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Soldiers of Islam: Origins, Ideology and Strategy of theTaliban
Aabha Dixit, Research Associate, IDSAInstitute for Defense Studies and AnalysisNew Delhi
http://www.idsa-india.org/an-aug-2.html
Introduction
Labeled variously as soldiers of Islam, a militia in pursuit an obscurantist fundamentalist ideology,the greatest destabilising threat to the Central Asian Republics, the Taliban's rise to pre-eminence inAfghanistan necessitates an understanding of their origins, ideology and strategy in the quest forunrivalled power in the country.
Creation of the Taliban
They emerged from anonymity in 1993 and in the span of four years have radically changed thecomplexion of the Afghan civil war by becoming the notable political elite. Essentially, the Talibangrew out of the turf battle between the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Interior Ministry inIslamabad during Benazir Bhutto's second term. The Establishment had resisted their creation andreportedly criticised Benazir Bhutto for the use of the Taliban for their November 1994 operation inrescuing the trade caravan on its way to Central Asia that had been captured by the local warlord of Kandahar. The ISI which had run the Afghan operations with complete autonomy since the late1970s, was averse to the Taliban because they had continued to pin faith on the Hizb-i-Islami underHikmatyar to dislodge the Rabbani government. More importantly, the ISI viewed the Taliban as yetanother Benazir Bhutto ploy to reduce its role in Afghan affairs. But Maj. Gen.(Retd) NasrullahBabar who had assumed a mandate from the Bhutto government to attempt a parallel track, whichoffered the possibility of opening new options in Afghanistan, relentlessly pursued the Talib option,which initially led to the weakening of the hold of the ISI on the conduct of Islamabad's Afghanpolicy. Eventually, the remarkable success of the Taliban forced the ISI to co-opt itself into trainingand guiding the Taliban ranks. Despite persistent denials by the Benazir Bhutto government, thereis little doubt that the Taliban have been created, trained and equipped by the ISI and InteriorMinistry special forces. According to some estimates, the Taliban require $70 million on a monthlybasis to keep the militia in functional order and a 'major part of this money is provided from acrossthe Afghan-Pak border. Recent purchases by the Taliban of tanks, artillery pieces and armouredpersonnel carriers ( APC ) have come from illegal tax checkpoints that have been raised along thetrade routes linking Pakistan to the Central Asian Republics. The Taliban have become a morecohesive force, stocked with adequate weapons, including an Air Force, as a result of the ISI'svigorous assistance. There have also been reports that Pakistani Army personnel are alreadypresent in Taliban ranks, taking part in operational and tactical missions. Today the Taliban are over50,000 strong, with 300 tanks, APCs and a squadron of MiG aircraft.1While there has been no doubt that most of the funding for the Taliban has come from Saudi Arabia,the Kandahar based organisation has not been able to resist using drug production to fund itsactivities. Despite controlling a majority of poppy producing areas and publicly maintaining an anti-
 
drug profile, recent reports from the UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) indicate poppy washarvested from 55,000-58,000 hectares during 1996, which is slightly higher than 1995. Despitepolitical uncertainty, new routes from Afghanistan to Europe and beyond were used.2The nucleus for the Taliban have been Afghan Talibs (students) who were studying in large numbersin madrassas throughout Pakistan. Studying in madrassas offered a way out of the dreary livingconditions inside Afghanistan, as most madrassa chieftains supported the Talibs during their stay atthe madrassas in a bid to increase adherents to their particular sect. Between 1989 and 1991, a fewthousand Mujahideen, disillusioned with the post-Soviet withdrawal fighting amongst the variousMujahideen' groups also joined these madrassas. In creating the Frankenstein monster, thebrilliance of General Babar's accurate analysis of understanding the prevailing sense of despondencyamongst ordinary Afghans will have to be acknowledged. Until the emergence of the phenomenon of the Taliban, the Pakistani Establishment either overestimated the strength of the variousMujahideen groups in different regions of Afghanistan or preferred to achieve their objectives byplacing implicit faith of resolving the Afghan conflict in their favour by pushing one group•theHizb-i-Islami under Culbuddin Hikmatyar. General Babar, therefore perceptively recognised the roleof the madrassas in being the fertile ground for indoctrinating the Afghan Talibs to find a new wayof establishing a new order. Closer interaction with numerous madrassas all over Pakistan andspecially those belonging to the Deobandi denomination, because these were funded by the Saudis,saw the first beginnings of a new puritanical group that would seek to cleanse the country of itscorrupt Mujahideen leaders.At the same time, there was realisation in Islamabad which questioned the ability of majorMujahideen factions to retain fighters. Surplus weapons or religious ideology were no longerinducing these fighters to remain loyal to faction leaders. Like all protracted civil war conditions,once there is a dilution of revolutionary zeal among the foot soldiers, the only manner in which theleaders could retain their loyalty is through money. This condition had become evident inAfghanistan from 1993 when reports of the growing role of faction leaders in playing in the volatilemoney markets of Kabul, Herat, Kandahar and Peshawar became well known. It was also duringNajibullah's post-Soviet rule that frequent desertions by local commanders became commonpractice. Najib used it with great success to repulse the Pakistan aided attacks on Jalalabad andKhost in 1992.As a result, when the Taliban, supported by Islamabad entered the Afghan arena, there was a clearstrategy of targetting local commanders of regional warlords in a piecemeal fashion. This wouldexplain in large measure their blitz through southern and central Afghanistan, capturing 14provinces without encountering resistance. Even in 1997, this policy has been pursued with evengreater success in sensuring that their non-Pashtun opponents like Ahmed Shah Masood, AbdulRashids Dostam, Karim Khalili and Syed Naderi have been' weakened not through battles but bydesertion of men, local commanders and equipment. The Taliban's recent entry into Salang wasfacilitated after a local commander, Bashir Salangi, switched sides. Similarly, in Uzbek territory, theTaliban took advantage of the brewing crisis. between General Dostam and Abdul Malik to "buy off"the latter, along with a string ' of his local commanders. The fall of Mazar-is-Sharif and the fleeingof a once very powerful Dostam took place only after his entire frontline commanders switched sidesfor large sums of money.
Support Base of the Taliban in Pakistan
 
Initially, the Taliban's principal supporter was Fazlur Rahman, the Jamaat-i-Ulema-Islam (JUI)leader from Baluchistan. The first batches of Talibs from seminaries run by Maulana Fazlur Rahmanwere trained by the Frontier Constabulary Corps and the Sibi Scouts in training camps near theBaluch border with Afghanistan. Subsequently, reinforcements for the Taliban militia came fromother seminaries located in other parts of Pakistan. The most important seminary is located in NewTown area of Karachi called Jamiat-ul-Uloom-il-Islamiyyah. Run by Maulana Mohammed Yusuf Binnori, the seminary has 8,000 students from different nationalities. There have been unconfirmedreports that the Taliban supremo, Mullah Omar, studied at this seminary. But the seminary hasassumed a prominent place within the Taliban hierarchy based in Kandahar, with three seminarymembers within the ruling six-member council. Even during the recent call by the Taliban leadershipfor sending more men into the frontlines following the reversal at Mazar-is-Sharif, it is believed thatthe elusive Mullah Omar had spoken to the "Binnori" Madrassa in New Town.Mullah Omar clearly acts as
primus inter pares
within the six-member council in Kandahar. Sketchydetails of Omar have become available. Apart from making his mark in fighting the Soviets, Omar isreported to have lost one eye, but is well built (over 6 feet 6 inches tall) and is in his early forties.Well versed in Farsi, Omar is not a cleric. He was associated with Nabi Mohammadi's Harkat groupwhich was close to the Saudis. He is reportedly influenced by the Deobandi school of thought.The growth chart of the Taliban has run parallel to the mushrooming of sectarian madrassas inPakistan in recent years. The Punjab government had conducted a secret survey in 1997 whichrevealed staggering figures. As revealed in a micro-study of one sectarian organisation, the Muridke(Sheikhupura district) based madrassa belonging to the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) had spreadits tentacles with 28 centres in Punjab alone. This madrassa is of recent origin having begun itsfunctioning in 1987. Today, it has spread its tentacles into Baluchistan with 3 centres, 3 centres ininterior Sind, 43 centres in Karachi alone, besides having representative bodies in variousuniversities. At a macro-level, the mushrooming of sectarian bodies has been documented inanother survey conducted in 1996. There were 2,512 functioning deeni madrassas, representing allschools of sectarian thought in Punjab. This figure sharply contrasts with the creation of 868madrassas between 1947 and 1975. All these madrassas were reported to have a studentenrolment of over 2 lakh students. A nation-wide survey would reveal the overwhelming influencethat madrassas have come to assume in Pakistani politics as well as in the Taliban's growth chart.
Taliban's Route to Power in Afghanistan
The rise of the Talibs is thought to have begun with the capture of the small town of Doorahi on theoutskirts of Kandahar, although other reports have indicated that Talibs were initially used alongborder areas to prevent cross border smuggling of goods. From there the Talibs moved to SpinBoldak, a town controlled by Mullah Akhtar Jan who owed allegiance to Hikmatyar. After SpinBoldak, it was a remorseless movement towards the periphery of Kabul, capturing 10 provinces inthe process. The unexpected success meant requiring more Talibs for operations. As a result, in lessthan six months after Spin Boldak, their ranks swelled from 2,500 to over 30,000 by the time theywere perched at the gates of Kabul. But significantly, they had to fight no major battle, as briberyaccounted for most turnarounds. They fought two battles in 1995 to gain Farah and Nimrozprovinces.3 But without battle experience, Masood's forces were able to keep them at bay along theperimeter of Kabul for over a year. Before the capture of Kabul, they suffered a few defeats whenthe Rabbani forces pushed them out of Zabul and parts of Hilmand province.4
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