanied by a guardian and are confined to child-bearing and domestic and marital duties.</p>
<p>Democratic elections are derided as corrupt and un-Islamic. Schooling is to be strictly Islamic – raising fears that Afghanistan’s education system will develop into a network of extremist madrassas of the kind Haqqani and many IE leaders <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darul_Uloom_Haqqania">attended</a> in Pakistan in their youth.</p>
<h2>Civil war</h2>
<p>After the IE seized Kabul in August 2021 and the rapid disintegration of the western-backed former government and its armed forces, it looked as if the only meaningful challenge to the Taliban would come from another extremist group – the <a href="https://www.csis.org/blogs/examining-extremism/examining-extremism-islamic-state-khorasan-province-iskp">Islamic State of Khurasan (IS-K)</a>. IS-K perpetrated several atrocities in the immediate aftermath of the Taliban takeover. </p>
<p>But more recently, under the leadership of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Massoud">Ahmad Massoud</a> the NRF has <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/taliban-struggles-contain-afghan-national-resistance-front">intensified</a> its operations. It is now pursuing guerilla tactics modelled on the successful 1980s anti-Soviet and the 1990s anti-Taliban resistances and now has strongholds in at least <a href="https://www.hudson.org/node/45119">six provinces</a> in the north-east. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Afghanistan map detail showing location of Panjshir Province" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417592/original/file-20210824-15-1ld2hn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Unconquered: Afghanistan’s Panjshir Province.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Maps</span></span>
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<p>The failure of successive high-profile <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/taliban-struggles-contain-afghan-national-resistance-front">appointments</a> by the IE aimed at quelling this resistance show the Taliban’s growing incapacity. Taliban defence minister, Mullah Yaqoob, and the army’s chief of staff, Qari Fasihudin Fetrat, were reportedly both tasked to lead anti-NRF operations in Panjshir and Baghlan provinces but struggled to achieve their objective. </p>
<p>In August, the former head of the Taliban’s military commission, Abdul Qayyum Zakir <a href="https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cd15qnewjnxo">was put in charge</a>, but he and his deputy were reportedly <a href="https://www.independentpersian.com/node/270596/">killed in September</a> in a fight in the NRF stronghold in Panjshir Province. There have been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/c2e1r1q0ng9o">harrowing accounts</a> of human rights <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/afghanistan-international-community-must-urgently-action-upon-the-un-special-rapporteurs-recommendations/">violations</a> and summary <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2022/10/18/afghanistan-des-videos-prouvent-que-des-talibans-ont-mene-des-executions-sommaires-dans-la-vallee-du-panchir_6146253_3210.html">executions</a> by the Taliban during the campaign. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://mailchi.mp/unitascommunications/press-release-afghanistan-is-on-the-brink-of-a-civil-war-former-afghan-national-security-advisor-warns?e=a1b80f593c">interview</a> with Arab News, the former Afghan national security advisor, Hamdullah Mohib stated that “some of those Taliban I know believe that the regime as it is, will not stand for long”, adding that “there will be mass mobilisation in the country. It’s just a matter of when it will be.”</p>
<p>With domestic and outside support, perhaps the NRF could play its part not only in bringing down the Taliban, but in establishing a more moderate and representative government to take its place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191700/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kambaiz Rafi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The National Resistance Front controls large swaths of territory in the north-east of Afghanistan.Kambaiz Rafi, ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840182022-08-23T16:11:27Z2022-08-23T16:11:27ZHow the Taliban’s more effective and ‘fairer’ tax system helped it win control of Afghanistan<p>When the Taliban dramatically gained <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58232525">control of Afghanistan</a> in August 2021, they used bombs and guns to swiftly overcome state security forces. But they also had another valuable and effective weapon at their disposal: taxes.</p>
<p>Long before the withdrawal of US troops, the Taliban had developed a remarkably state-like system of taxing citizens on everyday goods like cigarettes and perfume. The money raised turned out to be an essential part of the Taliban’s military strategy, allowing them to expand territorial control, checkpoint by checkpoint, as an integral step towards victory. </p>
<p>My team’s <a href="https://www.ictd.ac/publication/taliban-taxation-afghanistan/">recent investigation</a> in Afghanistan found that the Taliban was arguably more effective than the former government – which had the benefit of international funding and expertise – at collecting taxes. </p>
<p>And while estimates of Taliban revenue are <a href="https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/recommended-reading/a-taxing-narrative-miscalculating-revenues-and-misunderstanding-the-conflict-in-afghanistan/">notoriously unreliable</a>, the group is reported to have made in the region of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/profits-poppy-afghanistans-illegal-drug-trade-boon-taliban-2021-08-16/">US$40 million (£33 million) a year</a> just from taxing opium. Collecting these taxes not only funded the war effort, but also helped to undermine the government they were seeking to overthrow. </p>
<p>Many of the Afghans we spoke to felt that the Taliban’s taxes were fairer than those imposed by the government, which often involved bribery and complex bureaucracy. By being relatively less onerous and less corrupt, the Taliban exploited widespread Afghan frustration with government incompetence. </p>
<p>Local commanders determined the most effective way to extract revenue from a community, being careful not to press so hard as to provoke a backlash, while creating relationships and a quasi-social contract. All of this played an important role in the Taliban securing national control. </p>
<p>The Taliban’s taxes on the transport of goods are a prime example. In the years leading up to 2021, the Taliban gradually instituted a relatively formal customs tax using a system of checkpoints across major roads. </p>
<p>Taxpayers received formal receipts emblazoned with the Taliban logo. Price lists, on “official” Taliban papers, circulated among truck drivers and business owners. There were even complaints procedures for those who felt they had been overly taxed. </p>
<p>The system appears to have been deliberately designed to be more user friendly than the one imposed by the government. One truck driver told us that unlike with the Taliban, he had “to pay a bribe to pay tax to the Afghan government”. </p>
<p>All of this helped the Taliban gain legitimacy with powerful merchants and transport firms, who later played a key role in the eventual takeover. </p>
<p>For when Afghanistan’s major border crossings and several provincial capitals fell in July 2021, many wondered why they fell so quickly and with relatively little violence. It quickly emerged that local business owners, seeing which way the war was going, were motivated to encourage a quick and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-capital-zaranj.html">orderly handover</a>. </p>
<p>So as the Taliban took more and more territory, its revenue grew, and could be immediately channelled back into the war effort. The capture of border crossings kept Taliban coffers full as they marched on Kabul.</p>
<h2>Death and taxes</h2>
<p>A year on though, the Taliban will be realising that taxing as an insurgency is far easier than raising revenue as a government. Before August 2021, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/17/aid-funding-for-afghanistan-at-risk-of-taliban-misuse-corruption.html">some 80%</a> of the Afghan national budget was comprised of international aid. That money has now largely been cut off, and the country’s reserves frozen. </p>
<p>Even so, the US Institute of Peace <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/02/taliban-are-collecting-revenue-how-are-they-spending-it">estimates</a> that the Taliban-run government collected some US$400 million in revenue during the last quarter of 2021. While less than half of what the government revenue had been in the same period during previous years, it’s nevertheless substantial.</p>
<p>Still, it is unlikely that the Taliban – so long as it remains unrecognised and isolated – will be able to raise enough revenue to avert economic collapse. </p>
<p>Amid a humanitarian crisis which has sparked <a href="https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/02/afghanistan-dispatch-95-percent-of-afghans-do-not-have-enough-food-to-eat/">warnings</a> that 95% of Afghans do not have enough to eat, few have the money to pay tax. Aid agencies fear paying Taliban taxes, lest they be found in violation of counter-terrorism policies and sanctions. The situation is increasingly dire.</p>
<p>But what happened in Afghanistan offers lessons for how wars are understood elsewhere. <a href="https://www.ictd.ac/publication/beyond-greed-why-armed-groups-tax/">Insurgent taxation</a> is an overlooked yet critical part of war economies across the world, from the Houthis in Yemen to Al Shabaab in Somalia. </p>
<p>A better understanding of how the Taliban were able to collect so much money and build effective financial systems, could have provided signals about how – and how quickly – territory would change hands. The international community needs to rethink its outdated responses to these kinds of tactics, instead of relying on military strikes and sanctions, which did little to stop the Taliban.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashley Jackson has received for her research and advisory work from a range of governmental and non-governmental sources including the US State Department, USAID, FCDO and others.</span></em></p>The group was arguably more effective – and less corrupt – at collecting taxes than the former government.Ashley Jackson, Research Associate, Overseas Development Institute, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1886222022-08-23T15:52:41Z2022-08-23T15:52:41ZThe history of secret education for girls in Afghanistan – and its use as a political symbol<p>In August 2021 the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, and since then secondary education for girls in the country has been banned. However, there have been reports of <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/inside-afghanistans-secret-schools-where-girls-defy-the-taliban/articleshow/93442912.cms">clandestine girls’ schools</a> operating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/13/she-asked-me-will-they-kill-you-if-they-discover-you-afghan-girls-defy-education-ban-at-secret-schools">despite the ban</a>. Teenage girls are reportedly taking extraordinary risks to attend lessons. Their teachers bravely share knowledge, even if they do not have extensive experience or the backup of an education system. </p>
<p>Education for girls was also banned during the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/taliban-afghanistan-girls-school-ban_n_624365fae4b0e44de9ba6e6a">previous era</a> of Taliban rule in Afghanistan (1996-2001). In this period, too, girls attended <a href="https://gdc.unicef.org/resource/defying-taliban-afghanistans-secret-schools-girls">secret schools</a>. </p>
<p>Not much was known about these schools during Taliban rule. A <a href="http://www.afghandata.org:8080/xmlui/handle/azu/3031">1997 report</a> noted that the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan supported 125 girls’ schools and 87 co-education primary schools and home schools. An article <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jul/02/worlddispatch.schools">in the Guardian</a> in July 2001 stated that aid agencies had estimated 45,000 children were attending secret schools.</p>
<p>After the defeat of the Taliban in 2001, the educational work of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (<a href="http://www.rawa.org/marie-c.htm">RAWA</a>), which they carried out during Taliban rule, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/With-All-Our-Strength-The-Revolutionary-Association-of-the-Women-of-Afghanistan/Brodsky/p/book/9780415950596">was much documented</a>. </p>
<p>Before 9/11, there was very limited international knowledge of these secret schools for girls. But after 9/11, the misogynistic actions of the Taliban regarding women’s rights and girls’ education became a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Strategic-Narratives-Public-Opinion-and-War-Winning-domestic-support-for/Graaf-Dimitriu-Ringsmose/p/book/9781138221840">pillar of the argument</a> for the US War against Terror. </p>
<p>When visiting Afghanistan in December 2001, UNICEF executive director Carole Bellamy <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/statement-carol-bellamy-unicef-executive-director-during-her-visit-afghanistan">referenced secret schools</a> as part of <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/crisis-draws-bellamy-afghanistan">a call for aid funding</a>. The existence of these schools exerted considerable <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/drl/rls/6185.htm">symbolic power</a>. </p>
<h2>A symbolic role</h2>
<p>Since the 1960s, the education of girls has been promoted in international development and aid policy as a way to limit population, address economic growth, or attend to political stabilisation. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118468005.ch6">Girls and their education</a> have been portrayed as a development intervention and a “good buy” for project funding. The argument runs that when women are educated and in work, they contribute to reducing poverty, enhancing the health of their children, and promoting social and cultural cohesion.</p>
<p>But these policies can fail to address or inquire into the needs, rights or capabilities of girls themselves, or the wider conditions of gender and intersecting inequalities. They are often promoted without any sustained engagement with wider policy goals for gender equality or <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Gender-Schooling-and-Global-Social-Justice/Unterhalter/p/book/9780415359221?gclid=Cj0KCQjw3eeXBhD7ARIsAHjssr9MHn96TPE0E6cA_iVRz89X-rh9BPIIiFRAzBk9EJgHh6QO_i0PdqoaAnW7EALw_wcB">women’s rights</a>. </p>
<p>A commitment to women’s education can be hampered by nsufficient long-term funding for broader gender equality initiatives, as well as and inadequate representation of gender equality concerns in peace-making discussions. They mean that even when girls return to school in large numbers, practices inside and outside education can still reflect the social divisions and gender inequalities that preceded the conflict.</p>
<p>In November 2001, Laura Bush, the wife of US president George W Bush, made a high profile <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/laurabushtext_111701.html">radio address</a> condemning the “severe repression and brutality against women in Afghanistan”. “The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women,” she said. War was justified because of the Taliban’s ban on girls’ access to school. A <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298408/forging-the-ideal-educated-girl">narrative emerged</a> of the need to “save” <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227662225_Do_Muslim_Women_Really_Need_Saving_Anthropological_Reflections_on_Cultural_Relativism_and_Its_Others">Muslim women</a>. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.routledge.com/EnGendering-the-War-on-Terror-War-Stories-and-Camouflaged-Politics/Rygiel-Hunt/p/book/9780754673231">consequence of this</a> was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23524156">the risk</a> that conservative groups in Afghanistan could link the education of women and other women’s rights measures to American aggression and colonial or geo-political ambitions – meaning that a future anti-American movement could also look to restrict these rights. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, in the post-Taliban era (2002-2021), a huge expansion of education took place in Afghanistan, with many important initiatives in girls’ education and women’s rights. Profound <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/17/afghanistan-girls-struggle-education">social divisions</a> remained, though, and many girls still lacked schooling. </p>
<p>The Taliban seizure of power in August 2021 halted the growth of secondary and tertiary education for young women that had taken place over two decades. Promises made by the Taliban about <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/23/girls-left-tears-taliban-backtracks-reopening-schools/">reopening schools</a> in 2022 were retracted.</p>
<p>In contrast to the limited reports on clandestine girls’ schools in the 1990s, many accounts are now circulating of secret schools. The more extensive reporting may come from better opportunities to share information using new technologies, or from the initiatives of educated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/13/she-asked-me-will-they-kill-you-if-they-discover-you-afghan-girls-defy-education-ban-at-secret-schools">girls and women</a>. </p>
<p>But, to date, there has been no systematic analysis of these reports. There are reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/25/taliban-u-turn-over-afghan-girls-education-reveals-deep-leadership-divisions-afghanistan">divisions among the Taliban leadership</a> on how, or under what conditions, girls should be in secondary school and university. </p>
<p>The fragmentary reports mean it is difficult to know who can and cannot attend clandestine schools, what the girls in these schools can and cannot do, and who is financing them.</p>
<h2>Wider gender equality</h2>
<p>In the 2000s, education for women became part of the narrative behind the War on Terror. Today, the positioning of girls’ schooling, gender and women’s rights in the process of peacebuilding remains <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/CSW/64/EGM/GoetzJenkinsexpert%20paperdraftEGMB25EP4.pdf">a work in progress</a>. </p>
<p>Key international organisations which oversee the allocation of funding and consult widely on strategic direction regarding education and gender equality are developing more wide-ranging policy on gender equality and women’s rights. An example of this is the UN’s <a href="https://www.educationcannotwait.org/">Education Cannot Wait</a>. According to <a href="https://www.educationcannotwait.org/our-investments/where-we-work/afghanistan">its website</a>, Education Cannot Wait is active in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>But one kind of initiative is seldom enough. Many coordinated processes are needed. These processes of global cooperation and policy direction are cumbersome and far away from the pressing needs and wishes of girls locked out of school in Afghanistan, but they are a necessary step.</p>
<p>The debate continues as to whether girls’ education alone is an approach which will allow other transformations to follow – or whether is just a limited intervention, which can be undertaken without engaging the politics of peacebuilding that would secure a stronger foundation for women’s rights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine Unterhalter receives funding from ESRC for the AGEE (Accountability for Gender Equality in Education) project. Project reference: ES/P005675/1. AGEE has also received support from UCL Covid Support Scheme, the Department of Education Practice and Society (EPS), UCL, and worked in partnership with UNESCO, UNGEI, ActionAid and Global Partnership on Education on specific projects. She is a member of the Labour Party and a Fellow of the British Academy.</span></em></p>Education for girls was also limited during the Taliban’s previous period of control in Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001.Elaine Unterhalter, Professor of Education and International Development, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1887272022-08-16T04:05:44Z2022-08-16T04:05:44ZOne year into Taliban control, Afghans face poverty and repression. Australia cannot turn a blind eye<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479274/original/file-20220816-16-vkphou.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C40%2C5447%2C3596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taliban and their supporters gather near the building of the former US embassy as they celebrate the first anniversary of taking over the government in Kabul,</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One year after the fall of Kabul, life is difficult and precarious for <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/04/afghanistan-economic-crisis-underlies-mass-hunger">almost everyone</a> in Afghanistan. More than half of the 40 million people of this troubled country are facing severe malnutrition and grinding poverty, and <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113982">90%</a> struggle with food insecurity.<br>
In a land of widows and orphans, disaster has struck the many households where women were the breadwinners. Now most women are blocked from returning to their places of employment and business, with only <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/62469204">15% of women able to work</a>. They risk beatings, and worse, if they leave the house without a male guardian, and even then must be covered from head to foot in traditional dress. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘We Want Our Voice To Be Heard’: Afghan Girl Demands An Education.</span></figcaption>
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<p>A harsh drought has crippled crops and forced many to acts of desperation merely to survive. Young girls are <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/31/afghanistan-faces-hunger-crisis-of-unparalleled-proportions">sold into marriage</a> to ward off starvation. Almost all girls are stopped from attending high school, and opportunities to study further are <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62535300">dwindling</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-is-holding-girls-education-hostage-in-afghanistan-the-question-is-why-179976">The Taliban is holding girls' education hostage in Afghanistan – the question is, why?</a>
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<h2>The Taliban resumes control</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the Taliban in government are celebrating. Their exhilaration is understandable. For decades they have struggled to end the occupation of Afghanistan by foreign troops and break the rule of a cosmopolitan society of educated Afghan men and women whose ways were foreign to them.</p>
<p>They won. But now they have to govern, and they are struggling. The Afghanistan they ruled in the 1990s has changed profoundly. Urbanisation and education have transformed the cities and affected even remote villages. The population has doubled, and the education of girls and women has transformed expectations and outlooks. Afghan society is one of the most youthful in the world, with the median age a little over 18. And it naturally looks forwards, not backwards.</p>
<p>The hardliners who dominate the new Taliban government are mostly old men who have known little but fighting. Cloaked in the moral righteousness of a narrow, reactionary, revolutionary, and savagely misogynistic understanding of religion, they are bent on turning back time. For the moment they appear to be succeeding, and are celebrating their achievement of an Islamic state that looks set to be more enduring than the caliphate created by Islamic State (IS).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghan-women-are-refusing-to-remain-silent-one-year-after-the-taliban-takeover-188110">Afghan women are refusing to remain silent one year after the Taliban takeover</a>
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<p>But the story is far from over. For all the failures of the past two decades, one of Afghanistan’s greatest successes came through <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/30/ignoring-afghan-women-is-to-do-the-talibans-work-for-them/">women’s education</a>. Even many of the supporters of the new regime recognise the importance of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/14/hypocrisy-or-a-reason-for-hope-the-taliban-who-send-their-girls-to-school">educating women and girls</a> and that the vital contributions made by women professionals will be sorely missed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479279/original/file-20220816-14-bojg8k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Improved education for women and girls has been one of the few Afghanistan success stories in recent years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
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<h2>Economic and social impact</h2>
<p>For the moment, the religious hardliners within the Taliban have the upper hand, but the grinding economic crisis casts a dark pall over their celebrations. The banking system barely functions domestically, in large part because <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/u-s-freezes-nearly-9-5-billion-afghanistan-central-bank-assets">$9 billion in federal reserves</a>, invested abroad, has been frozen. Sanctions severely limit the flow of aid and foreign remittances.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/releasing-us-9-5-billion-in-frozen-assets-cant-help-the-afghan-people-as-long-as-the-taliban-remain-in-power-173927">Releasing US$9.5 billion in frozen assets can't help the Afghan people as long as the Taliban remain in power</a>
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<p>The 40 million people of Afghanistan are <a href="https://www.ifrc.org/press-release/afghanistan-worst-drought-and-hunger-crisis-decades">facing a crisis</a> that is as much man-made as it is a product of drought and global inflation linked to the war in Ukraine. </p>
<p>Hospitals and health clinics continue to function, but <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/hope-running-low-as-crisis-grips-afghanistans-biggest-childrens-hospital-12673032">barely so</a>. Stocks of basic medical supplies are virtually depleted. Staff continue to turn up and serve the sick and malnourished, but they are struggling to survive themselves; many have not been paid <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211004-we-lack-everything-afghanistan-s-health-system-at-breaking-point">in months</a>.</p>
<p>Around three quarters of the national budget previously used to pay salaries and purchase supplies came from <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/overview-a-year-of-taliban-rule-in-afghanistan-/6698682.html">international aid</a>. That arrangement is now over and won’t be returning, but basic systems urgently need to be restored.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479281/original/file-20220816-16-beohux.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Afghans gather to pray for rainfall as a drought has added misery to the country’s already fragile economy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Global calls to respond</h2>
<p>Economists and international civil society groups are calling for the frozen central bank funds to be released, and sanctions softened, so that the Afghan economy can resume a modicum of normal functioning. </p>
<p>Wages urgently need to be paid, and food and aid need to immediately begin reaching the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/15/afghanistan-ngo-assets-unfrozen-end-near-universal-poverty">desperate masses</a> sliding into disaster.</p>
<p>The one compelling argument against releasing the Afghan reserves and restoring financial services is that the Taliban need to be held to account and should not be recognised as a legitimate government until they begin to behave as one.</p>
<p>The fact that the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was living a comfortable life in downtown Kabul, in a house associated with one of the most senior Taliban leaders, Sirajuddin Haqqani, himself a close associate of al-Qaeda, makes it even harder to <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/08/year-after-taliban-takeover-whats-next-us-afghanistan">lessen the pressure</a> on Taliban leadership. More should also be done to increase the influence of more moderate elements within the fractious Taliban regime.</p>
<h2>Averting an even greater crisis</h2>
<p>Australia has pledged <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/crisis-hub/afghanistan-crisis-and-response">aid and support</a> to Afghanistan, but one area where more can be done to help, and relatively quickly and easily, is for Australia to process asylum applications for the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/government-admits-afghanistan-humanitarian-visa-backlog-stops-short-of-lifting-visa-cap/9ynde4w85">hundreds of thousands of people</a> whose lives are in immediate danger in Afghanistan, in part because of their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/15/letters-from-those-left-behind-afghans-who-worked-for-australia-describe-desperation-as-they-hide-from-taliban">association</a> with our country. </p>
<p>We might not be able to help the 200,000 who have lodged visa applications, but we could surely help <a href="https://www.actionforafghanistan.com.au">20,000</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-the-fall-of-kabul-talibans-false-commitments-on-terrorism-have-been-fully-exposed-188132">A year after the fall of Kabul, Taliban's false commitments on terrorism have been fully exposed</a>
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<p>The asylum seeker burden has fallen particularly heavy on Afghanistan’s Shia minority, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/15/the-albanese-government-must-save-those-left-behind-in-the-talibans-afghanistan">the Hazara</a>, who make up as much as 20% of the population. The group is persecuted by the Taliban and attacked by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58333533">IS Khorasan</a>. </p>
<p>Some of those who find a chance to safely rebuild their lives abroad return to help rebuild Afghanistan. One of the most successful and socially transformational businesses in Afghanistan is the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/13866820">Tolo media network</a>. It was built by Saad Mohseni and his brother, Australian Afghan refugees who returned to Afghanistan to try and make a difference. </p>
<p>Helping the people of Afghanistan is not just the right thing to do, it would be overwhelmingly beneficial to Australia. Now is not the time to turn our backs on the people of Afghanistan.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Barton receives funding from the Australian Research Council. And he is engaged in a range of projects working to understand and counter violent extremism in Australia and in Southeast Asia and Africa that are funded by the Australian government.</span></em></p>One year after the Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan, life for many Afghan people is mired in poverty and oppression.Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881322022-08-15T12:38:00Z2022-08-15T12:38:00ZA year after the fall of Kabul, Taliban’s false commitments on terrorism have been fully exposed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478925/original/file-20220812-6128-xe8uwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C48%2C5377%2C3531&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Taliban's success in taking control in Afghanistan has encouraged other militant groups.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/this-photo-taken-on-july-8-2022-shows-taliban-fighters-news-photo/1241790455?adppopup=true">Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Taliban <a href="https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-kabul-bagram-e1ed33fe0c665ee67ba132c51b8e32a5">returned to power in Afghanistan</a> on Aug. 15, 2021, there were faint hopes that this time would be different.</p>
<p>The Taliban promised to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/afghanistan-taliban-women-school-1.6219358">respect girls’ education and women’s rights</a>, and to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-17/taliban-say-women-can-work-shifting-from-stance-before-9-11">not allow the country to become a breeding ground</a> for terrorism, <a href="https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Exec.htm">as it had been</a> in the Taliban’s previous stint in government before the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/key-dates-us-involvement-afghanistan-since-911-2021-07-02/">2001 U.S. intervention</a>.</p>
<p>But a year after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban has failed to deliver on these promises and <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-taliban-one-year-on/">gradually become more repressive</a> as it tries to consolidate power in the country.</p>
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<p>Its <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1122892">record on women’s rights</a> has been abysmal, as has its <a href="https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/afghanistan-kabul-residents-complain-about-unfair-distribution-of-humanitarian-aid-articleshow.html">distribution of much-needed humanitarian aid</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the view that the Taliban could meaningfully mitigate the counterterrorism concerns of the West has only grown more absurd since it first <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf">made such promises</a> as part of 2020’s Doha agreement to secure a U.S. exit. The Taliban’s leading political ranks remain dominated by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/haqqanis-afghanistan-taliban/2021/09/10/71f82620-123b-11ec-baca-86b144fc8a2d_story.html">wanted terrorists</a>, including members of the influential terrorist group the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/haqqani_network.html">Haqqani Network</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IpUS-O4AAAAJ&hl=en">scholars who monitor</a> <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/andrew-mines">extremist groups in the region</a>, we believe terrorists in Afghanistan have only become more emboldened in the first year of Taliban rule. And despite isolated successful operations by the U.S., including the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-ayman-al-zawahri-where-does-his-death-leave-al-qaida-and-what-does-it-say-about-us-counterterrorism-188056">drone strike</a> that killed al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri, we are still concerned that U.S.’s current counterterrorism policies are insufficient to contain the growing threat.</p>
<h2>False promises</h2>
<p>Taliban statements both before they took power and after suggested that the group – publicly, at least – was shunning <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/taliban-claim-unaware-al-qaida-leader-afghanistan-87919025">terrorist groups</a> and <a href="https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/taliban-tells-members-to-avoid-recruiting-foreign-fighters/31119080.html">foreign fighters</a>.</p>
<p>But the most recent <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N22/333/77/PDF/N2233377.pdf?OpenElement">United Nations security monitoring reports warned</a> that the Taliban are simply relocating some terrorist groups and individuals to make them more inconspicuous. Moreover, the Taliban are allowing the continued functioning of terrorist training camps, and potentially even awarding citizenship to some foreign fighters, the <a href="http://theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/al-qaida-enjoying-a-haven-in-afghanistan-under-taliban-un-warns">monitoring team reported in May 2022</a>. Their assessments suggests that al-Qaida “has a safe haven under the Taliban” while casting doubt over the Taliban’s intent to restrain other terrorist groups, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">ISIS-K, an offshoot of the Islamic State group</a>.</p>
<p>The Taliban’s disdain for its Doha commitment not to allow “individuals or groups, including al-Qaida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies” was exposed most recently in the case of al-Zawahri. Prior to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-ayman-al-zawahri-where-does-his-death-leave-al-qaida-and-what-does-it-say-about-us-counterterrorism-188056">terrorist leader’s death</a>, al-Zawahri was residing in downtown Kabul apparently under the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/08/02/what-ayman-al-zawahris-death-says-about-terrorism-in-taliban-run-afghanistan/">permission, invitation and protection</a> of top Taliban officials.</p>
<p>The accommodation of al-Qaida is not isolated. The Taliban has similarly been reluctant to crack down on the <a href="https://southasianvoices.org/the-untenable-ttp-pakistan-negotiations">Tehrik–e-Taliban Pakistan</a>, the Afghan Taliban’s deadly terrorist ally in Pakistan that has increased cross-border attacks on Pakistan following the U.S. withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.</p>
<h2>Sheltering terrorists</h2>
<p>The circumstances of al-Zawahri’s death have <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/experts-react-al-qaeda-chief-ayman-al-zawahiri-is-dead-whats-next-for-us-counterterrorism/">left many unknowns</a>. It is not clear who among the Taliban was aware of al-Zawahiri’s presence – the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/taliban-claim-unaware-al-qaida-leader-afghanistan-87919025">group’s initial statement</a> on the U.S. strike suggested that it had “no knowledge of his arrival and residence.” Nor is it immediately apparent how the targeted killing <a href="https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/war-and-peace/al-qaeda-leader-killed-in-kabul-what-might-be-the-repercussions-for-the-taleban-and-afghanistan/">will affect</a> intra-Taliban dynamics, including for <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/08/after-al-zawahiris-killing-whats-next-us-afghanistan">younger</a> and more hard-line members who may push senior leadership to respond aggressively.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A still from a video shows the bearded former al-Qaida leader dressed in white address the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478926/original/file-20220812-6089-whppmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ayman al-Zawahri was found sheltering in Kabul.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/this-still-image-obtained-september-10-2012-from-news-photo/151856346?adppopup=true">IntelCenter/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Counterterrorism experts have also voiced concerns over <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/02/zawahris-death-and-afghanistans-future-00049239">which other</a> al-Qaida members the Taliban might be sheltering.</p>
<p>What is apparent is that at least some high-ranking Taliban felt <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/opinion/ayman-al-zawahri-al-qaeda-afghanistan.html">comfortable enough</a>, despite public commitments, to host a terrorist leader who continued to incite violence against the West until his death.</p>
<p>The repercussions of this decision could further hamper the stability and well-being of Afghanistan. If the Taliban continue to fail on their commitments to steer clear of harboring militants, the country is likely to remain an international <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/02/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban.html?smid=tw-share">pariah</a>, which will only worsen its rampant problems and potentially steer Afghanistan toward <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/southasiasource/afghanistans-future-after-the-taliban-takeover/">another civil war</a>.</p>
<h2>Resistance to Taliban rule</h2>
<p>Despite their seemingly rapid takeover of the country in August 2021, the Taliban have yet to exert full control over all of Afghanistan. </p>
<p>In addition to the <a href="https://www.usip.org/events/state-afghanistans-economy-and-private-sector#:%7E:text=Afghanistan's%20economy%20and%20people%20have,of%20Afghan%20foreign%20exchange%20reserves.">severe economic crisis</a>, pockets of resistance persist, and in some areas appear to be growing. Reports suggest that by spring 2022, the number of armed groups challenging the Taliban’s authority had <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/afghan-fighting-season-ushers-in-new-anti-taliban-groups/6542148.html">grown significantly</a>. Among them is a breakaway Taliban faction led by an ethnic Hazara commander named <a href="https://8am.af/eng/mawlawi-mehdi-coherences-his-forces-in-balkhab-sar-e-pol/">Mawlawi Mehdi</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/afghanistan-panjshir-valley-taliban-resistance/">National Resistance Front</a> led by the son of Ahmad Shah Mahsud, the deceased former leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.</p>
<p>The Taliban have since deployed tens of thousands of their fighters to suppress <a href="https://8am.af/eng/taliban-deploys-30000-special-fighters-in-panjshir-baghlan-and-takhar/">both</a> <a href="https://8am.af/eng/mawlawi-mehdi-coherences-his-forces-in-balkhab-sar-e-pol/">groups</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, in May 2022, dozens of exiled warlords who fled the country rallied together to form the High Council of National Resistance. The <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/06/14/afghanistan-warlords-taliban-authority-comeback/">leaders of the council are demanding</a> a stake in their country’s future or else, in the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/exiled-afghan-warlord-organising-group-in-turkey-against-taliban-481388">words</a> of the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, “Afghanistan will experience civil war once again.”</p>
<p>And then there is the challenge posed by <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">ISIS-K</a>. We <a href="https://newlinesinstitute.org/governance/smaller-and-smarter-defining-a-narrower-u-s-counterterrorism-mission-in-the-afghanistan-pakistan-region/">warned</a> back in February 2021 and <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2021/10/the-taliban-cant-take-on-the-islamic-state-alone/">again</a> in October that American drones and the <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/evolving-taliban-isk-rivalry">Taliban’s animosity</a> for ISIS-K wouldn’t be enough to stop the group’s revival and violence. Indeed, in January 2022, we <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/the-islamic-state-threat-in-taliban-afghanistan-tracing-the-resurgence-of-islamic-state-khorasan/">traced</a> ISIS-K’s resurgence under its <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/who-new-leader-islamic-state-khorasan-province">new leader</a>, from its depletion following years of <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Broken-but-Not-Defeated.pdf">personnel and territorial losses</a> due to military operations, to the revived threat that the group poses today. The deadly consequences of that resurgence were seen on Aug. 26, 2021, in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">attack that left at least 100 people dead</a>, including 13 U.S. troops.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Taliban fighter holding a gun stands in front of a fence. On the floor is bloodstained clothing and debris." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478929/original/file-20220812-22-katarp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of a 2021 ISIS-K suicide bombing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/taliban-fighter-stands-guard-at-the-site-of-the-august-26-news-photo/1234889168?adppopup=true">Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>At present, ISIS-K is in the middle of two key campaigns. The first is aimed at building a wide militant base that draws on <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/ISK-poses-indigenous-threat-to-Afghan-Taliban">local populations</a> and <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/the-islamic-state-threat-in-taliban-afghanistan-tracing-the-resurgence-of-islamic-state-khorasan/">regional militant groups</a>. The second is a campaign to delegitimize the Taliban through attacks and <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2021/10/the-taliban-cant-take-on-the-islamic-state-alone/">propaganda designed to highlight</a> Taliban incompetence, and <a href="https://www.militantwire.com/p/iskp-criticizes-talibans-acceptance?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">frame the Taliban government</a> as illegitimate. </p>
<p>Over time – and with the backing of the core <a href="https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/isil.html">Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria</a> and other resistance groups draining the Taliban’s resources – we believe ISIS-K has the potential to chip away at the Taliban’s governance while expanding its own influence.</p>
<h2>A global threat?</h2>
<p>Emboldened militant groups in Afghanistan pose a threat not just to the country itself, but also to the region and potentially the global community.</p>
<p>The Taliban’s success in retaking Afghanistan encouraged an already-resurgent <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/05/evolution-and-potential-resurgence-tehrik-i-taliban-pakistan">Pakistani Taliban</a> to pursue a campaign of violence and push for <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/06/five-things-watch-islamabad-pakistani-taliban-talks">political concessions</a> from the Pakistani government. </p>
<p>Similarly, al-Qaida’s global network of affiliates has drawn inspiration from the Taliban’s victory. And despite the symbolic blow of <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-ayman-al-zawahri-where-does-his-death-leave-al-qaida-and-what-does-it-say-about-us-counterterrorism-188056">al-Zawahri’s death</a>, many of those affiliates in the Middle East and Africa <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/how-strong-is-al-qaeda-a-debate/">remain operationally unaffected</a> by any fallout from the U.S. strike.</p>
<p>In spite of the success of that operation, <a href="https://mwi.usma.edu/over-the-horizon-counterterrorism-new-name-same-old-challenges/">debate continues</a> over the effectiveness of the United States’ <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/over-the-horizon-biden-afghanistan-counter-terrorism/">over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy</a>, which involves the launching of surgical strikes and special operations raids from outside the country.</p>
<p>The al-Zawahri operation demonstrated that sound intelligence can result in effective targeting of high-profile terrorists. But <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/05/politics/us-counterrorism-afghanistan/index.html">counterterrorism experts</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-leader-killed-in-us-raid-where-does-this-leave-the-terrorist-group-176410">including ourselves</a> remain concerned over whether such strikes can be effective in targeting less prominent militants who nevertheless play a critical role in the day-to-day operations.</p>
<p>To bolster the strategy, <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/experts-react-al-qaeda-chief-ayman-al-zawahiri-is-dead-whats-next-for-us-counterterrorism/">the U.S.</a> could seek out more robust relationships with resistance groups hostile to the Taliban, as well as with neighboring <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/21/us-central-asia-counterterrorism/">Central Asian countries</a>, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in order to bolster the intelligence needed to conduct over-the-horizon strikes. But such partnerships would not come without their downsides, including further isolating the Taliban. </p>
<p>International diplomatic efforts and U.S. counterterrorism operations, along with internal pressure from resistance groups and jihadist rivalries, may encourage the Taliban to reform its ways.</p>
<p>But if the second year of Taliban rule fails to produce meaningful changes, the outlook for the country and its citizens will likely only turn for the worse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Taliban promised not to allow Afghanistan to be used by groups seeking to attack the US, yet terrorist groups have only become more emboldened under its rule.Andrew Mines, Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism, George Washington UniversityAmira Jadoon, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clemson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884112022-08-14T13:14:51Z2022-08-14T13:14:51ZThe Taliban shifts tactics in its determination to control and oppress women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478827/original/file-20220811-14242-afloh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C74%2C4827%2C2979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Taliban fighter stands guard as a woman enters the government passport office, in Kabul, Afghanistan, in April 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-taliban-shifts-tactics-in-its-determination-to-control-and-oppress-women" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Since the Taliban <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58232525">took over Afghanistan</a> a year ago, it has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/taliban-ban-girls-from-secondary-education-in-afghanistan">barred girls from school</a>, required <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/09/taliban-women-burqa-afghanistan-control/">women to wear burqas</a> in public and banned women from <a href="https://8am.af/eng/taliban-bans-women-from-travelling-without-their-male-guardians/">travelling without a male chaperone</a>. </p>
<p>The Taliban first ruled Afghanistan in 1996, governing for five years until the 9/11 attacks led to the United States invading the country. The group was notorious for <a href="http://www.rawa.org/rules.htm">its misogynistic policies</a> and violence against women. Women lost their rights to education, work and political representation during those five years. </p>
<p>The Taliban government also tried to control how women dressed, laughed, walked and talked. So when the Taliban regained power, women in Afghanistan feared they would once again lose the rights they had fought so hard for. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/year-after-talibans-return-some-women-fight-lost-freedoms-2022-08-09/">They’ve been fighting back in the year since the Taliban occupation</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-talibans-conquest-of-kabul-threatens-the-lives-and-safety-of-girls-women-and-sexual-minorities-166254">The Taliban's conquest of Kabul threatens the lives and safety of girls, women and sexual minorities</a>
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<p>Over the past year, we’ve studied the Taliban’s 70 new policies to control women and girls, as well as Afghan women’s resistance. We then compared these policies to the Taliban’s past efforts. Here are three takeaways from our research.</p>
<h2>1. The Taliban have not changed</h2>
<p>Stripping women of their rights is fundamental to the Taliban’s ideology.</p>
<p>Taliban leaders are using the same playbook to oppress women as they did 25 years ago. We compared <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/29/list-taliban-policies-violating-womens-rights-afghanistan">today’s policies</a> with those implemented from 1996-2001 and found approximately 70 per cent are the same. </p>
<p>The only difference is that the game plan is being rolled out more slowly, and is in some ways flying under the radar — an indication of how much Afghanistan has changed since the last time the Taliban controlled the country. </p>
<p>This time, policies were introduced as guidelines and were gradually made mandatory. For example, the Taliban did not announce some changes nationally. Instead, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/04/1023426247/the-taliban-say-theyve-changed-experts-arent-buying-it-and-fear-for-afghanistan">they used flyers and other printed material to communicate</a>, hiding the policies from the international community and the Afghan media. </p>
<p>This tactic highlights how much weaker the Taliban’s position is today, and how crucial legitimacy is to their hold on power. But their efforts have already devastated the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>The following is a list of Taliban policies implemented since August 2021:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/29/taliban-girls-education-ban-reversal-afghanistan-schools/">Blocked Afghan girls from getting an education</a> </li>
<li>Fired <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038685721/female-workers-kabul-stay-home-taliban-rule">125,000 women</a> from government jobs</li>
<li>Revoked women’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/taliban-driving-licence-afghan-women-b2072058.html">right to drive</a></li>
<li>Fired <a href="https://rsf.org/en/taliban-takeover-40-afghan-media-have-closed-80-women-journalists-have-lost-their-jobs#:%7E:text=News-,Since%20the%20Taliban%20takeover%2C%2040%25%20of%20Afghan%20media%20have%20closed,journalists%20have%20lost%20their%20jobs">80 per cent of female journalists</a> </li>
<li>Controlled what women wear and where they can travel</li>
<li><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58600231">Changed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the Ministry of Vice and Virtue</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Currently, there are more than <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/Gender-alert-Womens-rights-in-Afghanistan-en.pdf">5.5 million girls</a> barred from education. </p>
<p>The Taliban have not outright banned girls’ access to education yet, fearing the public’s reaction. But the outcome is the same: blocking girls’ access for more than a year as they formulate a policy. </p>
<p>It’s an excellent example of how the Taliban’s goals have remained unchanged despite shifting tactics.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1557781391512743937"}"></div></p>
<h2>2. Women are fighting back</h2>
<p>The Taliban’s change in tactics is, in part, in reaction to women’s resistance to their rule. Women-led protests and online campaigns have pushed back against Taliban policies. </p>
<p>These efforts have included social media campaigns involving almost 100,000 tweets, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/world/asia/afghan-women-taliban-protests.html">public protests,</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCWH7qFbMV8&t=1009s">national conferences</a>. In addition, women leaders, Islamic scholars, local imams and some former politicians have advocated for women’s rights repeatedly in the media. However, western mainstream media has not reported on much of this resistance. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghan-women-are-refusing-to-remain-silent-one-year-after-the-taliban-takeover-188110">Afghan women are refusing to remain silent one year after the Taliban takeover</a>
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</p>
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<p>Furthermore, the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/afghanistan-un-experts-condemn-taliban-decision-deny-girls-secondary">international community has condemned the Taliban’s policies</a> toward women dozens of times. Statements have been made by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the European Union, the U.S. State Department and Qatar’s foreign minister. </p>
<p>In response, the <a href="https://www.insider.com/women-are-leading-afghanistans-non-violent-resistance-against-taliban-2022-6">Taliban have killed</a>, detained, kidnapped, tortured, fired upon and tear-gassed protesters. The Taliban have also shut down local media and newspapers, expanding their domination of Afghanistan’s media environment. </p>
<p>Since their takeover, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/24/afghanistan-media-rsf-survey-taliban-takeover-journalists">half of all media outlets</a> have shut down, including 132 radio stations, 52 TV stations and 49 online media outlets. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A female news anchor reads the news with her face covered." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478812/original/file-20220811-14487-mkeb0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Khatereh Ahmadi, a TV anchor, wears a face covering as she reads the news on Tolo News in Kabul, Afghanistan, in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Subjugating women is a method of control</h2>
<p>Taliban leaders oppress women and girls to remain in control of Afghan society. Subjugating women is so fundamental to their governing strategy that they are willing to forgo international legitimacy and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/world-bank-freezes-afghan-projects-after-taliban-bans-girls-high-school-2022-03-29/">US$600 million</a> in aid. </p>
<p>Taliban policies allow its fighters, all men, to feel superior to Afghan women, providing them a feeling of higher status. Subjugating women also reflects a fundamentalist vision of Afghan history that provides status to men in Afghan society, creating a constituency for their rule.</p>
<p>This strategy is also a form of social control, allowing the Taliban to terrorize and subjugate the entire population by violating women’s rights, livelihoods and bodies. </p>
<p>Changing the Taliban’s policy will not be easy because women’s subjugation is central to their ruling strategy. But understanding its importance to Taliban leaders is crucial to influencing Taliban behaviour.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The hand of a woman in a grey burqa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3504%2C2334&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478806/original/file-20220811-10549-1untgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Instead of announcing repressive policies against Afghan women, the Taliban are trying to keep their tactics out of the international eye.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can the international community do?</h2>
<p>Currently, <a href="https://www.undp.org/press-releases/97-percent-afghans-could-plunge-poverty-mid-2022-says-undp">97 per cent of Afghans</a> live in poverty, twice as many as before the Taliban takeover. Perversely, the greater the economic and political pressure on the Taliban, the more likely they are to double down on their strategy to oppress women and girls. </p>
<p>But the longtime survival of Afghanistan requires the education of women and girls and the preservation of their rights. Without it, society will likely never fully recover from the Taliban’s rule. </p>
<p>Girls’ access to education should remain a prerequisite to international aid. But it’s not enough. </p>
<p>The Taliban’s deputy minster of education recently said publicly that Afghanistan’s new curriculum for girls will focus on teaching them how to be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRYDaSOb9bs">what the Taliban considers good wives and mothers</a>. </p>
<p>If this proceeds, the Taliban will subjugate and disempower an entire generation of Afghan girls. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Bahar Rasikh, research associate at the <a href="https://www.tracesofconflict.com">Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data, and Conflict</a>, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cody Buntain receives funding from the US Department of Defense. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McQuinn and Laura Courchesne do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research into 70 new Taliban policies to control women and girls shows the extremist, misogynistic group might be using different tactics, but it still poses grave dangers to Afghan society.Brian McQuinn, Co-Director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data, and Conflict and Assistant Professor, International Studies, University of ReginaCody Buntain, Research assistant professor, Social Media, University of MarylandLaura Courchesne, PhD Candidate, International Relations, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881102022-08-10T17:08:30Z2022-08-10T17:08:30ZAfghan women are refusing to remain silent one year after the Taliban takeover<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478287/original/file-20220809-23-quk04c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Afghan women chant during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, in October 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ahmad Halabisaz)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/afghan-women-are-refusing-to-remain-silent-one-year-after-the-taliban-takeover" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>On Aug. 15, it will be a year since the Taliban’s forceful takeover of Afghanistan for a second time. </p>
<p>In the past year, we have witnessed a rapid return to the religious conservative rule and violation of women’s rights that many Afghans experienced during 1996-2001. <a href="https://theconversation.com/taliban-has-not-changed-say-women-facing-subjugation-in-areas-of-afghanistan-under-its-extremist-rule-164760">As feared</a>, the Taliban have reversed various past accomplishments in terms of women’s and girls’ rights, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/18/afghanistan-taliban-deprive-women-livelihoods-identity">including limiting women’s access to employment, education, political representation and even freedom of movement</a>.</p>
<p>Violence against women and girls <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/27/afghanistan-women-taliban-rights-violence-amnesty-international/">has also been on the rise</a>, while the Taliban ignore all international standards on human rights that many worked hard to ratify and make part of national law over the last two decades.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-a-year-after-the-taliban-occupation-an-ongoing-war-on-human-rights-187728">Afghanistan a year after the Taliban occupation: An ongoing war on human rights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What women demand</h2>
<p>But Afghan women, whether inside the country or those who have been forced to flee since August 2021, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220326-open-the-schools-afghan-women-protest-against-taliban-reversal-on-education">have refused to remain silent</a> in the face of these attacks on their rights. </p>
<p>As members of the <a href="https://www.wluml.org/">Women Living Under Muslim Laws</a> network, we’ve spoken to women activists, leaders and former politicians who are now in exile in countries that range from Canada to Germany and Greece. We have learned about the continued struggle for women’s rights in Afghanistan and their diverse strategies of resistance. </p>
<p>Despite their political differences, many of the women are committed to building a unified front against the Taliban and their conservative stance on women’s rights, democracy and human rights. </p>
<p>One Afghan woman activist and former politician told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“At this unfortunate stage of our history, we have two main objectives: to support the women’s opposition inside Afghanistan, and to develop a unified message for the international community not to show any inclination of accepting the Taliban.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite dealing with the trauma of the return of the Taliban and their own sudden displacement, many of these women continue to view themselves as representatives of Afghan women.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Women in burkas walk past a man carrying a weapon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5499%2C3647&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478281/original/file-20220809-13115-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afghan women walk through a market as a Taliban fighter stands guard in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They have been networking with other women and women’s groups, and collectively lobbying the international community to take action on Afghan women’s rights. </p>
<p>These efforts are a continuation of women’s work from within Afghanistan, where thanks to a constitutionally mandated gender quota adopted in 2004, at least 27 per cent of the parliamentary seats were reserved for women. This created a critical mass of women in high-level office.</p>
<p>Another woman activist told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The parliamentary quotas opened the door to politics for us and gave us the confidence to view ourselves as equal and right-bearing citizens, at least legally. This was an important shift from the Taliban era as they viewed women more as a menace than a person.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The opening of public life to women as members of civil society, government and parliament changed Afghanistan, and women are determined not to let these accomplishments slip away. </p>
<h2>Three areas of focus</h2>
<p>Those in exile are focusing their activism around three major concerns: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Supporting women and pro-democracy forces inside the country. </p></li>
<li><p>Ensuring that the international community and major western powers do not recognize the anti-democratic and extremist Taliban as a legitimate government and ignore their atrocities against women, minorities and civil society organizers. </p></li>
<li><p>Continuing to hold the international community accountable to its promises of human rights, peace, and security, particularly at a time when there is less global attention on the Taliban in Afghanistan and their human rights violations. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Women in exile have come together and formed groups and created political platforms, and work hard to raise international awareness of the Taliban’s rule. </p>
<p>As part of these efforts, they issue public statements, participate in media interviews, write articles and organize seminars and webinars to articulate their demands and discuss relevant political developments in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>They tirelessly lobby the international community and western powers, urging them not to overlook women’s rights in Afghanistan for their own political expediency. They’ve also formed alliances with peace and human right activists in the various countries where they reside. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Several women in head scarves hold signs in an indoor protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478290/original/file-20220809-18-bhx5gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afghan women chant during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mohammed Shoaib Amin)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Weaponizing Islam</h2>
<p>A central worry the women have shared with us is the possibility that western governments might find it convenient to gloss over the Taliban’s harsh rule and grant them legitimacy. </p>
<p>The women point out that any tolerance of the Taliban’s so-called Islamic rule will have negative implications for other religious fundamentalist groups in the region and beyond.</p>
<p>To show how the Taliban have weaponized Islam for their own gain, many Afghan women leaders are working to remind the international community that few Muslim-majority countries, including highly conservative Saudi Arabia, have such draconian anti-women policies.</p>
<p>Highlighting the un-Islamic nature of the Taliban’s rule has been a key tactic of women’s activism in exile, often in collaboration with other women’s rights groups and movements that raise awareness of the dangers of religious fundamentalist rule on women’s rights. That includes our network, Women Living Under Muslim Laws. </p>
<p>These women activists from Afghanistan know the important impact that the United Nations, the European Union and other international organizations could have on Afghanistan’s current political turmoil. Consequently, they’ve been lobbying these bodies, reminding them to abide by their own human rights standards. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man is seen speaking at a conference over a red-haired woman's shoulder." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478284/original/file-20220809-19-57jvec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the launch of the U.S.-Afghan Consultative Mechanism with Rina Amiri, the U.S. Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights, in July 2022 in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Calling out injustices</h2>
<p>Women are currently <a href="https://atalayar.com/en/content/groups-stand-afghan-women-and-urge-un-ban-travel-taliban-leaders">urging the UN against renewing a travel ban exemption for members of the Taliban</a> that was originally issued to the group’s leadership to allow international talks in support of Afghan reconciliation and peace. </p>
<p>The women have been calling out the grave injustice that allows the Taliban to travel internationally in pursuit of their political goals, while women inside Afghanistan have been deprived of the right to go to school, visit health centres or to simply leave their homes. </p>
<p>With the war in Ukraine and the distraction of the public away from Afghanistan, governments are rolling back their promises to the Afghan people living under Taliban rule.</p>
<p>The Canadian government, despite its stated commitment to human rights and feminist policies and its <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2021/07/government-of-canada-offers-refuge-to-afghans-who-assisted-canada.html">public pledge to help Afghans who had worked with the Canadian government</a>, is closing its <a href="https://you.leadnow.ca/petitions/help-save-the-lives-of-afghans-who-worked-for-canada">special program for Afghanistan</a>. </p>
<p>Many Afghans view this as a betrayal, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-advocates-want-extension-special-immigration-afghan-program-1.6527482">while many Canadians regard it as being at odds</a> with Canada’s humanitarian values. </p>
<p>On the anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, it’s time to redirect our attention to the country and listen to those who are well-positioned to advise us on strategies to bring peace, security, gender equality, human rights and democracy to Afghanistan: its women activists and leaders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Homa Hoodfar is on the executive board of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws network.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mona Tajali is affiliated with the transnational research network, Women Living Under Muslim Laws. </span></em></p>Afghan women activists, leaders and former politicians who are now in exile are telling of the continued struggle for women’s rights in Afghanistan and women’s diverse strategies of resistance.Homa Hoodfar, Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, Concordia UniversityMona Tajali, Associate Professor of International Relations and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Agnes Scott CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1883522022-08-09T20:04:57Z2022-08-09T20:04:57ZFrom future lawyer to betrothed to a Taliban fighter: August in Kabul shows how life changed overnight for so many in Afghanistan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478009/original/file-20220808-15-so3g8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=101%2C0%2C7438%2C4929&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taliban fighters ride through the streets of Kabul on a captured police humvee hours after president Ashraf Ghani fled the Afhgan capital on 15 August 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Quilty</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On page 79 of August in Kabul, Andrew Quilty introduces us to Nadia Amini, a 19-year-old student of Tajik descent who attends a madrassa, or religious school, in the Afghan capital. She is completing her third-semester exams with ambitions to become a lawyer.</p>
<p>None of that came to pass as the Taliban swept into Kabul in mid-August, 2021. In the process, Nadia’s own life disintegrated.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: August in Kabul: America’s last days in Afghanistan – Andrew Quilty (MUP)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Her father had promised her as a bride to a Taliban fighter to buy protection for his family. She resisted. Her brother beat her while her father looked on. Her mother was unable or unwilling to intervene.</p>
<p>She abandoned the family for an uncertain future.</p>
<p>Nadia’s personal story is a thread that runs through Quilty’s account of the last chaotic days of a failed American nation-building exercise that began with an assault on al-Qaeda strongholds and ended in disaster.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478175/original/file-20220809-11-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afghan women wait to receive food rations distributed by a Saudi humanitarian aid group in Kabul earlier this year. The Taliban has ordered all women wear the burqua in public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ebrahim Noroozi/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>America’s retaliation for al-Qaeda’s attack on the American homeland on September 11, 2001, had run its course in shambolic scenes from Karzai International Airport as desperate Afghans clung to the undercarriage of a departing aircraft, only to fall to their deaths.</p>
<p>In his own reconstruction of what happened in the last days of the American and NATO-supported regime in Kabul, Quilty takes us inside a military command post guarding the approaches to the capital where Captain Jalal Sulaiman was making a heroic stand against a Taliban encirclement.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478002/original/file-20220808-21-ben45q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Quilty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MUP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Running low on ammunition and water, without the sort of air cover provided by the departed American and NATO forces, Sulaiman’s ability to withstand the Taliban advances crumbled.</p>
<p>As a professional soldier he had tried to make a fight of it, but the cause was hopeless. These scenes were repeated across Afghanistan as provincial capital after capital fell to the Taliban, often without a shot being fired.</p>
<p>The regime in Kabul, without American and NATO military support and with its own army unwilling to fight, had been exposed for what it was – an empty shell.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/afghanistan-a-year-after-the-taliban-occupation-an-ongoing-war-on-human-rights-187728">Afghanistan a year after the Taliban occupation: An ongoing war on human rights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>End of a bloody affair</h2>
<p>August in Kabul is a reporter’s attempt to make sense of the overnight disintegration of a regime in which the US and its NATO partners had invested billions of dollars and thousands of lives. </p>
<p>Quilty’s tortured, decade-long love affair with Afghanistan, in which he exhibited extraordinary bravery as a frontline photo-correspondent, tumbles over itself in a densely-written book that would have benefited from thinning out in places.</p>
<p>A dramatis personae to identify the main players would also have been helpful.</p>
<p>On occasions, the contents of a reporter’s notebook spill onto the page in a way that requires quite a bit of concentration to keep up. That said, this is a book worth persevering with as a record of a longtime observer’s reactions to the end of a bloody affair, not in weeks, or days, but in hours, even minutes.</p>
<p>Quilty witnessed a moment when it all fell apart.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478004/original/file-20220808-24-ipikol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hundreds of Afghans wait outside a perimeter gate on the northwestern side of Hamid Karzai International Airport as a military transport plane departs during the mass-evacuation operation that saw a reported 120 000 non-combatants airlifted out of the Afghan capital in the last two weeks of August. 24 August 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Quilty</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a way, what is surprising is that reporters and analysts were surprised at the speed with which Afghan resistance disintegrated. Once American air power was withdrawn and the Trump administration engaged the Taliban in what was known as the Doha process, the game was pretty much up.</p>
<p>Doha was the location of negotiations aimed at ending the US involvement in Afghanistan. These concluded with what was known as the Doha Agreement in early 2020. Effectively, the Trump administration legitimised the Taliban. A Taliban victory was probably inevitable. This made it virtually certain.</p>
<p>Nearly 2,000 Americans died in combat in Afghanistan. Forty one Australians lost their lives. This was America’s longest war, longer than both world wars, longer than Vietnam, longer than Iraq, at a cost of trillions of dollars.</p>
<p>Quilty picks out moments when it should have been clear the Afghan war was a losing proposition. One of these was in 2009 when US President Barack Obama announced a surge of troops and in the same speech revealed when the military offensive would end.</p>
<p>He quotes David Kilcullen, the Australian counter-insurgency expert, as saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We basically told the Taliban exactly how long they needed to wait until we’d be gone.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Low frequency disquiet’</h2>
<p>Early in his book, Quilty uses an expression familiar to correspondents in war zones. He speaks of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>low frequency disquiet that distinguishes a city that while not at war per se, hosts regular, isolated acts of war.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This had been his experience over nine years as resident of a city that had experienced “low frequency disquiet’’ punctuated by random acts of violent terrorism since the US and its NATO allies had put the Taliban to flight in 2001.</p>
<p>The Americans and their friends then found themselves enmeshed in an unwinnable war in a country that had defied efforts to pacify it over centuries. Afghanistan’s history might’ve been better understood.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-joe-biden-failed-the-people-of-afghanistan-and-tarnished-us-credibility-around-the-world-166160">How Joe Biden failed the people of Afghanistan — and tarnished US credibility around the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In his efforts to explain why it all went wrong, Quilty spends quite a lot of his book inside the presidential palace among advisers to the President Ashraf Ghani whose fate it was to be in power when the Taliban were at Kabul’s gates last August.</p>
<p>Staffers like Hamed Safi, media adviser to the president, provide an insider’s perspective on the last days of the doomed Ghani regime, and all the moral dilemmas that attach themselves to participants in the dying moments of a failed enterprise.</p>
<p>Do I run, or do I stay? How do I ensure the safety of my family? Will our armed forces be able to hold out against the Taliban, even for a few days?</p>
<p>The answer to the last question came emphatically on August 15 when a few shots in the air in the vicinity of the presidential palace and the ministries sowed panic. Police were removing their uniforms. They were abandoning security posts at the airport. Looting had begun.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477997/original/file-20220808-20-2d5wcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People struggle to enter the airport to flee the country in August 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stringer/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Taliban were claiming victory.</p>
<p>In a cameo that reveals the extent to which President Ghani was detached from the reality of the disaster happening around him, his youthful national security advisor, Mohib Hamdullah went to Ghani’s residence to tell him to leave the country.</p>
<p>"Mr President, it’s time to leave,” Hamdullah told Ghani who was preparing for a meeting at the Ministry of Defence.</p>
<p>The game was up.</p>
<p>In three helicopters, Ghani fled to nearby Uzbekistan. He was president no longer. Afghanistan had fallen to the Taliban in days.</p>
<p>Ashraf Ghani would become a footnote in history.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477995/original/file-20220808-18-tt5qf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taliban fighters take control of the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul after President Ghani fled the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zabi Karim/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, Nadia Amini had taken refuge in the safe house provided by an aid worker for women at risk from the Taliban. She helped out, and when she left the house she carried a razor blade.</p>
<p>“The next time that I am captured by the Taliban, I can defend myself. Kill myself,’’ she told Quilty.</p>
<p>These are raw moments.</p>
<p>On 6 April, 2022, Nadia secured a safe passage out of Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Andrew Quilty might yet tell us what happened to her.</p>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally said 38 Australians lost their lives in combat in Afghanistan. The article has now been updated with the correct figure, which is 41 deaths in combat.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new book by Australian photo-journalist Andrew Quilty records the last chaotic days of the failed American nation-building exercise in Afghanistan.Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor's fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.