This was their first major attack after a ceasefire was called for the Eid al-Fitr holiday 46 killed, unknown wounded. Executive Summary. The Taliban seeks to establish a strictly Shariah-governed Afghan state. The Taliban was removed from power by U.
Since then, the Taliban has fought to push foreign military forces out of Afghanistan and delegitimize the Afghan government. Negotiations between the U.
The Taliban utilizes both conventional and unconventional tactics to pursue its goals. Group Narrative. The Taliban, not to be confused with Pakistani Taliban emerged as an Islamist militant organization in under the spiritual leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar. A large majority of Taliban supporters are students from Afghan and Pakistani madrasa, hence the name Taliban or - in Pashto - students. Although the Taliban officially formed in , its original fighters were the mujahedeen, forces that fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan from to During this time, the fighters were covertly supported by the U.
This and other madrasas initially fomented the Taliban organization. Pakistani and Arab philanthropists gave these school funding hoping to proselytize a particular interpretation of Islam.
At these madrassas, future Taliban members developed a belief in Shariah law, motivated by the suffering among the Afghan people. Within months, the Taliban grew to 15, as students from madrassas in Pakistan joined the movement. Along with these new recruits came financial and military support from Pakistan. Through this support, the Taliban was able to seize the important border town of Spin Boldak. The Taliban movement aimed to establish a divinely ordered Islamic system in Afghanistan.
On November 3, , the Taliban took control of Kandahar City in a surprise attack, losing only a dozen men in the fight. In , the Taliban successfully took control of Kabul and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Mullah Omar became the head of state. Under the Taliban, strict Shariah law was enforced, which led to large criticism around the world for its treatment of women and children, as well as its denial of food and aid to underserved citizens.
The group used various conventional and unconventional warfare techniques to achieve their goal of establishing a strictly Shariah-governed Afghan state. By , the Taliban had come to control 90 percent of the country. Taliban-governed Afghanistan became an international pariah for its human rights abuses and refusal to surrender Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and other internationally wanted criminals.
Only three foreign governments recognized the Taliban government between and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The Northern Alliance maintained Afghanistan's seat at the United Nations, further adding to the tension between the groups. In , Al-Qaeda arrived in Afghanistan from Sudan.
For one, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda adhere to different strains of Islamic thought, the Taliban associated with Saudi-influenced, Wahhabi style beliefs and Al-Qaeda associated with a more radical and more rigid Hanbali school of thought. The groups had tense relationship and differed in their strategy.
For example, Osama Bin Laden saw action against the U. On December 19, , after more than a year of attempts to apprehend Osama Bin Laden through negotiations, the United Nations imposed wide sanctions and an air embargo on the Taliban government. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until Afghan representatives from across the country were invited to elect a transitional administration.
The resulting power-sharing agreement privileged the Northern Alliance members, who were primarily ethnically Tajik and Uzbek and excluded the Taliban, who were ethnically Pashtun. The U. The Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban group, enters Kabul shortly afterwards.
The Taliban was not invited to participate. In May of , U. By , the U. Before , suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan. In , there were just six such attacks committed by the Taliban. In the number more than tripled to 21, and in , Afghanistan saw suicide attacks, causing 1, casualties.
In February , the new Obama administration in the U. In contrast to the U. The additional manpower was successful in clearing the Taliban from power from its stronghold in Kandahar City and the surrounding districts such as Arghandab, Panwai, and Maiwand. The group, however, was still operationally functional and able to carry out suicide assaults, assassinations, and even a massive prison break.
Most of Helmand province was also cleared of Taliban, which dealt a blow to the lucrative narcotics trade they had been operating from the province. The area is also of importance to the Haqqani Network, an Al Qaeda and Taliban-linked group, considered one of the most dangerous and effective Taliban allies. With U. In January , the Taliban opened an office in Qatar to begin political settlement talks on the future of Afghanistan with the U.
The office was instrumental in the negotiations over Bowe Berghdal, the U. Berghdal was released in exchange for five Taliban members the U. In April of , Mullah Omar died in Pakistan from an alleged illness. The group kept his death quiet until several years later.
In September , the Taliban seized control of Kunduz, the first provincial capital to fall under Taliban control since their defeat in In July , Afghan government officials and Taliban leaders met for the first round of talks in a new peace process. Amid July negotiations with the Government of Afghanistan, the Taliban made the surprise announcement of the death of leader Mullah Omar.
The Taliban's political bureau opposed the negotiations, believing any negotiations should be conducted from its Doha office to avoid Pakistani influence. Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States, and China came to an agreement in late February on a road map to end the Afghan war through negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban. Taliban representatives were expected to join Afghan officials in the first round of peace talks in Pakistan in the Spring of but the death of Mullah Mansoor by a U.
The security situation appears to be deteriorating. Afghan forces still lack the manpower, infrastructure and training needed to take back large areas of territory from the Taliban. It remains to be seen whether the Taliban will reciprocate with similar desires. New Haven: Yale University Press. Shooting up: Counterinsurgency and the war on drugs. Washington, D. Fundamentalism Reborn? Tauris, Encyclopedia of human rights Volume 1 ed. Oxford University Press. Council on Foreign Relations.
Missiles Pound Targets in Afghanistan, Sudan. Cable News Network, 20 Aug. The World Almanac of Islamism: Retrieved AFP, 6 Oct. Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 23 June War in Afghanistan. Department of State. So that could have added to greater congestion, and will in the future. Another crucial factor contributing to traffic congestion is the desire of most Americans to live in low-density settlements. Eighty-three percent of respondents chose the larger, farther-out suburban home.
At the same time, new workplaces have been spreading out in low-density areas in most metropolitan regions. Past studies, including one published in by Boris S. Pushkarev and Jeffery M. Zupan, have shown that public transit works best where gross residential densities are above 4, persons per square mile; relatively dense housing is clustered close to transit stations or stops; and large numbers of jobs are concentrated in relatively compact business districts.
But in , at least two thirds of all residents of U. Those densities are too low for public transit to be effective. Hence their residents are compelled to rely on private vehicles for almost all of their travel, including trips during peak hours. But most residents of those neighborhoods vehemently oppose raising densities, and most American regions already have densities far too low to support much public transit.
So this strategy would not reduce future traffic congestion much. Peak-hour road pricing would not be politically feasible if policymakers put tolls on all major commuter lanes, but HOT lanes can increase traveler choices by adding new toll lanes to existing expressways, or converting underused high-occupancy vehicle HOV lanes to HOT lanes, and leaving present conventional lanes without tolls. True, HOT lanes do not eliminate congestion.
But they allow anyone who needs to move fast on any given day to do so, without forcing all low-income drivers off those same roads during peak periods. In some regions, whole networks of HOT lanes could both add to overall capacity and make high-speed choices always available to thousands of people in a hurry. Respond more rapidly to traffic-blocking accidents and incidents. Removing accidents and incidents from major roads faster by using roving service vehicles run by government-run Traffic Management Centers equipped with television and electronic surveillance of road conditions is an excellent tactic for reducing congestion delays.
Build more roads in growing areas. Opponents of building more roads claim that we cannot build our way out of congestion because more highway capacity will simply attract more travelers. Due to triple convergence, that criticism is true for established roads that are already overcrowded. But the large projected growth of the U. Install ramp-metering. This means letting vehicles enter expressways only gradually. It has improved freeway speed during peak hours in both Seattle and the Twin Cities, and could be much more widely used.
Use Intelligent Transportation System devices to speed traffic flows. These devices include electronic coordination of signal lights on local streets, large variable signs informing drivers of traffic conditions ahead, one-way street patterns, Global Positioning System equipment in cars and trucks, and radio broadcasts of current road conditions. These technologies exist now and can be effective on local streets and arteries and informative on expressways.
HOV lanes have proven successful in many areas such as Houston. More regions could use HOV lanes effectively if there were more lanes built for that purpose, rather than trying to convert existing ones. Merely converting existing lanes would reduce overall road capacity.
Demonstration programs have shown that if firms offer to pay persons now receiving free employee parking a stipend for shifting to carpooling or transit, significant percentages will do so. That could reduce the number of cars on the road. However, this tactic does not prevent the offsetting consequences of triple convergence. Restrict very low-density peripheral development.
Urban growth boundaries that severely constrain all far-out suburban development will not reduce future congestion much, especially in fast-growing regions. And such boundaries may drive up peripheral housing prices.
But requiring at least moderate residential densities—say, 3, persons per square mile 4. In , thirty-six urbanized areas had fringe area densities of 3, or more. Those thirty-six urbanized areas contained Cluster high-density housing around transit stops. Such Transit Oriented Developments TODs would permit more residents to commute by walking to transit, thereby decreasing the number of private vehicles on the roads.
However, the potential of this tactic is limited. Even so, developing many of these high-density clusters might make public transit service more feasible to many more parts of large regions. Give regional transportation authorities more power and resources. Congress has created Metropolitan Planning Organizations to coordinate ground transportation planning over all modes in each region.
If these were given more technical assistance and power, more rational systems could be created. Without much more regionally focused planning over land uses as well as transportation, few anti-congestion tactics will work effectively.
Raise gasoline taxes. Raising gas taxes would notably slow the rate of increase of all automotive travel, not just peak-hour commuting. But Congress has refused to consider it because it is politically unpopular and fought by industry lobbyists. Peak-hour traffic congestion in almost all large and growing metropolitan regions around the world is here to stay.
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