Alastair Crooke

Like it or not, the Taliban are now players on the world stage

[Getty Images]

Many years ago, before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988, I was based in Peshawar in Pakistan, near Afghanistan. I was responsible for British diplomatic reporting on the war and engaging with Afghan leaders. I came to know the Taliban. They were, to put it mildly, not particularly nice guys: intensely parochial, geographically and politically sectarian, xenophobic, misogynistic, tribal and rigid.

As fierce Pashtuns, the biggest minority in Afghanistan, they would kill other ethnicities wantonly: Shia Hazaras in particular, as apostates, were killed. They detested Ahmad Shah Massoud, the ‘lion of Panjshir’ and a hero of the resistance to the Soviets, because he was a Tajik. Some of their fundamentalism was fuelled by the radicalised strains of Islam: Wahhab-ism and Deobandism, exports of Saudi Arabia and Dar al-Islam Howzah in India, respectively. But the Taliban mostly were doctrinally rooted in -Pashtunwali — ancient tribal custom.

Times have changed. The Taliban we see today present themselves as a more complex, multi-ethnic and sophisticated coalition — perhaps the reason they have been able to topple the western-installed Afghanistan government at such breathtaking speed. Their ranks now include a Hazara commander and even a Tajik Taliban, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

‘This next game is called “Pin the blame on the donkey”.’

The new Taliban are canny enough to ‘talk the talk’ of Afghan political inclusion and strategically astute enough to look to Iran, Russia and China for mediation and to facilitate their place in the Great Game. They arrived in Kabul with a manifesto: that they will bring stability, not embark upon score-settling or civil war. Whether these pledges will be kept is another question, but it marks quite a contrast from the Taliban I knew.

Their lightning sweep to power has been years in the making — and shaped by many outside actors facilitating this metamorphosis: notably China, Iran, Russia and Pakistan.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in