The Taliban-Al Qaida Schism by Gareth Porter
“The Taliban is a nationalist organization, which wants to govern Afghanistan under Sharia law, not attack the United States,” said Nelson, who was on the inaugural staff of the National Counter-Terrorism Center’s Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2005 to 2007.
Nelson directed a Joint Task Force in Afghanistan until early 2009 and is now in the International Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The Red Mosque was a big deal,” Nelson recalled. The al Qaeda-directed assault on the mosque and subsequent Taliban reaction to its jihadist campaign in Pakistan were what convinced officials that “their goals have become more divergent”, he said.
More recently, counterterrorism analysts have noted that the gap has widened even further, as the Taliban leadership has gone public with a “nationalist” line that openly departs from al Qaeda’s global jihadist stance.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s Sep. 19 message for Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, called the Taliban a “robust Islamic and nationalist movement” which “wants to maintain good and positive relations with all neighbors based on mutual respect”.
aziz 5:31 pm on December 7, 2009 Permalink |
“wants to maintain good and positive relations with all neighbors based on mutual respect”.
which is why they invited the Glee Club to stay in Afghanistan. I mean, the Holiday Choir. no wait, i meant Al Qaeda.
bingregory 9:16 pm on December 7, 2009 Permalink |
At risk of launching into yet another round of “how responsible is Taliban/Afghanistan for 9/11″, there have been piles of reports since the emergence of the Taliban that show them to be solely a nationalist organization with little to no global ambitions. It is the American invasion that led them to see themselves in a more global jihadi kind of role. If they’re stepping back from that now, that’s good news.
Also this little tidbit at the end of the piece was interesting:
aziz 10:01 pm on December 7, 2009 Permalink |
this is simply not a credible assertion. Rashid’s book alone provides plenty of counterexample, as john points out downthread.
johnpi 8:15 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
Actually, the Taliban’s attitude to the US sharpened after the 1998 Al Qaeda embassy bombings prompted Clinton to launch cruise missiles at Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan. You’re going to need to explain to me what response would have been better, seeing as how even then the Taliban were refusing to give up Bin Laden as their ‘guest.’
At some point, you have t acknowledge (or maybe you won’t) that violence enters into the list of options for self-defense.
johnpi 8:16 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
That would have been the African embassy bombings.
Dan 9:25 pm on December 7, 2009 Permalink |
bingregory, I have a bit of trouble with that assessment. If they were indeed a nationalist organization, then how come they had recruits from Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Burma, India, etc.? How come they were interested in exporting the Talibanic brand of Islam to neighboring countries?
This video helps highlight their transnational ambitions well.
johnpi 9:42 pm on December 7, 2009 Permalink |
Also, why did they name Mullar Omar ‘Leader of the Faithful’ rather than, say, ‘Amir of Afghanistan’?
Even if the Taliban only dabbled in nafs worship and delusions of grandieur, it would be enough to lead them to open the country to all kinds of foreign groups, as they did. I believe Rashid wrote that there were two dozen foreign militant groups training in Afghanistan right before Sept. 11.
Conrad Barwa 3:56 am on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
I agree with bingregory here, a lot of the policies towards these groups reflects past obligation/gratitude towards them for their participation int he Soviet war. The situation with the CARs is a bit more complicated, since the Taliban were wary of support these countries and Russia were extending towards the Northern Alliance. Some CARs it should be noted like Turkmenistan cultivated and actually had good relations with the Taliban regime.
The point is that the pre-2001 Taliban were very parochial and nationalistic in their outlook and had little understanding about the outside world, beyond their own country and region. Taliban involvement in the most bloody conflicts involving Islamic extremists such as the Algerian civil war, terrorism in Egypt and the Occupied territories was peripheral. There was a underlying hostility towards a lot of the foreign fighters from the Arab world.
Also there were serious internal tensions over inviting and having Bin Laden stay in Afghanistan, AbdhulKader Sinni’s book on the Taliban is very good on this. Of course the post-2001 Taliban are a different issue and now they have incorporated many foreign elements, like the IMU into their organisational networks.
johnpi 8:01 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
In response to your first paragraph, the Taliban were a complete break with the Mujeheddin leaders of the anti-Soviet fighters, who by the time the Taliban arrived had become corrupt and venal, which was why the Talibs were greeted with open arms at first. The Taliban did rever some of the ulema, the religious personages of the anti-Soviet era, but they were never given leadership or consulted for political decisions made by the Taliban.
That’s good for Turkmenistan, but the other four CARs, when it looked like the Taliban might defeat Masud in 1998 gathered all of their foreign and defense ministers in Tashkent to “co-ordinate joint military and political plans to halt the Taliban advance.” The Russians pledged tens of thousands of troops, and even Turkmenistan had Russian border guards stationed at the borders.
The point is that the pre-2001 Taliban were very parochial and nationalistic in their outlook and had little understanding about the outside world, beyond their own country and region.
I agree with you that the Taliban’s perspective changed and became more ‘worldly,’ but for the worse. Rashid wrote:
Conrad Barwa 9:03 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink
Yes, I agree, my point was that those non-Afghans who participated in the anti-Soviet jihad could draw on a large reservoir of goodwill – particularly as they were not, by large, tainted in Taliban eyes by participating in the post-1991 intercinine fighting that took place. I think bin Laden and other groups took advantage of this during the later 90s.
I don’t think Turkmenistan saw any serious internal threat from the Taliban, the deployment of Russian troops was done because of security arrangements made with Russia post-1991 and was not wanted or called for by Ashgabat. Turkmenistan opted out of CIS security alliances soon after and refused to participate in the Russian sponsored CAR summit to discuss the Taliban; under Niyazov, relations with Russia were quite strained. Unlike Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, there were no predominant Turkmen factions in the Northern Alliance and neither did Turkmenistan suffer from civil war or a powerful homegrown Islamist movement which could challenge the govt – which accounts for its more moderate stance towards the Taliban. As far as I know, Turkemenistan didn’t attend the 1998 summit (could be wrong here).
I respect Rashid’s analysis but I disagree with some of the conclusions he reaches here. The only published accounts we have by senior Taliban figures, actually point towards a lot of latent hostility towards Bin Laden by many of the leadership including Mullah Omar, with Omar complaining that Bin Laden didn’t disburse funds directly though the shura in Kandahar but did so directly and only to selected recipients. The picture is a lot more complex than Rashid allows and Bin Laden was in many ways a troublesome guest, whom the Taliban couldn’t overtly reject but whom they weren’t happy to have to host.
The Shia massacres that happened in the north, especially in Mazar-i-Sharif were the consequence of the Shia forces there switching sides, which led to one of the most severe defeats for the Taliban. This act was seen as treacherous by the Taliban and provoked the backlash – before then, the Taliban actually reached out and went out of their way to try and establish relations with the Hizb Wahdat and reassure the population of the Hazarajat during their first drive towards Kabul of their intent. This doesn’t fit with the usual interpretation of them as Sunni bigots; things changed later but that was in response to political factors not ideological ones I would argue.
bingregory 9:06 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink
John, if the Taliban and Bin Laden’s worldview (which is still not the same thing as goals and objectives) grew closer together over time due to the variety of concrete reasons that you list, why is evidence of them growing apart over time immediately mocked and challenged? It looks from here like there is a desire to cast the Taliban as synonymous with Al-Q in order to justify the last 8 years of bloodshed. I’m not interested in theorizing for a Just War, on either side. But ending the war will involve negotiating with the Taliban and any settlement will include people who are in the Taliban now taking positions of power in the new regime. We can slay OBL and I sure hope we do, not that we’ve ever tried that hard, but we can’t slay the Taliban so we better learn how to talk and listen to them.
Conrad Barwa 4:02 am on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
I will have to re-read that bit in Rashid, but I wonder how many of these groups were major or important ones as opposed to tiny splinter groups? Of course the Taliban played a role in sustaining major organisations that were involved in conflicts in neighbouring countries like Uzbekistan and India – but I think this is a distinction, between saying that the Taliban were isolationists and that they were nationalists. All nationalists will take an interest in and have an active policy towards other states in their region and most of the conflicts the Taliban were actively involved in supporting, were regional conflicts which spoke directly to their security concerns (however misguided these were) they weren’t interested in directly attacking or seeking confrontation with powers outside their region. To suggest otherwise is a mistake imo.
bingregory 10:43 pm on December 7, 2009 Permalink |
Sorry I can’t view the video at work.
Yes there were foreigners in Afghanistan, but let’s break it down: foreigners had been helping Afghanistan fight its wars since the Soviet period. Why would they turn down help in their national struggle? The Taliban didn’t sponsor anybody – if anything OBL was sponsoring the Taliban. Calling those foreign fighters recruits is misleading – OBL might have international recruits, the Taliban could only be said to have international volunteers. Bosnia had an international brigade – which also proved very troublesome btw – but Bosnia didn’t recruit them, didn’t sponsor them, and had a hell of a hard time getting rid of them after the war. I seem to recall some commentators on this site even criticizing the Bosnian government for evicting them, in light of their volunteering in Bosnia’s time of need, intermarriage with locals, and not having been tried for a crime in a court of law. What’s the difference here?
I don’t see any evidence that the Taliban were “exporting the Talibanic brand of Islam” pre-invasion except possibly to FATA Pakistan but even that doesn’t make much sense because the core leadership of the Taliban all came from FATA Pakistan in the first place.
But whatever. Water under the bridge. The point now is that any solution in Afghanistan is going to involve talking to the Taliban, so I don’t see the benefit of automatically doubting a rare public statement by the leader of the movement with snark about what might have been going on 8 years ago. And I don’t see the benefit of treating the Taliban and Al-Q like they are inextricably linked. Whatever the amount of collaboration you suspect them of, and there was undeniably some, they are nonetheless independent groupings with different origins and objectives and ought to be considered as such.
Willow 12:54 am on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
My God. Anybody remember when this war was going to be over in three months, tops? With what nostalgia one looks back…
johnpi 8:45 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
The point now is that any solution in Afghanistan is going to involve talking to the Taliban,
I think you and Conrad have too much discounted my point about Mullah Omar being named ‘Commander of the Faithful.’ From his point of view, he is entrusted with administering God’s sovereignty on this planet. The Taliban seemed to perceive treaties and agreements with non-Talibans not as contracts to be honored but as dissolutions of collective iman, trade-ins on God’s sovereignty to be resisted and discarded at first chance. Check the 1990s history of the group in its interactions with NGOs and the UN.
A bit more about this:
Of course, a strong streak of ethnic chauvinism was revealed when the Taliban took over control of other ethnic regions of the country and all the local administers they put in place were Kandahari Pashtuns who often didn’t even speak the local language.
So I agree that a multi-ethnic coalition government would be wonderful, but the Taliban movement, for a variety of reasons, just doesn’t do coalitions, at least not as long as Mullah Omar or anyone like him is in charge.
That’s not to say that there’s not responsible people among the Afghan Taliban:
bingregory 9:19 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
too much discounted my point about Mullah Omar being named ‘Commander of the Faithful.’
Sorry John, I discounted it completely. It has as much significance as Halie Selassie I calling himself the “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and Elect of God” – that whole episode with the Cloak is simply political theater. To deduce from a fancy title that Mullah Omar plots to take over the world is just a bit much, seriously.
johnpi 9:23 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink
I don’t say that he plots, but that he sees himself as an internationalist figure and indulges foreign groups accordingly.
johnpi 7:54 am on December 9, 2009 Permalink
Wait a sec.
Let me restate to you what I think you just said.
1) Mullah Omar is a low-integrity cheap showman who misrepresents himself for political advantage.
2) We can trust that Mullah Omar will keep his word and be a reliable negotiating partner.
The core question in the original post that started this thread is whether Mullah Omar and the Taliban are misrepresenting themselves.
Abu Noor 8:10 am on December 9, 2009 Permalink
The King of Morocco is also “Amir al-Mu’minin” per the Constitution of the country.
The Sultan of Sokoto in Nigeria also calls himself and is called “Amir al-Muminin”
According to Wikipedia, the leader of the Ahmadiyya also refers to himself as Amir al-Muminin.
Mullah Omar has made it clear throughout that he does not consider himself the leader of all Muslims everywhere. The Taliban made it clear they were not requesting Muslims from around the world who wanted to live in an Islamic state to migrate to Afghanistan, in fact they said they could not accomodate them there.
johnpi 9:36 am on December 9, 2009 Permalink
I proceed form the premise that when we are talking about the Taliban and Mullah Omar we are discussion religious extremists who take their religion seriously, and that therefore we should take the religious language they use seriously. I don’t need to belabor the fact that when the Taliban controlled populations and were the governing authority everything they did was infused with – and said to be legitimized by – Islam.
I’ve gone so far as to tag stories about the Taliban ‘Taliban pagans’ because their conduct has at times seemed so far from the deen that they slipped out of the religion entirely. But I’ve never questioned the premise of whether they are sincere in their own minds about their faith.
I would dismiss the religious titles of the figures you have named here because I perceive them to be empty-suit elites who have to throw everything they can into the resume to prop up their legitimacy.
Abu Noor, do you even consider Mullah Omar to be religious? I recently asked you if you would say ‘Salaam alaikum’ to Fareed Zakaria if you met him (a person’s whose ‘Muslim authenticity’ seems doubtful to many). Would you give the greeting to Mullah Omar if you met him?
abunoor 12:56 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink
John,
I’m not sure your argument that you take the Taliban at their words entirely follows since you are choosing to accept certain statements of face value or even to read in additional meanings to the statements while at the same time you choose to discount other statements. It is probably best to focus more on their actions than their statements — statements are always made for a variety of reasons and carry a variety of meanings especially when communicated through the lens of conflict, negotiation, media, interpretation into different languages. It doesn’t mean that someone has to be insincere or fraud or else his statements have to mean what you assume them to mean. I thought the Taliban was pretty clear from the beginning that they were only intending to rule Afghanistan although they were allied with some elements that had broader ambitions at least rhetorically. (Whether people like AQ actually think they are in a serious process of establishing a caliphate in the real world is another discussion. I tend to think they are not actually working to do that. They may believe that should be what Muslims are working towards and they are in some way doing what they think might contribute to working towards that goal but do they really think it’s going to happen in their lifetime or do they act pragmatically to accomplish it. I tend to think not…but I could be wrong.)
To answer your question, I don’t feel I really know what Mullah Umar is like to any degree necessary to state basically anything about him with any confidence. I’ve heard and read some contradictory things and don’t feel I have enough information to come to such conclusions.
If I was in some place in Pakistan, and walked into a room and someone said “This is Mullah Umar, Yes I would say As salaamu ‘alaykum” (I don’t know that I would address him as “ameer ul mu’mineen
) I would have some questions for him though 
Conrad Barwa 10:28 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
I do think that it was a piece of political theatre as well; most organisations that rely on what sociologists would call ‘charismatic’ leadership display this trait but the Taliban’s policies were surprisingly limited in terms of what they did outside their borders. As I pointed out earlier, the bloodiest conflicts between Islamist extremists and governments from Algeria to Chechnya had little to do directly with Afghanistan – there was the exodus and trans-national network of trained fighters who participated in the anti-Soviet jihad but these were not subject to Taliban control and operated independently. The Taliban probably didn’t care too much about what some of these fighters did outside their own country (unwisely) but that doesn’t mean they directed these movements. The main problem with seeing the Taliban like this and Omar is that, imo, it mis-understands the nature of the Taliban and the real reason behind their success. It wasn’t simply because of Pak support that made the Taliban gain ground so quickly – Pakistan had been supporting Hikatmatyar for years and getting nowhere but their ability to win over local commanders and persuade important district and sub-regional commanders to switch sides. This was the reason behind their rapid advance (they actually didn’t do much fighting until they attempted to gain control of Herat and the northern regions) and also the reason behind their relatively rapid fall, as the same groups and leaders quickly deserted them when the writing appeared on the wall. The Taliban, in addition to their internal coherence and motivation, were able to play this game of networking much more effectively that the other muhajeddin factions, which is why they were able to take over most of the country where they failed and why they tended to hang on to their conquests like Kabul. The Taliban were quite clear about this and knew the reason behind their success, part of their political theatre was to project their image of strength and specific ideology but this kind of cobbled alliance would not have permitted any adventurous forays abroad or an aggressive foreign policy.
The Taliban were actually pretty consistent in their treaties and arrangements with non-Taliban forces, much more so than the Muhajedin who kept on switching sides after the collapse of Najibullah’s regime – this is one of the thing that attracted people to them. I agree they had problems with the UN and NGOs active in Afghanistan but most of them will tell you this is because they didn’t accept the legitimacy of many of the conventions and treaties that the pre-1991 Afghan state had signed up to and had trouble with some of the concepts or approaches such as the attitude towards women working outside the home in an urban environment. It didn’t have anything to do with Taliban perfidy per se. If you follow Rashid’s description of the negotiations carried out by Bridas and UNOCAL, what sunk the schemes wasn’t this but the inability of delivering an adequate level of security and the economic viability of the project – combined with adverse publicity.
Part of the problem, as I understand relates to the fact that Taliban policy was inconsistent – for example, women continued to be able to work in the household agricultural sector, outside the home in Kandahar but restrictions were much tougher in Kabul; there was similar equivocation over whether schooling for girls would be permitted or not. There is some question over whether any real agreement internally existed in the Taliban over this and several other issues; not aided by the rather opaque decision-making process the Taliban had.
Well, that is a simplified version of how things happened; the Taliban issued a decree that all NGOs in Kabul should relocate to a building complex that most NGOs felt was insecure; there was a process of negotiation which broke down and the EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs informed NGOs funded by ECHO that their funding would cease if they stayed past the expulsion date or tried to negotiate further with the Taliban at which point most organisations quit Kabul. However, this did not mean they quit Afghanistan – many of the rural development continued as did the NGO presence in the countryside, one reason why NGOs and IGOs were actually not that badly placed to respond to the drought that occurred in 2000 – unfortunately UN sanctions limited most of the UN agencies here. Even in Kabul many agencies returned in 1999 though the scale of their operations was much lesser than before.
bingregory 11:01 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink
Sensei, do you have your own blog somewhere?
Conrad Barwa 4:24 pm on December 9, 2009 Permalink
Afraid not, too lazy, which is why I just comment these days. Running a blog requires a lot of energy!
thabet 12:26 am on December 13, 2009 Permalink
The comment pages of this and other websites is Conrad’s blog
abunoor 9:51 am on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
I’m completely with binGregory and Conrad Barwa on this. I was going to post something similar as it seems clear to me that it was the U.S. invasion that caused some elements of the Taliban to become internationalized, and even with regards to that there has been consistent reporting that the Mullah Umar/Quetta Shura faction is trying to be clear that it is willing to limit its ambitions to Afghanistan. Refusing to acknowledge this just becomes self-fulfilling, for if you choose to treat the group as evil international terrorists that can only be destroyed, they will have no choice but to accept help from whoever’s offering, which at that point would only by AQ or similiar international jihadists.
According to that poll you linked earlier JohnPI, I think 71 percent of Afghanis support negotiation with the Taliban. Are you guys against that (I would assume you would be if they are just Al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan)?
By the way, none of my comments should be interpreted as rejection of internationalism. I’m against Al-Qa’ida because they kill civilians and engage in other crimes against Islam, the internationalism part is one of their best features.
johnpi 9:11 pm on December 8, 2009 Permalink |
The Taliban took an anti-Western turn after the 1998 cruise missile retaliation for the African embassy bombings, which I just don’t see how you can get away from some type of violent, coercive response to get bin Laden. To allow themselves to be provoked against America over this incident shows that the Taliban were already being primed for anti-Americanism by Bin Laden, Pakistan, et al.
See my comments above about Taliban antagonism to agreements with non-Taliban. i think everbody supports talking and the potential of obtaining a peace agreement peacefully.
If by ‘internationalism’ you mean a transnational Islamic polity, or a caliphate, the Taliban experience is yet another example of the problems I see with that conception. Look at the blatant ethnic chauvinism exhibited by the Taliban. Arab chauvinism in Islamic practice originating in that part of the world is a real problem. It seems a pipe dream to think we can create a polity that puts ethnic supremacy outside the tent.
thabet 12:35 am on December 13, 2009 Permalink |
I really enjoyed the exchanges above. Thanks to all.
While I think too many (Western) Muslims are willing to give the Taliban a free ride, and gloss over their crimes or their use in the regional geopolitics (i.e. Pakistan’s support for the Taliban), I generally agree with Abu Noor, Conrad and Bin Gregory.