The international community and the Afghan government have been fighting the Taliban for the past eight years, but today the insurgent group is a greater threat than it was in late 2001. Despite the more than 90,000 US and NATO deployed in Afghanistan, the Taliban have been making steady progress, both territorially and in terms of support.

When the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, their numbers were estimated to be no more than 3,000. But, like the mythical Greek monster Hydra, they seem to be growing multiple new heads to replace each one lost.

Based on tallies provided by national and international forces engaged in the Afghan war, more than 15,000 Taliban fighters have been killed since 2001 – or five times more than their number was estimated to be when they fell from power.

“When I was in Guantanamo, my interrogators told me ‘there are just 2500 of you out there, and when we kill you all, you are finished,’” said Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, in an earlier interview. “But I have counted myself – they have killed more than 12,000 so far, and the Taliban are stronger than ever.”
This seeming paradox has analysts and observers scratching their heads. Many have concluded that, rather than a miscalculation on the part of the Afghan government and international community, the resurgence of the Taliban is part of a master plan.
 
Dr. Mohai-u-ddin Mehdi, an Afghan political expert, believes that the elimination of Taliban did not figure in the agendas of U.S. President George W. Bush, Pakistan’s leader General Perwez Musharraf, or Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

As proof, he cites secret protocols in the Bonn agreements.

 “This agreement was developed together with the other articles which emphasized state-building in the post-Taliban era,” he said. “War against Taliban was never included in that.”

According to Mehdi, neither Musharraf nor Bush was interested in eliminating the Taliban.

Hamid Karzai, after he was selected to head the interim government in December, 2001, recognized the Taliban as representatives of the Pashtun tribes. So right from the beginning there was never a push to eliminate the Taliban as a terrorist group.

“Karzai has always tried to say that the Taliban are not behind terrorist activities,” said Mehdi. “He attributed such acts to Al Qaeda, and to non-Afghan Taliban. This has meant that not a single Talib has faced justice over the past eight years.”

Mehdi pointed out that under the Peace and Solidarity Program, headed by Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, “many Taliban whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of citizens have been set free from Afghan and foreign prisons.”

Waheed Muzhdah, a political expert who worked in the Taliban foreign ministry, confirms the Bonn protocols.

“At the beginning the Taliban were accused of sheltering Osama bin Laden, but there was no strategy for the elimination of Taliban or the fight against terrorism,” he said. “The enmity between the U.S. military and Taliban began after the U.S. invasion, in which many Taliban fighters were killed in Kunduz and Mazar-e-Sharif.”
 
But some facts point to a different interpretation.

The United Nations maintains a blacklist of Taliban leaders whose assets are frozen and who are not allowed to travel to most countries. The United States has Taliban leaders at the top of its Most Wanted list, posting huge rewards for their capture.

 “After 9/11 the US administration made a list of the Taliban leaders whose bank accounts were to be frozen,” said Muzhdah. “On the list was Bashir Baghlani, a prominent Taliban leader, even though he was sitting in a Taliban jail at that time. This indicates that the United States did not have a clear programme for the elimination of Taliban. They did not even know who the Taliban leaders were.”

The distinction between Taliban and Al Qaida has been emphasized by the Afghan authorities ever since the beginning of the Karzai administration. A new category has since been added: moderate Taliban. This led to a number of Taliban who were in U.S. or Afghan custody being freed, but so far the separation of the Taliban into extremists and moderates has not contributed to a decrease in Taliban attacks, nor to a decline in the insecurity that is now spreading all over the country.

Sbghatullah Sanjar, the head of Policy Department for the Karzai administration, told IFES that this distinction among the Taliban was important for the country.

“Some Taliban are affiliated with al Qaeda,” he acknowledged. “But they have no ideological links with ordinary Taliban, who are indeed our (countrymen? Brothers? What?)”

But Ahmad Behzad, a parliamentarian from Herat, believes that the separation of Taliban into extremists and moderates has been a mistake.

 “The Taliban has many times resorted to activities in which they have targeted the international military and Afghan forces, as well as civilians. But the Afghan government has put up with such acts and the U.S. military also has paid no attention to them.”

Behzad pointed to cases in which Taliban, after being arrested, were freed again based on presidential decrees. This just sent them back to join the ranks of the insurgents. He recalled the story of Mullah Dastagir, a prominent Taliban commander in Badghis, who was let out of prison based on a Karzai decree. He later orchestrated an ambush in which more than 20 army and police personnel were killed.

These facts point to the lack of an agenda for the elimination of the Taliban. The United States and its allies just removed the Taliban as a political force in Afghanistan, but made no plans to finish it off as a terrorist group. This has led to a resurgence of the Taliban, who are emerging as a major power.

But Muzhdah believes that there has been a political pact between the United States and Pakistan to let the insurgency regroup.

“The United States and the United Kingdom have been involved in strengthening the Taliban in the North,” he said. “They want to put pressure on the Middle east states to support the United States in a war on terrorism, which would result in the US having a presence in those countries.”

Sanjar emphasizes that there are other external factors behind Taliban’s resurgence “The root of the Taliban resurgence lies in mistakes made by the international community,” he said. “Their lack of attention to the Afghan army and police, their indiscriminate bombing of civilians, and their arrest of ordinary Afghans all combined to decrease support among people who had initially welcomed the foreign forces. The Afghan government is not to blame for this.”

Afghans are not optimistic that the war against Taliban will lead to peace and stability in the country. Today, in the mind of Afghans, the U.S. war on terror and the nature of the Taliban has become an unsolvable puzzle.

If the war is against terrorism and Taliban are a terrorist group, why the war spreading day by day? Rumors are rife saying that a number of circles inside and outside the government are supporting the Taliban, and according to Mehdi the unrest in the North stems from this.

People have many questions: when will the war end? When will there be security in the country? And when will we finally have peace?

But so far, there are no answers.