On May 1, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech declaring, “In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained.” Yet almost 13 years later, the Taliban (meaning “the students”) remains alive and well, threatening Afghanistan’s security and persevering as a sharp thorn in the side of Afghan and U.S. forces.
Last September, the Taliban captured Kunduz City, the capital of Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, after besieging the city for over a year. Although the Taliban only held the city for two weeks, the group’s brief conquest marked the first time in 14 years of war that a major Afghan city had fallen to the Taliban insurgency.
More recently, in December 2015, a Taliban suicide bomber was responsible for the deaths of six U.S. servicemembers in Bagram, Afghanistan. In February, the Taliban attacked Afghan security forces in Kabul, killing at least 12 people. And just last week, the Taliban struck a police station in Afghanistan's Helmand province, killing three officers.
Such events indicate that the Taliban’s lifeline remains strong. “The Taliban will continue to test the overstretched Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) faced with problematic logistics, low morale, and weak leadership,” explained Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, when assessing the Taliban threat in 2016.
Starting last year, U.S. and Afghan forces have witnessed an uptick in Taliban perpetrated violence. “Unlike previous years, the Taliban extended the fighting season, and has continued to conduct operations in Helmand, as called for by Taliban leadership,” testified former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
Officially, the U.S. ended its combat role in Afghanistan in December 2014, although it currently maintains 9,800 troops throughout the country to provide training and logistical support to Afghan troops. U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants to draw down the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the end of this year. A strong emphasis has been placed on advancing peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Thus far, however, the talks have stalled.
According to The Cipher Brief expert and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, the Taliban’s overall strategy has consistently prioritized outlasting U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “The U.S. has made several incremental adjustments to its policy… but each adjustment has been undercut by a reaffirmation that the U.S. intends to leave. Such a position reinforces the Taliban belief that it can outlast the U.S.,” wrote Neumann.
Much of what has transpired with the ongoing Taliban surge has been linked to Pakistan, which has been accused of providing safe havens to certain terrorist groups that aim to overthrow the Afghan government. Such groups include the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), all of which are believed to receive support from Pakistan’s spy agency known as Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
At the same time, the Pakistani government is currently battling a “Taliban problem” of its own. Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, is a separate and distinct organization from the Afghan Taliban. The TTP is responsible for conducting several large-scale attacks in Pakistan, such as the 2014 massacre at a military school in Peshawar, which killed more than 140 people, including 132 schoolchildren. In contrast to the Afghan Talban, the TTP aims to overthrow the Pakistani government and has emerged as a primary target of the Pakistani military.
The Cipher Brief expert and Former Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Jeffrey Eggers, highlighted the distinction between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, explaining that “the two Taliban organizations share the same western name and have some degree of overlap among other third-party external groups, but they remain essentially independent groups under separate leadership structures that are neither in conflict nor cooperating with one another.”
The willingness demonstrated by the Pakistani government to draw distinctions between militant groups has further muddled the complex regional security environment. “There are some [militant groups that the Pakistani government] believes have to be hit and that we should cooperate on hitting, and there are others they think don’t constitute as much of a threat to them and that they think are best left alone,” said former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair.
As the U.S. looks towards the end of its stay in Afghanistan, ensuring the stability of the Afghan government and the Afghan National Security Force is a critical component of its exit strategy. President Obama has already extended the presence of U.S. troops and perhaps the next president will implement a similar policy. Further, many U.S. leaders point to Pakistan as the key actor that could exert pressure on the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. Despite all of these moving parts, one element remains constant: the Taliban are far from defeated.
Bennett Seftel is the Deputy Director of Editorial at The Cipher Brief.
