opinion | How Pakistan trained the elite Taliban force that took over Afghanistan
A good news has come from Afghanistan. The Taliban, who have been celebrating their victory since August 15, have suffered a setback. The Northern Coalition, led by Amrullah Saleh, has taken back three districts, Pol-e-Hesar, Deh Salah and Banu districts, from the Taliban, inflicting heavy casualties. Ashwaka News Agency has given this information on Twitter. Visuals of the liberation of these three districts have been posted by resistance forces on social media.
Amrullah Saleh, who declared himself the acting president of Afghanistan in place of Ashraf Ghani, has appealed to all other Afghans to join the resistance force. There are reports of forces loyal to Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum and Ata Mohammed Noor joining with resistance forces led by Ahmad Shah to gain complete control of the entire Panjshir region. The area is not currently under Taliban control. It may be difficult for the Taliban to capture these districts soon.
Meanwhile, in Kandahar on Afghanistan’s Independence Day, and in Kabul on Friday, Taliban special forces fighters, dressed in shalwar-kameez uniforms for the first time, took out flag marches, chanting “Allahu Akbar”. These fighters are reportedly trained by Pakistan. Taliban fighters look like mirror images of Pakistani commandos. Taliban fighters are generally not trained like soldiers of a regular army. These fighters with rifle in hand know only one thing: shoot to kill. In the city of Kalat in Jabul province, about 318 km from Kabul, Taliban fighters dressed in uniforms marched, videotaped and announced that Afghanistan would now be designated as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Seeing the visuals of these fighters of the Taliban Special Forces, one can easily assume that youths from various Afghan tribes have been quickly given some training, asked to wear uniforms and march. The old Taliban we saw during the nineties was a ragtag band of rifle-wielding fighters. The new Taliban appears to be properly organized, trained and armed. Most of these fighters have been secretly trained by the Pakistani military to use sophisticated weapons and physical warfare. With the Taliban having access to high-tech warfare equipment supplied by the US to the former Afghan security and defense force, the combination is now deadly.
The fighters of the Taliban Special Forces were carrying a new flag. It is the ninth flag used by the Taliban, which has changed its flag nine times in the past 20 years. Previously Taliban fighters appeared in groups of four sitting on pickup trucks, but the new Taliban wants to send a new message to the world – that its forces are organized, equipped, trained and uniformed. They now carry the M4 carbines and M16 rifles supplied by the US to the Afghan military. These fighters were not trained overnight. They took training in the use of weapons like any elite force of the regular army.
In my prime time show ‘Aaj Ki Baat’ on Friday night, I showed pictures and videos of how Taliban Special Forces were trained in Pakistan. When about 85 percent of Afghanistan was captured by the Taliban, and jihadist fighters headed for Kabul, the world wondered how they could move so fast like a blitzkrieg. There was a good reason behind this: the Afghan army was not faced with Taliban street fighters, but an elite, well-equipped special operations force and shock troops specially trained by Pakistan. These elite fighters were trained in mountain warfare, guerrilla warfare, special raids, desert warfare and special operations. The terrorist group led by Sirajuddin Haqqani was the strike force for the Taliban when they entered Kabul. Mullah Yakub, son of the late Mullah Omar, a former Taliban chief, was said to be part of this elite force that entered the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
There is no doubt that the Pakistan-based Haqqani group helped the Taliban to overthrow an elected government in Kabul. The Haqqani network provided training and weapons to mobilize the Taliban Special Forces with the help of the Pakistani military’s spying ISI. Taliban fighters were trained in face-to-face marking, close combat and face-to-face firepower. They were trained to monitor enemy movements, secure strategic positions and then attack the enemy. When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, its army was called the Shepherd’s Army. The new Taliban has an elite force trained in modern warfare. He was given commando training in physical endurance, tactical warfare, stormtroopers and the use of sophisticated weapons.
About 40 years ago, the US gave a huge amount of weapons and equipment to the Pakistan-based Mujahideen to drive out Russian forces from Afghanistan. The Russian Air Force could not counter the Stinger missiles supplied by the US to the Mujahideen. After the withdrawal of the Russian army, civil war broke out in Afghanistan, and the Taliban was born in the mid-nineties under the leadership of one-eyed Mullah Omar with the generous help of the Pakistani military. Saudi Arabia also helped Mullah Omar.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan for five years, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks by Osama bin Laden, the sitting Al Qaeda chief in Afghanistan, were planned and executed. The US invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001 to drive out Al Qaeda. Taliban fighters took refuge in Pakistan. The new Taliban, which takes over Afghanistan today, has a Badri 313 battalion of fighter jets, which are equipped with night vision equipment. They can easily conduct raids against the enemy during night time. The new Taliban fighters were trained in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Sirajuddin Haqqani’s terror network. From watching videos of their training it is clear that Taliban commandos were given extensive training by Pakistani military advisers and ISI officers.
People around the world are under the misconception that some 70,000 Taliban fighters, wearing sandals and torn shoes, forced a 1,30,000-strong Afghan army to humbly surrender. It is not so. These Taliban fighters, wielding US-made carbines and rifles, are well trained in combat. Now it can be said that Pakistan has fooled America, its western allies and the world. It sheltered al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, supported al Qaeda and trained Taliban fighters. Pakistan also sent its jihadi youths to fight with the Taliban.
I spoke to some US military experts who said, don’t be under the mistaken impression that all this happened during the last 15 days. The US signed a secret agreement with the Taliban two years ago, under which the Taliban promised not to attack American troops any more. Citing facts, these experts said, in the last two years, most of the Taliban’s attacks were against the Afghan army, which suffered casualties that it had never faced in the last 18 years.
Pakistan took full advantage of this situation and trained Taliban fighters at an alarming pace. The figures make it quite clear that in the last two years, Afghan civilians suffered the most casualties, the Taliban gained strength and Pakistan’s intervention increased. America was only concerned about the interests of its soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan. The Afghan army, though it had become large and cumbersome, lacked proper backup, logistics and supply lines. The army had to humbly surrender, but my guess is that the Northern Alliance is consolidating its forces and preparing to pose a major challenge to the Taliban.
One should listen to what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday while inaugurating beautification projects near the famous Somnath temple in Gujarat. “Empire based on terror does not last, and such ideologies cannot suppress humanity for long”, Modi said. He said, “Destructive forces and thoughts trying to establish an empire on the basis of terror may dominate temporarily, but their existence is never permanent. They cannot suppress humanity for long.”
The Prime Minister said, “This was true when tyrants looted the Somnath temple and it is equally true today when the world is apprehensive of such ideologies. The destruction and reconstruction of the Somnath temple over the centuries is a symbol of the belief that truth should be replaced by falsehood.” cannot be defeated and faith cannot be crushed by terror.
About a thousand years ago, in 1025, Mahmud of Ghazni plundered the Somnath temple. This attacker has come from Afghanistan. Modi made the right connection by pointing out that faith cannot be crushed by terror or force and that an empire built on terror cannot survive. In India, we have some short-sighted people who are cheering on the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi, Shafiqur Rehman Barak, Maulana Sajjad Nomani and poet Munawwar Rana are creating a false impression that the Taliban has changed now. They are unable to see the tears of thousands of Afghan Muslim women sitting with their children outside Kabul airport, awaiting evacuation.
My question is: If the Taliban have changed their position, why are thousands of Afghan men, women and children yearning to leave their country to lead a peaceful life abroad? Do Afghans know the Taliban better, or do Indian leaders like Owaisi, Barak and Nomani know the jihadist organization better? One of the most embarrassing comments came from a leader who compared the Taliban to freedom fighters of India. Can brutal fanatics who harass women and children and brutally kill political opponents be called freedom fighters? You can have differences of opinion with the government or Prime Minister Modi on policy issues, but you cannot oppose democracy and humanity.
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