When the Taliban ran Afghanistan before the USA occupation, they didn't have any other organization challenge them. It may be the reason Pakistan reconstituted them. I am not making excuses for Pakistan, but, the ISI is rather independent of the Pakistani government and may see the Taliban as capable of stabilizing the region.
It wasn't much of a battle the Taliban won by the way. The Afghan military disintegrated, except, for a police station chief that was assassinated because he was wearing a uniform that did not represent the Taliban. Did they ask him if those were the only clothes he had to wear? But, the police chief may have been hated by the people. It is just something that isn't known. Iraq was like that for a while. Local authorities were some of the most hellish figures in Iraq and then one day the British came to investigate and there were no more terrorists running the police station. There were death squads for a time in Iraq. Everyone has their own revenge list and it surfaces when there is chaos in the country.
Al Baghdadi is dead (click here). He created a modern day terrorist organization empowered to return his variety of Islamic Law to its original haunts. When the Middle East defeated ISIS it was to destroy it forever, but, some members decided they had a noble cause and made it to Afghanistan to find a place to call home. This is what I mean when I say geography alone provides an impossible task to end the hideouts of extremists and murderers.
Khorasani, also known as Mawlawi Ziya ul-Haq
Zia ul-Haq, also known as Sheikh Omar Khorasani, was held with two other senior leaders of the militant group.
The Taliban are the main militant group in Afghanistan but IS has been active in some areas and has carried out several bomb attacks in Kabul.
Correspondents say the arrest will be a major breakthrough if confirmed.
The other two were named as his spokesman Saheeb and chief of intelligence Abu Ali....
See, the economy of Afghanistan is built around poppies. It has been for a long time. So, the occupation of the USA brought a challenge to these goons that run the Poppy Cartels, namely the Haqqani Network (click here). And eventually, the USA was made to leave the poppy growers alone because there was no other economic opportunity on the horizon.
Richard Holbrooke ate, drank, and slept Afghanistan. He believed he could turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. He died trying. He died of a heart attack. The land and the people were tougher than he was. He would make testimony to Congress and report all the upside of our occupation and then he would report the ideas and hopes that were more lackluster than possible.
I think the Pakistani ISI is responsible for the long-standing presence of the Taliban in the region. Haqqani probably funded their militia. The land is tough land and the people are very difficult to change because overbearing force maintains a presence in every thought the people have. If a woman has a burka too short showing too much ankle they are hung in the town square. At least that is the way it used to be. They may have mellowed a bit. They are stating women do have rights in Sharia Law. I would not want to live under Sharia Law, but, at least everyone knows where they stand.
But as to Khorasani, the people were terrified of him or any ISIS member. I don't doubt the fact he was in prison rather than executed played into the Taliban's insistence on control of one kind or another. They saw groups of men inhabiting what was their land and the Taliban didn't think they were safe. Today, with Khorasani dead, there are people in the Middle East that might admire the Taliban for doing what no one else would do, end the life of a man intent on others' destruction if he ever obtained any power at all.
There are reasons for the way things rolled out in Afghanistan and it was going to happen that way no matter how much the USA prepared to leave. It is a land that does not adhere to Western principles. There are many divisions of authority in Afghanistan along the lines of ethnicity. If one ethnic is doing better than another, it is an issue. The USA never wanted to recognize those divisions as important so much as an evil of democracy, the melting pot.
Equality is a threat in Afghanistan, where one authority rules their corner of the world while another would like to eliminate them. There is no equity in Afghanistan. It is a foreign idea that the people might like to have as governance, but, with a drug cartel running the only economy that sustains, that will never happen. Reality took over in Afghanistan no matter the efforts of the USA and its allies
The drama at the airport is unfortunate and the gunmen that fired into crowds to disperse them didn't know water cannons can do the same thing, only better. This is the land that God forgot. Afghanistan is a niche in the world where small minorities could be safe enough to survive. It is a marginal land with extremist populations that cannot survive any place else. Afghanistan is what it is called, but, the country is completely unmanageable unless it is ruled by men who see their lives through limited possibilities and act on those possibilities with the idea of survival.
So long as the people understand the dynamics of their governors and the governance, they will be okay. Women will be recognized and in time the affiliation they have with Pakistan might even prove to be a changing force in the country ruled by the Taliban.
Democracy is a strange thing. Once a peoples have had a taste of it, it is difficult to ignore. I would say, the future for Afghanistan isn't written yet and I would not give up on the idea that the people liked democracy enough to carve out a future where it can grow and bring their children prosperity.
For now, the people will have to get used to their new governance and decide what the future holds. I am sorry the nation-building didn't work. So, did Richard Holbrooke in his chronic insistence that it would.
August 19, 2021
With the Taliban having won the battle (click here) for supremacy in Afghanistan, the group appears to have begun a crackdown on its rivals. According to media reports and social media footage, Omar Khorasani, former head of the Islamic State in South Asia.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Khorasani, also known as Mawlawi Ziya ul-Haq, was taken from an Afghan government prison and executed. Khorasani had been arrested by Afghan security forces in an operation in May 2020. Khorasani headed the group’s South Asia operations, but had been replaced as chief at the time of his arrest....
