Funding the Taliban

Suggestions that the government of Afghanistan is helping to finance Talibancontrolled areas are depressing for all those powers, such as Britain, that spilt blood to liberate the country from the control of Islamist fanatics. In Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where British troops suffered heavy casualties during the decade-long war against the Taliban, key towns such as Sangin and Musa Qala now find themselves firmly under the control of their former tyrants.

The territory was initially handed over to administration by the Afghan security forces when British and other Western troops completed their withdrawal at the end of 2014. Concerns were expressed at the time that Barack Obama’s decision to end the Nato-led mission before the Taliban had been defeated would leave large tracts of the country vulnerable to the return of Islamist rule. And so it has proved, as the Afghan National Army has struggled to keep the Taliban at bay. This is particularly true in Helmand, the centre of Afghanistan’s flourishing opium trade.

But if the failure of government forces to hold territory in south Afghanistan was predictable, the more surprising aspect of the Taliban’s takeover is that Kabul is continuing to fund schools and hospitals. This, in effect, means the Afghan government stands accused of being complicit in allowing the Taliban to run the same towns and villages where only a few years ago coalition forces were involved in desperate fighting to keep the enemy out. This worrying state of affairs not only raises serious questions about the Afghan government’s resolve to keep the militants in check. It will prompt many to wonder whether all the sacrifices of the past decade were in vain.