Who Exactly are the Taliban?
From The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen, pg. 39:
Ninety percent of the people you call “Taliban” are actually tribals. They’re fighting for loyalty or Pashtun honor, and to profit their tribe. They’re not extremists. But they’re terrorized by the other 10 percent: religious fanatics, terrorists, people allied to [the Taliban leadership shura in] Quetta. They’re afraid that if they try to reconcile, the crazies will kill them. To win them over, first you have to protect their people, prove that the extremists can’t hurt them if they come to your side.
- Afghan provincial governor, March 2008
The leadership shura in Quetta constitutes the Soviet-era Taliban vanguard that insurgents in the southern part of Afghanistan are alligned with. No longer in Quetta, they’re hiding out in the resource rich Baluchistan Province in Pakistan where they’ve found support from Baluch separatist insurgents.
(image/Atlantic Monthly)
In the East, distinct and loosely coordinated extremist groups with similar objectives also fall under the broad Taliban umbrella. Kilcullen goes on to estimate:
…calculating total strength province by province, as of mid-2007, between 32,000 and 40,000 insurgents were operating inside Afghanistan at any one time. This includes 8,000-10,000 full-time fighters or “core” Taliban, or about 25 percent of the total, typically on the orderof 200 to 450 full-time Taliban per province…The remaining 22,000 to 32,000 fighters are local, part-time guerrillas who…operate on an ad hoc basis. In addiiton, several thousand individuals operate in loose networks as part of to the clandestine village underground, and a sympathizer and supporter base exists in both Afghanistan and Pakistan…Perhaps 3,000-4,000 fighters, or about 20 percent of the total, are hard-core fanatics who are not reconcilable under any circumstances and thus have to be dealt with thorugh police and military measures.
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