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The Taliban, which also refers to itself by the name of its state, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, and jihadist political movement in Afghanistan. It ruled approximately three-quarters of the country from 1996–2001, before being overthrown following the United States invasion. It recaptured Kabul on 15 August 2021 after years of insurgency, and currently controls all of the country, although its government is not recognized by any country yet. The Taliban government has been criticized for restricting human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and education.
Mullah Muhammad Omar Mujahid was an Afghan cleric, Islamist partisan fighter and political leader. He founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) in 1994 and served as its first leader until his death, including as the head of its government from 1996 to 2001. His death, however, remained concealed until July 2015, during which time the Taliban continued to issue statements in his name. Known for his reclusivity, he was a mythical and revered figure within the Taliban.
The Inter-Services Intelligence is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant to Pakistan's national security. As one of the principal members of the Pakistani intelligence community, the ISI reports to its Director-General and is primarily focused on providing intelligence to the Pakistani government.
The Taliban insurgency was an insurgency that began after the group's fall from power during the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces fought against the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, and later by President Ashraf Ghani, and against a US-led coalition of forces that has included all members of NATO; the 2021 Taliban offensive resulted in the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani.
The National Directorate of Security was the national intelligence and security service of Afghanistan. The headquarters of the NDS was in Kabul, and it had field offices and training facilities in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan. The NDS was part of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counter-terrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The targets of the campaign are primarily Islamic terrorist groups, with prominent targets including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The Kunduz airlift, also called the Airlift of Evil, refers to the alleged evacuation by Pakistan of hundreds of top commanders and members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda as well as their Pakistani advisors from the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, in November 2001. The incident reportedly occurred just before the Siege of Kunduz, which saw the city fall into the hands of the Northern Alliance and the United States during the opening phase of the War in Afghanistan. From Kunduz, the militants were taken to Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit in the Northern Areas. However, both the United States and Pakistan have denied that the airlift ever took place; Richard Myers, the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Kunduz Airport had been disabled by American bombing raids; Donald Rumsfeld, the then-Secretary of Defense, stated on 2 December 2001 that "neither Pakistan nor any other country flew any planes into Afghanistan to evacuate anybody".
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.
The War in Afghanistan was an armed conflict in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. It began when an international military coalition led by the United States launched an invasion of Afghanistan, subsequently toppling the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate and establishing the internationally recognized Islamic Republic three years later. The 20-year-long conflict ultimately ended with the 2021 Taliban offensive, which overthrew the Islamic Republic and subsequently re-established the Islamic Emirate. It was the longest war in the military history of the United States, surpassing the length of the Vietnam War (1955–1975) by approximately six months.
Pakistan and state-sponsored terrorism refers to the involvement of Pakistan in terrorism through the backing of various designated terrorist organizations. Pakistan has been frequently accused by various countries, including its neighbours Afghanistan, India, and Iran, as well as by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, of involvement in a variety of terrorist activities in both its local region of South Asia and beyond. Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border have been described as an effective safe haven for terrorists by Western media and the United States Secretary of Defense, while India has accused Pakistan of perpetuating the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir by providing financial support and armaments to militant groups, as well as by sending state-trained terrorists across the Line of Control and de jure India–Pakistan border to launch attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir and India proper, respectively. According to an analysis published by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in 2008, Pakistan was reportedly, "with the possible exception of Iran, perhaps the world's most active sponsor of terrorist groups... aiding these groups that pose a direct threat to the United States. Pakistan's active participation has caused thousands of deaths in the region; all these years Pakistan has been supportive to several terrorist groups despite several stern warnings from the international community." Daniel Byman, a professor and senior analyst of terrorism and security at the Center For Middle East Policy, also wrote that, "Pakistan is probably 2008's most active sponsor of terrorism". In 2018, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, suggested that the Pakistani government played a role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks that were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group. In July 2019, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, on an official visit to the United States, acknowledged the presence of some 30,000–40,000 armed terrorists operating on Pakistani soil. He further stated that previous administrations were hiding this truth, particularly from the United States, for the last 15 years during the War on Terror.
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist guerrilla insurgent group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan government in the 21st century. It is considered to be a "semi-autonomous" offshoot of the Taliban. It has been most active in eastern Afghanistan and across the border in north-west Pakistan.
Between 2004 and 2018, the United States government attacked thousands of targets in Northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) operated by the United States Air Force under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division. Most of these attacks were on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan. These strikes began during the administration of United States President George W. Bush, and increased substantially under his successor Barack Obama. Some in the media referred to the attacks as a "drone war". The George W. Bush administration officially denied the extent of its policy; in May 2013, the Obama administration acknowledged for the first time that four US citizens had been killed in the strikes. In December 2013, the National Assembly of Pakistan unanimously approved a resolution against US drone strikes in Pakistan, calling them a violation of "the charter of the United Nations, international laws and humanitarian norms."
Abdul Ghani Baradar is an Afghan political and religious leader who is currently the acting first deputy prime minister alongside Abdul Salam Hanafi and Abdul Kabir, of Afghanistan. He is also a co-founder of the Taliban. He is known by the honorific mullah. He was Mullah Omar's top deputy from 2002 to 2010, and since 2019 he has been the Taliban's fourth-in-command, as the third of Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada's three deputies.
The Hazaras have long been the subjects of persecution by both Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as non-state militant groups. The Hazaras are mostly from Afghanistan, primarily from the central regions of Afghanistan, known as Hazarajat. Significant communities of Hazara people also live in Quetta, Pakistan, and in Mashad, Iran, as part of the Hazara and Afghan diasporas.
Ehsanullah Ehsan is a former spokesman of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and later Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. As a spokesperson of the groups, Ehsan would use media campaigns, social media networks and call up local journalists to claim responsibility for terrorist attacks on behalf of the groups. He was initially a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In 2014, he left TTP after he had developed ideological differences with the TTP leadership following the appointment of Fazlullah as the leader of the group. He later co-founded Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and became its spokesman. In 2015, as a spokesman of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, he condemned Fazlullah-led Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) intelligence agency of Pakistan has been accused of being heavily involved in covertly running military intelligence programs in Afghanistan since before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The first ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975. It was in "retaliation to Republic of Afghanistan's proxy war and support to the militants against Pakistan". Before 1975, ISI did not conduct any operation in Afghanistan and it was only after decade of Republic of Afghanistan's proxy war against Pakistan, support to militants and armed incursion in 1960 and 1961 in Bajaur that Pakistan was forced to retaliate. Later on, in the 1980s, the ISI in Operation Cyclone systematically coordinated the distribution of arms and financial means provided by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to factions of the Afghan mujahideen such as the Hezb-e Islami (HeI) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud whose forces would later be known as the Northern Alliance. After the Soviet retreat, the different Mujahideen factions turned on each other and were unable to come to a power sharing deal which resulted in a civil war. The United States, along with the ISI and the Pakistani government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto became the primary source of support for Hekmatyar in his 1992–1994 bombardment campaign against the Islamic State of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul.
The Islamic State – Khorasan Province is an affiliate of the Islamic State militant group active in South Asia and Central Asia. Some media sources also use the terms ISK, ISISK, IS–KP, Daesh–Khorasan or Daesh–K in referring to the group. ISKP has been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, where they claimed attacks. The ISKP and Taliban consider each other enemies.
Events in the year 2017 in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between the Islamic State and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The conflict escalated when militants who were affiliated with Islamic State – Khorasan Province killed Abdul Ghani, a senior Taliban commander in Logar province on 2 February 2015. Since then, Taliban and IS-KP have engaged in clashes over the control of territory, mostly in eastern Afghanistan, but clashes have also occurred between the Taliban and IS-KP cells which are located in the north-west and south-west.
References
- ↑ Collyns, Sam (26 October 2011). "Double Cross". BBC.
- ↑ Gardham, Duncan (26 October 2011). "Pakistan 'still running Taliban training camps'". The Daily Telegraph .
- ↑ Ahmed, Issam (30 November 2011). "Why Pakistan pulled the BBC from airwaves". The Christian Science Monitor.
- ↑ Deans, Jason (3 November 2011). "TV Ratings". Guardian (UK).
- ↑ Sutcliffe, Tom (3 November 2011). "Last Night's Viewing: Secret Pakistan, BBC2; The Impressions Show, BBC1". The Independent .
