The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (aka) Taliban

"Every single [provincial] capital is besieged by the Emirate. The Emirate could conquer them as easily as the districts, but then we would want to conquer them in the best way possible, to prevent casualties and destruction, to prevent looting, and to appoint civil servants."

"The first step was to conquer economic borders, the second step will be imposing more economic restrictions through controlling imported foods, petrol and gas."

"The Islamic Emirate asked others to sit down for talks and establish peace, but talks on the forthcoming regime are for establishing a pure Islamic regime."

Mohammad Zahid Himmat, Taliban Commander, Wardak Province

 

"[The Taliban] has a misguided calculation that they can win militarily. Tactical gains in the past couple of months have made them even more arrogant, but the atrocities they committed recently will haunt them."

"They have lost whatever support they had among the people. they have proven again that they are the same old terrorist group."

"We will fight them to our last drop of blood if they believe they will win militarily. If war is what will finally convince the Taliban, we will give them that."

Waheed Omer, senior aide, President Ashraf Ghani 

The Taliban are intensifying attacks across Afghanistan to gain more territory amid NATO's troop withdrawal

"The Taliban are emerging victorious not just in their traditional areas in the south of Afghanistan, like Kandahar or Helmand, but also in northern districts such as Mazar-e-Sharif. The government forces seem to be on the backfoot, while warlords are re-arming to fight the Taliban."

"The Americans gave away far too much in this deal with the Taliban and without anything in return. The Taliban got many concessions but Kabul got nothing. Former US President Donald Trump was in a hurry to end the negotiations as soon as possible and nobody could control him."

"Ghani has not been able to unite the people under a common position of dialogue with the Taliban. The militants know this and that's one of the reasons why they have refused to talk with Ghani so far, and also refused to accept the American plan for the Doha talks and the conference in Turkey."

"As long as the Pakistani military and intelligence continue to give them the sanctuary, there is no need for the Taliban to accept any compromise or any deal or any dialogue with Kabul. Why should they when their leaders are safe and their families are safe? If Pakistan wants to show its sincerity, it needs to immediately force the Taliban leaders to either compromise or leave their sanctuaries in Quetta or in Peshawar."

"Pakistan is pursuing a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand it is trying to promote a peaceful conclusion [of the U.S. presence] and it fears very much an influx of refugees and the chaos that would follow a Taliban takeover. At the same time it is also encouraging the Taliban."

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist, author

The world knows the brutal Islamist fundamentalist militias once again preparing to lead Afghanistan back to the medieval era as the Taliban; they prefer to speak of themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, taking their rightful rule of the battle-fatigued country where a type of democracy was steadily creeping into place, women liberated halfway to becoming an important part of the country's recovery from the soul-destroying strictures of Islamist sharia law imposed by an earlier iteration of the Taliban's ruinous government.

 

The remorseless killers of Afghan civilians, military, protesters, national police and politicians they despise, feel themselves back in control, just wiping out the last vestiges of Western-inspired governance. They're at the stage now of capturing more territory to claim as their own, of choking off the Afghan government's economy through the control of border crossings with neighbouring nations with which the country trades. And in 'consulting' with the governments of neighbours, establishing their position as future rulers.

 

Taliban leaders are intent on establishing themselves as the 'legitimate' leaders of the country, anxious for international recognition and it appears that Turkey, Iran and Russia are prepared to deal diplomatically with them. "The Taliban see a political settlement, meaning a transfer of power with certain concessions to the government but they can't be trusted", pointed out Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistan ambassador to the U.S., now with the Hudson Institute.

 

There was no training given to Afghan soldiers when the U.S. closed the airbases in Kandahar and Bagram, to enable them to maintain the equipment gifted to them by the U.S., Afghan officials and military experts pointing to the situation as a critical advantage lost with the return to the U.S. of thousands of logistics contractors who had maintained the air and ground weapons systems -- in joining the departure of the thousands of U.S. and NATO coalition soldiers from Afghanistan. 

President Biden's pledge to support the Afghan forces with funding and delivering Black Hawk helicopters is a feel-good move for his administration; its practical results for a flailing Afghan military will soon enough be assessed as the entire country falls to the Taliban. Afghan President Ghani who cut ties with the influential Afghan warlords now is in desperate need of their help as the former forces behind the Northern Alliance.

 

A recycling shop near the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after American soldiers abandoned the country in the dead of the night without informing Afghan officials.  Adek Berry/AFP via Getty

"The irony is that Ghani's survival depends on the Northern Alliance, which he has worked so hard to dismantle. He seems to be unable to compromise, isolated and in denial about the situation around him", remarked Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, associate professor of international affairs at University of Pittsburgh, of the coalition of militias who had ousted the past Taliban regime. In the face of the relentless violence of the Taliban, a negotiated political settlement is beyond remote.

India, staunchly opposed to the Taliban as a proxy of Pakistan, confirmed they opened talks with the Islamists, even while President Ghani accuses Pakistan of allowing ten thousand jihadis to pass over the border to give assistance to the Taliban, accusing Islamabad of failing to place pressure on Islamists to agree to peace talks. "Afghanistan is under a full-scale invasion of Talib terrorists who have an organized backing and sponsorship in Pakistan ... They have no intention to engage in meaningful negotiations", added Vice-President Amrullah Saleh.

Islamabad continues to claim it has no influence on the Taliban, even as the U.S. accuses it of playing a "double game", harbouring terrorists. But then, Pakistan was doing that back when the U.S. was praising it for being so helpful in the war against terror, naming Pakistan its great partner in the battle against al-Qaeda, even while it gave haven in Abbottabad next to an elite Pakistani military garrison, to Osama bin Laden in his private incognito compound. 

Al-Qaeda has its firm presence in fifteen provinces in Afghanistan, according to a July UN Security Council report. Operating under Taliban protection in Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz provinces, fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan joining it. It has aligned with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement in Xinjiang, China. Its Pakistan Taliban counterpart Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan is once again restive and Pakistan's Interagency Intelligence group may yet grapple again with the monster they created. 

"Everybody's lost leverage over the Taliban. Everybody now needs to invest fully in trying to see if we can get to some, even imperfect, arrangement that would allow this protracted conflict to be warded off", offered Moeed Yusuf, Pakistan's national security adviser. Should Kabul collapse, neighbouring countries have reason to fear a protracted civil war would again attract extremists. But home-grown Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan has launched cross-border attacks even while ISIL expands its presence with sleeper cells around Kabul.

 

Bagram, at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains, has a long history as an army base. The Soviet army used the base during its invasion in 1979. Many feared that when the Americans left, Bagram would fall into Taliban hands — a strategic victory for the Islamists

"I don't think the Taliban are a terrorist movement but they have relations, friendships, and shared a common goal of removing the U.S. Terrorist organizations will have latitude, some of the Taliban will be perfectly happy to turn a blind eye."

"The most painful moment is yet to come. It could be Kabul falling, maybe it is that Saigon moment of a helicopter going with people trying to escape, maybe it is executions."

"The most painful thing would be a terrorist attack on the United States."

Carter Malkasian, author: The American War in Afghanistan