The Taliban, or the story of an Afghanistan at war

These offensives, which rout the government forces, take place when the United States and its allies withdraw from this entangled country in an interminable spiral of violence.But who are these Taliban who resist the most powerful armies on the planet?

We have to go back a few years before 1980, in the midst of the Cold War, to paint the portrait of a resistance to a military occupation which will lead to a most rigorous and brutal Islamic regime.

Between putschs and chaos

In 1973, Afghanistan was shaken by a coup of state led by Prince Mohammad Daoud Khan, who wanted to transform the kingdom into an atheist country of communist allegiance.An idea that does not pass within the Muslim population and to which the opposition is also hostile.

Other blows will follow, until the coming to power in 1978 of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), supported by the Soviet Union.

Fearing the impacts, for its empire, of a possible Islamic revolution in the neighboring country, the Soviet Union, which then had some 50 million Muslims, sent its army to Kabul in December 1979.

With its 100,000 men on the ground, Moscow faces a strong resistance of the mujahideen, before the United States was involved by providing weapons and support.War will last a decade.

The birth of the Taliban

Certains de ces combattants moudjahidines formeront les groupes armés qui se feront connaître dans les années 1990 comme les talibans (mot qui signifie « étudiants »).

Ils séduisent des milliers de jeunes, notamment d'origine pachtoune, l'ethnie majoritaire en Afghanistan, qu’ils forment dans les mosquées et les medersa, ou écoles coraniques.

This fundamentalist Islamist movement made up of conservative Sunni Islamists intends to enforce Islamic laws in Afghanistan, according to a rigorous interpretation of religion.

In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union vacillated, the Taliban intervened in the Afghan political sphere with their weapons, in a country torn apart by fratricidal violence between mujahideen.They present themselves as the solution to predominant chaos.They even manage to bring calm in certain rural areas.

The walk towards Kabul begins in the south of the country with the capture of Kandahar.It will take them less than two months to conquer 12 provinces.

And it was as winners that they enter the capital in 1996.

The reign of terror

Shocking images of women in burqa will follow, whipped by men armed with sticks.Secondary school is now prohibited for young girls.

Des téléviseurs sont détruits sur la place publique pour signifier le rejet de la culture occidentale. On peut être arrêté par les membres des patrouilles de la police du ministère pour la promotion de la vertu et la répression du vice pour avoir vu un film ou écouté de la musique.

The Taliban will go so far as to energize the statues of the Buddhas of Bâmiyan.

Indignation around the world does not go back.They run wildly women and men accused of adultery by stoning them in a full stadium until dead follows.Others are hanged on the public square.

American presence in Afghanistan

It was the attacks on twin rounds in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, who left 2,977 people dead and more than 6,200 injured, who will give a pretext to the American administration of George W. Bush to intervene in Afghanistan.

The United States accuses the Taliban of hiding the leaders of Al Qaeda, responsible for the attacks carried out by 19 terrorists identified as members of this organization.Less than a month after attacks, President Bush orders strikes against Taliban forces.

The man to be killed is Osama bin Laden, founder of Al-Qaeda.He will finally be traced in Pakistan and killed in an American operation in May 2011.

However, the intervention of the United States and its allies in 2001 will have succeeded in chasing the Taliban from power.

Despite a Western military presence in his twenties afterwards, the Taliban resumed ground, especially in the east and in several districts in the south and north of the country.

Multiplying the attacks, they end up exhausting government forces and leading the Western forces in the country.

In addition to the Americans, the Canadian forces spend more than 12 years in Afghanistan, where more than 40,000 soldiers are deployed.

Their mission was transformed in 2011 to play a training role with the Afghan national security forces.This operation, called attention, will train some 120,000 Afghan soldiers.

The return

The Taliban, who were believed to be defeated, regain ground and multiply the attacks.Civilians are not spared.The number of victims has reached a new record since 2009, with 5166 civilians who died or injured in the first six months of 2016.

The spiral of violence does not stop, forcing the United States to sit at the negotiation table in Doha, where an agreement qualified as history is signed, paving the way for a total withdrawal of American troops after 18years of war and interafghanes peace negotiations.

Meanwhile, the Taliban multiply conquests in the different regions of the country and walk on Kabul, where diplomatic representations are preparing to leave the country at all times.