THE TALIBAN AT WAR 2001-2021
A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TALIBAN’S EVOLUTION FROM RAGTAG INSURGENCY TO A POTENT MILITARY FORCE THAT DEFIED THE WEST AND REGAINED CONTROL OF AFGHANISTAN
Author: Antonio Giustozzi
Publisher: Hurst
Price: £18.99
Format: Paperback
Released: May 2022
The fall of the Taliban was as swift and brutal as the collapse of New York’s Twin Towers in the 9/11 terrorist attack, the event that triggered the Us-led offensive that liberated Afghanistan from the Islamists. In this book, Antonio Giustozzi traces the history of the Taliban from the disarray of their self-styled emirate in 2002, through the crisis of the 2013 Quetta Shura with its bitter political and personal rivalries, to their installation in Kabul in 2021 as Afghanistan’s new rulers after the hasty US withdrawal.
Any attempt by the Taliban propaganda machine to portray themselves as fighters for justice and religious virtue is demolished by the account of the movement’s funding sources. Drug smugglers, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Al-qaeda and Pakistan’s military at various times served as generous financial supporters. These deep pockets in part enabled the insurgents to improve their fighting equipment and training, so that by 2016 they were gaining an edge over the Afghan security forces. Three years later, the Taliban leadership was able to consolidate their military superiority, thanks in no small measure to the easing off of American air strikes.
The final seizure of power exposes a litany of political misjudgements on the part of the US, outwitted if not outgunned by their opponents. In February 2020, the Trump administration signed a peace deal with the Taliban, quite an astonishing miscalculation when considering their opponent’s outspoken determination to install themselves in Kabul’s presidential palace. In August, President Ashraf Ghani fled and the insurgents who had successfully fought against the might of the American superpower and its allies, as the author points out, found themselves having to deal with the unexpected task of governing Afghanistan.