Martyrs of the Mullahs
Master’s Thesis
Name:
Patrick Magee
Student Number:
2421089
Thesis Supervisor:
Dr. Veilleux-Lepage
1
ABSTRACT
In 2005 the Afghan Taliban began a sustained campaign of suicide bombing. This paper
analyses why the Taliban were able to implement and sustain this campaign of suicide
bombing through the lens of the constituency cost. The Taliban emerged from and are rooted
in the Pashtun population of Afghanistan who historically possessed a cultural aversion to the
practice of suicide bombing. This paper examines the literature on suicide bombing and
provides the background and context of Pashtun tribal society and the Taliban organisation. It
then examines five major factors in how the Taliban were able to adopt the practice of suicide
bombing without too great a constiuency cost: a focus on hard targets over soft targets; the
use of non-Pashtun bombers; the alienation of the Pashtun population form Coalition and
Afghan government forces; the eradication of anti-Taliban mullahs; and the internal
organisational influence of Mullah Dadullah and the Haqqani Network.
2
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
……….…...3
2. Literature Review
………...7
2.1 General Literature………...7
2.2 Collectivism & Constituency……….12
2.3 Suicide bombing in Afghanistan………....13
2.4 Theoretical Lens, Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca: Killing Without Dying... 14
3. Background & Context
………...16
3.1 History of the Taliban
……….16
3.1.1 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-1989)
...16
3.1.2 Afghan Civil War (1989 - 1996)
...17
3.1.3 Rise of the Taliban (1994-1996)
...18
3.1.4 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996-2001)
...18
3.1.5 United States invasion of Afghanistan, Taliban resurgence (2001-)
...19
3.2 The Pashtuns
………...20
3.2.1 Pashtunistan
………..20
3.2.2 Tribal System
………....21
3.2.3 Pashtunwali
………..21
3.2.4 Religion
………...22
3.2.5 The Taliban & the Pashtuns
……….23
3.3 Organisation of the Taliban
………....24
3.3.1 Structure
………..24
3.3.2 Taliban soldiers
………...25
3.3.3 The Haqqani Network
……….25
3.3.4 Conclusion
………...27
4. Methodology
………....28
4.1 Case Selection………....28
4.2 Hypotheses………....….29
4.3 Concepts………...29
4.4 Source Selection………...30
4.5 Limitations………...31
5. Analysis
………..………..…....33
5.1 Taliban Reticence………..….33
5.2 Hard Targets vs. Soft Targets………...…..35
5.3 Non-Pashtuns as Suicide Bombers………....……….37
5.4 Pashtun Alienation………...39
5.5 Eradication of anti-Taliban Mullahs……….…..41
5.6 Dadullah & Haqqani………..….42
6. Conclusion
………...….46
3
1. Introduction
Two days before the events of 9/11 in Takhar province, northern Afghanistan two Al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists detonated a bomb hidden in their camera (UNAMA, 2007), killing Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the last pocket of resistance against the Taliban regime which ruled Afghanistan. These assassins, believed to be linked to Al Qaeda, would be the country’s first suicide bombers. It would not be until four years later in 2005 that the country would witness a homegrown campaign of suicide bombing as the Taliban made the organisational decision to begin using the tactic. In its last forty years the country has suffered from almost constant warfare beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979, then the civil war and the rise of the Taliban, and now the current conflict between Coalition forces and the Taliban insurgency that has lasted from 2001 until the present day. This current conflict has been marked by the phenomenon of suicide bombing, unseen during all the years of the Soviet occupation and internecine warfare of the mujahedin groups in the civil war. This research paper seeks to analyse this phenomenon by asking: Why did the Taliban adopt the practice of suicide bombing?
The 21st century has been marked by an increase in suicide bombing as a tactic used by terrorist and
insurgent groups. There were more suicide attacks between 2001 and 2005 than in the thirty years prior (Harmon, Mujkic, Kaukinen & Weir, 2018). This increase in suicide attacks has brought with it an increase in the attention afforded the phenomenon by social scientists (Piazza, 2008).
Understanding this tactic is central to understanding terrorism in the modern era. Suicide attacks have altered the way that governments and security forces have had to tackle terrorist groups. This form of warfare has given these groups their very own human ‘smart bomb’ (Hafez, 2006) with the ability to strike targets more effectively and with more casualties. It accounts for a minority of terrorist acts across the world but is responsible for a majority of all terrorism-related casualties (Atran, 2006).
After Afghanistan’s first suicide bombing in 2001 there would be more sporadic attacks against Afghan government forces and the Coalition forces who had invaded that year. These attacks were attributed to foreign terrorist groups that had taken up residence in Afghanistan such as Al-Qaeda. It would not be until 2005 that a native Afghan suicide bombing campaign, perpetrated by the Taliban, would open the floodgates to turn Afghanistan into the deadliest place on earth for this kind of attack, overtaking Iraq in the sheer number of incidents (Jamieson, 2018). The Taliban, the leading insurgent group fighting against Coalition forces and the Afghan government would go on to use this tactic frequently right up until the present day. The campaign of suicide bombing by the Taliban only began
4 four years into the occupation by Coalition forces (UNAMA, 2007). Indeed, there were pervasive taboos against the practice drawn from deep cultural and religious traditions that decried its use. Suicide bombing is now, however, so embedded in Afghan warfare that it is easy to overlook that there was a turning point in the country’s history where the tactic was first used and then developed and spread.
Kalyvas & Sanchez Cuenca (2004), two scholars on the subject of terrorism and insurgency, analyse why certain terrorist organisations refrain from suicide bombing. If the use of suicide bombs are used to achieve a certain set of goals, then their absence must be used to achieve another, different set of goals. Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca note that though suicide attacks have multiplied, they remain a marginal phenomenon overall. If their deadly and effective use as human ‘smart bombs’ is observable, why then are they not used more often than they are? It is through this theoretical lens that the
research question will be approached. The manner in which the Taliban adopted the practice of suicide bombing can be answered in many ways depending on the approach taken. For example, it is strongly argued that the Taliban would not have adopted the practice if not for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which saw suicide bombs rip through the fabric of Iraqi society (Williams, 2008) (Jones, 2008), and the unleashing of the practice in Iraq allowed this innovation to diffuse into the US’ other major combat zone. The ties between Al Qaeda and the Taliban are well known, with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda sheltering in Taliban controlled Afghanistan being the casus belli for the US’s invasion of the country after the events of 9/11. Al Qaeda continued to operate in Afghanistan after the invasion and the connections the organisation had between there and Iraq, as well as the influx and movement of fighters between these two theatres of war allowed new innovations and tactics to spread to Afghanistan that had previously had no home there. This tie has been observed and so the how of suicide bombing by the Taliban is known but the why of the matter is not. From Kalyvas &
Sanchez-Cuenca it can be seen that having the means to conduct suicide attack is not enough for the practice to be unequivocally used, other factors must come into play to allow the tactic to be
implemented. Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca posit that constituency cost is the major factor that allows an organisation to implement suicide bombing. Without the support of one’s constituency to use the tactic it could never be used successfully as the loss of support from the constituency that would result would be more severe for the survival of the organisation than the gains made by the use of the tactic. In the case of the Taliban it is the Pashtun population of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region from which they primarily draw their support. And it is from this perspective of constituency cost that this paper will approach the research question.
5 This research paper will be a single case study analysis into the Afghan Taliban. It will use
triangulation of secondary and tertiary sources to answer the research question. This is made feasible by the length of the current conflict in Afghanistan between the Taliban, Coalition and Afghan government forces, as well as the widespread coverage it has received across the world due to its status as America’s longest ever war (Fazal & Kreps, 2018).
The adoption of suicide bombing by the Taliban displays how certain tactics can evolve in regions they were not native to and which previously never had the capacity or motivation to implement them. The foreign military role in Afghanistan is seemingly winding down and as it does so we are able to look back along the length of the conflict and analyse what occurred that led to its major events such as the adoption of suicide bombing. By understanding how such events came about we can then learn how to avoid them in the future. The lessons learnt can be applied across the world in any location wherein terrorism and suicide attack may emerge. Afghanistan stands as an example of how it is possible.
This paper is broken down into five sections (2) literature review; (3) background and context; (4) methodology, (5) analysis and the (6) conclusion. Section 2 will outline the existing literature on the subject of suicide terrorism to provide insight into the current state of researh that affects the topic. First, an overview of the major theories on suicide terrorism in general will be provided before
moving into a study of suicide terrorism in relation to collectivism and constituency in particluar. This will then be followed by an examination of existing literature on suicide terrorism in Afghanistan. The study of suicide bombing in Afghanistan incorporates a wide range of factors that need to be
considered, such as the presence of foreign occupation forces and a collectivist society, which this literature review process allows to then be effectively examined. Following this, the theoretical lens from which this research paper will be analysing its research question will be examined in greater detail. Section 3 will explore the background and context of Afghanistan, the Taliban and Pashtun society. A brief overview of the modern history of Afghanistan will be provided, from the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979 until the 2001 invasion by Coalition forces. As an understanding of the constituency base of the Taliban is necessary this section will also explain the structure of Pashtun tribal society, before providing information on how the Taliban itself is organised. Section 4 will expound on the methodological approach used in this research paper. Section 5 provides an overview of the number of suicide bombings that occurred during the intitial stages of the Taliban’s suicide bombing campaign before discussing the cultural aversion and Taliban reticence to the tactic. It then examines five major factors that this research paper finds are what allowed the Taliban to conduct a suicide bombing campaign without losing their base of support. These are: the Taliban’s targeting of
6 ‘hard targets’ over ‘soft targets’; the use of non-Pashtun bombers; Pashtun alienation with the
government and Coalition forces as a cause for Pashtun support for the Taliban; the eradication of anti-Taliban Mullahs preventing alternative narratives regarding suicide bombing becoming
pervasive in Pashtun society; and the influence of specific individuals within the Taliban organisation in being able to develop the use of the tactic, notably Mullah Dadullah and the Haqqani Network. In section 6 the conclusion to the findings is provided.
7
2. Literature Review
Suicide terrorism has received increasing attention in recent decades. With events such as 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, which saw large-scale use of this tactic, the phenomenon has received a lot of focus from both scholarly and public discourse. Research on suicide bombing has looked at many different aspects of the tactic, from individual motivations (Stern, 2003), to its strategic use (Pape, 2005), to rationalist and culturalist explanations (Hafez, 2006). Each of these lines of questioning play a part in understanding as a whole the phenomenon of suicide bombing, but for the purposes of this research paper only certain areas of the literature are studied. This research attempts to look at why the Afghan Taliban as an organisation adopted the practice of suicide bombing. Therefore, the analysis of
individual motivations behind why people conduct suicide bombing will be sidelined in favour of the more structural conditions that cause an organisation as a whole to employ the tactic. Afghanistan in many ways provides a unique landscape in which suicide bombing has been conducted due to the way that its society is structured. This literature review therefore will attempt to reflect that by first giving the general context of the literature on suicide bombing in relation to its structural and organisational elements. Then, it will look into the relationship of constituency and suicide bombing before
analysing the role of collectivism and finally, the use of the practice within the Afghan context.
2.1 General Literature
The work of Pape (2005) in his seminal work Dying to Win lays the groundwork for much of the modern study of suicide terrorism (Moghadam, 2006)(Perliger, 2006)(Piazza, 2008). Pape presents a rational organisational approach to understanding the suicide attack phenomenon and claims that researchers must focus on the organisational framework and the decision-making process of the organisational elite (Pape, 2005). Perliger (2006) summarises Pape’s findings on suicide attacks as a “rational response by a sub-state organisaiton, which is usually struggling to liberate territory, in an extended, violent, and asymmetrical confrontation with a strong state” (Perliger, 2006, pg.299). Pape notes that the tactic will most often be used against democratic states engaged in occupation, such as that being done in Afghanistan by Coalition forces. Democracies are institutionally constrained by legal structures in their ability to respond to suicide attacks and they are answerable to their domestic public opinion which is often highly intolerant of the cost that results from suicide attacks (Piazza, 2008). Though apart from the rational and strategic goals that are at the forefront, another important aspect of why suicide bombing is used, Pape finds, is that it works (Pape, 2005). Though proving to be very influential in the study of suicide terrorism, Pape’s work is not without criticism. His claim that democracies are the main victims of suicide bombers is disputed. Regimes that can be described
8 as undemocratic or at best semi-democratic have been major targets of attacks, such as “Saudi Arabia and Morocco” (Perliger, 2006, pg.300). Moghadam (2006) argues that the presence of foreign occupation is not the dominant variable for suicide attacks, giving Al-Qaeda as an example of an organisation where religion plays a larger role than Pape would like to admit. Piazza also contests Pape’s conclusions on foreign occupation as a reliable predictor, highlighting that a number of terrorist and insurgent groups that have engaged in struggles against foreign occupations have not resulted in suicide attacks, namely the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) (Piazza, 2008). Moghadam furthermore contests Pape’s claim that suicide bombing is used because it works. In his own assessment Moghadam suggests that more suicide attacks result in failure than success (Moghadam, 2006). Atran (2006) also disputes Pape’s claims about their success,
suggesting that the objective is misplaced. Atran points to the objective not ending in the expulsion of the foreign occupier, but rather the organisation using the tactic’s broader strategic goal of increasing its political ‘market share’ amongst its potential supporters. For example, the Hamas suicide bombing campaign against Israel during the Second Intifada caused Israel to reoccupy Palestinian land but also increased Hamas’ levels of popular support (Atran, 2006). Atran rejects the explanation of narrow root political causes such as the presence of foreign military forces, offering instead the idea of ‘embracing complexity’ and discarding simple explanations and solutions. The causal model of terrorism laid out by Pape that regards terrorist groups as rational and strategic-minded, which causes them to target democratic occupiers, as this sort of attack yields beneficial results, is recast in Piazza’s (2008) work ‘A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism.’ The author finds that although the link between democracy and suicide bombing is not robust, occupation does make suicide bombing as opposed to other types of terrorism more likely (Horowitz, 2015). Piazza suggests that suicide attacks are employed in rare and specific instances against a force that constituents are unlikely to pity, and only when perpetrated by a specific subset of groups, what he calls the ‘abstract/universal type.’ Suicide bombing is an organisational undertaking consisting of planned action by an organisational structure possessing the resources, both human and material, to do so (Zaidi, 2009). Zaidi notes that there has been a problem in the academic literature that it focuses on individualist motives, which stress religious indoctrination and psychological predisposition. Suicide terrorism is not exclusively limited to Islamic extremism, as can be seen through the example of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who were the world leaders in suicide terrorism until 2003 (“Tamil Tigers: Suicide Bombing Innovators”, 2009). Furthermore, research has found there to be no clear link between psychological disorders and perpetrators of suicide attacks. Zaidi (2009) suggests that organisational profiling should be the preferred analytical tool from which to analyse the dynamics of suicide terrorism.
9
Hafez (2006) identifies rationality, culture and structure as the factors that coalesce to create suicide bombers. He identifies the prevailing perspectives of the rationalist and culturalist approaches as combining with the structuralist argument to provide a more robust case for why suicide bombers come into being. The rationalist approach emphasises the advantages of the tactic. Rationalists maintain that groups employing terrorism calculate costs and benefits of differing courses of action and pursue means that are logically connected. Suicide terrorism, though seemingly fanatical is in fact an effective political tool (Kalyvas, 1999) (Hafez, 2006). The culturalist approach noted by Hafez (2006) investigates the performative practices that give meaning to acts of violence. Not only must violence display itself as a means to an end, but it must also legitimize itself as fulfilling a duty to values, community, religion etc. Combined with these two approaches Hafez argues that the structuralist argument plays a role. Rational organisational initiatives and culturalist persuasions do not by themselves result in mass support for suicide attack. For the expansion of violence, groups must feel victimised and threatened by the status quo. Hafez identifies the most common
manifestations of this as severe state repression and ethnic conflict. Tosini (2009) supports the conclusions arrived at by Hafez, arguing that suicide attacks combine different kinds of social mechanisms and rationality, not only instrumental, whilst adding that there is an axiological element. Not only are suicide bombings instrumental in that they are efficient and convenient for achieving specific objectives but they require support from the community achieved by an adhesion to certain beliefs the community shares.
Tactical innovation and the adoption of new ‘weapons’ plays a part in the academic literature on suicide bombing. Innovation in an organisation’s adoption of weapons can change the group’s position within a terrorist or insurgent conflict, for example, by increasing their ability to challenge a technologically superior force, such as a government or occupying power. Tishler (2018) notes that all weapons adoption innovations occur in a space driven by indigenous, intragroup research and
development, as well as mimicry of other group’s weaponry. Innovation in terrorist groups results from their need to problem solve in regard to external demands, and those groups that possess greater human resources are more likely to innovate successfully. Horowitz (2010) suggests that tactical innovations used by terrorist groups spreads via a process of diffusion, wherein one group that innovates a new tactic spreads it to other groups via shared links. The use of suicide bombing by Hezbollah in the 1980s diffused to Hamas as the groups trained together, and Al-Qaeda’s global reach allowed new knowledge and ideas to spread. Horowitz notes that after a tactical innovation has diffused its subsequent adoption requires an organisational shift. As the practice can be considered a strategic choice Horowitz examines the use of it through ‘adoption capacity theory,’ arguing that a
10 significant amount of organisational capital is needed for innovations such as suicide bombing to be adopted. Organisational capital refers to those non technological aspects needed to generate force such as education and training. Organisations that possess a high degree of capital are more easily able to adapt and take advantage of tactical innovations. The benefit of this is that it does not focus on the factors that are needed for suicide bombing to manifest, such as Pape’s arguments on foreign
occupation, but focuses instead on whether internally an organisation itself has the ability to adopt and implement novel tactical and military innovation such as the practice of suicide bombing. Criticism of Horowitz posits that organisational capital is not as significant as Horowitz suggests. Gilli & Gilli (2014) findings note that Horowitz’s results rest on the incorrect assumption that every group wants to adopt innovations such as suicide bombing. Instead, they argue that groups may or may not adopt the practice due to a lack of incentive. An organisation may face a technologically superior force it lacks the resources to challenge symmetrically, and therefore has an incentive to adopt alternative tactics that allow it to be more effective against its targets.
The decision-making process of terrorist groups can also vary widely. McCormick (2003) notes there is a spectrum of decision-making that moves from decisions based on tactical and strategic decisions in turn based on an accurate worldview, to a process that relies more on a group’s internal logic, divorced from its external objectives. Where an organisation lands on this spectrum can have an effect on the pattern of their activity, wherein actions taken are different than if an unconditionally strategic actor was performing them.
Terrorist or insurgent groups may make the decision to adopt suicide bombing as a practice for organisational survival (Acosta, 2016)(Bloom, 2004)(Hoffman & McCormick, 2004). Militant organisations have survival as one of their primary goals. In order to achieve this, they may adopt suicide attack as a means of enhancing their status in a certain political landscape as well as expanding their constituent support. Acosta (2016) finds this to be the case, noting that a consistent stream of popular support is required to sustain an organisation, and the use of symbolic acts such as suicide attack is a highly effective way of generating such support. He argues that suicide bombings have been generally ineffective instruments of coercion and political bargaining yet continue to occur at a growing rate. The increase in status that such acts confer on an organisation within their support base allows them to stay relevant longer and as a result survive longer.
Hoffman & McCormick (2004) identify the use of such terrorist practices as part of a ‘signaling’ campaign, wherein the organisation attempts to shape a target audience’s perception in a manner that furthers the group’s political position. They have two main audiences in this regard, the state they are fighting against and the group’s political base. At the organisational level, decision makers search for
11 a strategy that maximises the expected returns for a given level of effort, or minimises the expected costs of achieving certain goals The use of suicide attack by an organisation therefore seeks to accelerate the striking of a bargain with the state so that further destructive violence can be avoided, while simultaneously pursuing a mobilisation strategy by showing its base and potential members that the group has what it takes to challenge the state.
Bloom (2004) puts forwards the ideas of ‘group competition’ and ‘outbidding,’ wherein rival organisations will use suicide bombing as a way of competing with each other for greater share of attention from the political base. Outbidding results from structural domestic politics. In places with multiple groups violence can be used as a way of gaining credibility and establishing a loyal base. If the group using the tactic increase in popularity, so too will the frequency of suicide bombings. For example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) whose support was dwindling until they began to use suicide terror in 2001 and then saw their support increase. Bloom also suggests that when one group is dominant it is less likely suicide bombing will be adopted as there is less incentive to outbid. Furthermore, if a group chooses to use the tactic in certain instances, they may have to choose their targets carefully as their support base can distinguish between the use of suicide bombing against a civilian or military target (Bloom, 2004).
2.2 Collectivism & Constituency
Terrorist and insurgent groups grow out of and rely upon a base of constituency support. How and why constituencies will support a terroristic organisation vary but they usually are vital to the group’s survival and continuity (Boylan, 2015)(Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca, 2004). Implied in the term constituency support is that it grows out from a willingly supportive population. However, Boylan (2015) suggests that support can be both active and passive, enticed and coerced. Constituencies can contribute materials, funding and accommodation to an organisation, or they can simply turn a blind eye to their activities. Similarly, terrorist organisations can incentivise a population to support them, such as promising liberation from state repression, or they can engender fear in the population either through stoking fears about identity and values, or through direct intimidation. However, intimidation is a risky avenue to take as terrorism only survives when it does not alienate its supporters.
De Burca (2009) supports the idea that constituent support is important in understanding how suicide bombing can emerge. He notes that the resort to the practice is not mono-causal and that reference to constituency and social sanction is necessary to have a more robust understanding of the tactic’s use. Through the use of the political opportunity structure model De Burca posits that constituencies will either constrain or permit the use of suicide bombing depending on the political structures present and
12 the opportunities they allow. If organisations are allowed to contest and negotiate the power structures they may be constrained by their constituency from using extreme political violence, whereas in areas where opportunities are lacking and the constituency sees few or no other options, then the extreme political violence may then be used. De Burca points to the examples of the Provisional IRA (PIRA) and Hamas as two organisations and their constituencies which diverged along these two paths provided by the political opportunity structure model.
Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca (2004) suggest that the level of an organisation’s dependency on their constituency will have an effect on their decision to adopt suicide bombing. They posit that as an organisation generally depends on its constituency to survive, the constituency may be able to prevent the use of certain tactics that the organisation may otherwise be willing to implement. Supporters may share the ends sought by the group but not all the means used to achieve it. Through the lens of why certain groups such as the PIRA end up not using the practice of suicide bombing Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca contend that such groups refrain from the practice due to the constituency cost. As organisations like the PIRA rely heavily on support from their political base, they restrain themselves from using tactics that they perceive would lose them the support of that base.
Certain constituencies may be more prone to acceptance of suicide bombing being adopted as a practice, according to some scholars (Braun & Genkin, 2014)(Momayezi & Momayezi, 2017). Terrorist organisations that are embedded in ‘collectivist’ cultures are more likely to adopt suicide terrorism (Braun & Genkin, 2014). This reasoning suggests that there is a cost to the use of suicide bombing, whether it be the loss of a member or the loss of support by sympathisers. Collectivism lowers the cost of the tactic’s use as the society is more deeply rooted in a culture that possesses an individual-for-group sacrifice mentality (Braun & Genkin, 2014). Individuals are easier to recruit, and the societal backlash is reduced. Momayezi & Momayezi (2017) support this claim, suggesting that factors such as resistance to foreign occupation and religious fanaticism do not efficiently explain why certain groups adopt suicide bombing. They point to identification with a community as being a major contributing factor. Social collectivism runs high in those countries where suicide bombings have occurred such as Syria, Iraq & Lebanon.
Many scholars have focused on the strategic logic at the organisational level but have failed to factor in that a collectivist culture is a required element that allows campaigns of suicide terror to begin (Davis, 2009). Social organisations such as families and local communities are taught the values and practices generally accepted within the culture, and the shared opinion of the group takes primacy over that of the individual. Davis (2009) also notes that such cultures promote the value of honour and
13 the avoidance of shame. However, although Davis notes that it is logical to conclude that a collectivist culture is a required element for suicide bombing to occur, he acknowledges that there is not enough supporting evidence to determine the degree to which a collectivist culture may cause suicide terrorism.
2.3 Suicide bombing in Afghanistan
The academic literature on suicide terrorism provides a multitude of examples of organisation’s use of suicide terrorism. However, analysis of the Taliban and the use of suicide bombing in Afghanistan has largely been lacking in the literature, where little study has been done. Most of the studies and
examples found on the subject of suicide terrorism refer to the LTTE, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iraqi insurgency among others, but there is a dearth of information on Afghanistan even though there has been a sustained campaign of suicide bombing since 2005. Much of the literature focuses on the Taliban insurgency as a whole and refers to suicide bombing only as part of the repertoire of tactics used by the insurgent organisation in their campaign against the US and its allies (Johnson,
2007a)(Johnson, 2007b)(Maloney,2008)(Johnson & Mason, 2006)(Samples, 2008). Here, some brief analysis is given suggesting how suicide bombing came to be used in Afghanistan. The main theory mentioned follows from Horowitz’s (2011) diffusion of innovation theory - that the practice was developed in Iraq and adopted by the Taliban through communications with Arab and Iraqi
mujahideen. Johnson (2007b) reports that it was not until the practice’s effectiveness was proven on the Iraqi battlefield that it was adopted in Afghanistan. Samples (2008) posits that the practice was adopted as a ‘force-multiplier’ due to the disproportionate casualties suffered during direct attacks. Additional research on suicide bombing in Afghanistan mainly focuses on the individual perpetrators of the attacks. It finds that, contrary to the conventional scholarly view that suicide bombers are rational actors and cannot be identified as coming from a specific strata of society, suicide bombers in Afghanistan are generally made of the young, poor, uneducated and often disabled (Rome,
2013)(Fraser, 2017)(Williams, 2008). Williams notes that there is a distinct Afghan paradigm different from other areas that have experienced suicide bombing and has referred to these Afghan perpetrators as the “world’s worst suicide bombers” (Williams, 2008, pg.38); that though there is a sustained suicide bombing campaign being implemented in Afghanistan many of the attacks have been ineffective due to the ineptitude of those carrying them out. The use of children from
impoverished backgrounds is a main reason for this. Fraser (2017) reports that these children provide a pool of human resources that can be used as ‘suicide fodder’ in the insurgent campaign. He points to the conservative madrassahs along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as the places where this
14 In his study of suicide terror in Afghanistan, Rome (2013) finds that after an initially escalating campaign of suicide bombing the number of attacks begins to plateau around 2007-2008. Consistent with other research here he finds that the profile of Afghan suicide bombers is that of the incompetent poorly educated individual. He speculates that the reason for their use being flat-lined is due to this incompetency, which suggests that the use of the tactic in Afghanistan is therefore a primarily tactical choice (Rome, 2013).
These findings though beneficial to the study of suicide terror in Afghanistan lean heavily in favour of analysis at the individual level whilst research at the organisational level is scarce. Within the context of Afghanistan, the use of suicide bombing is observed by Dearing (2008) as being within the
framework of strategic logic as outlined by Pape (2005). He notes the Taliban as an organisation that possesses relatively limited resources and as a result resorts to asymmetrical warfare to contend with the occupying force (Dearing, 2008). The tactical advantage here is seen by Dearing to be the ease at which the attack can be carried out. Virtually anyone can carry (or drive) and detonate a suicide bomb and it is appealing to a regular citizen who may perpetrate the attack, as the veneer of normalcy is maintained until the last moment when the device is detonated (Dearing, 2008). He further notes that the Taliban are acutely aware of how suicide bombing is received by their constituency, and in light of this suggests that further studies need to be made into the Pashtuns in relation to the use of suicide terror.
2.4 Theoretical Lens, Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca: Killing Without Dying
If the suicide bomber is the ‘ultimate smart bomb,’ why then have there not been many more instances of this practice than there are? This is the question posed by Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca (2004) in ‘Killing Without Dying.’ Amongst terrorist organisations and insurgency groups suicide bombing remains a marginal practice even though the practice has been observed globally to be an effective tool in the repertoire of the terrorist. Some organisations decide not to use it and others do.
The PIRA has a long history of a sustained campaign against what they see as an occupation by a foreign power. The Irish republican movement has a tradition of martyrdom, people willing to starve themselves to death in hunger strikes or hang from the gallows for the cause. They have audiences they have had to signal to and other groups they have had to outbid. Many of the ingredients that scholars have pointed to as being needed to result in the adoption of suicide bombing by an
organisation are present in the context of the PIRA, yet the group never employed the tactic. Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca (2004) in their analysis examine five possible factors that may cause an
organisation to resort to suicide bombing: cognitive accessibility, normative preferences,
15 that stands out as significant. In the case of the PIRA Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca’s analysis posits that organisations such as it depend crucially on the support of some of the community, but that support base is rather weak; the community do not reach the same level of commitment to the cause as the members of the organisation do. In this scenario groups like the PIRA face higher costs from using suicide attacks and so will refrain from using them. Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca suggest a U-shaped relationship for constituency cost between strategy and support. Organisations that operate
independently of the community, such as the anarchists of the nineteenth century, may adopt suicide bombing as lack of support from the community is unlikely to greatly affect them. Similarly, groups firmly embedded in their constituency, such as the LTTE, may use such extreme tactics as their community has reached an equal level of commitment. Groups like the PIRA exist in the middle.
It is through this framework of constituency cost that the Afghan Taliban are to be analysed. This organisation did not employ the use of suicide bombing until a certain moment in their existence and then made the switch. As Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca note “most terrorist and insurgent organisations depend on the more or less active support of a pool of supporters” (Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca, 2004, pg.218). The Taliban are no different and an organisation embedded in a very specific constituency within Afghanistan – the Pashtun. By using the lens of constituency cost put forward by Kalyvas & Sanchez-Cuenca it can be anlaysed as to whether this played an important factor in the adoption of suicide bombing by the organisation.
16
3. Background & Context
Background information regarding Afghanistan and the Taliban is essential in providing context for the factors that contributed to the Taliban adopting the practice of suicide bombing. A comprehension of the Taliban as an organisation, in both its history and structure is necessary, as is an understanding of the Pashtun society in which they operate. This section, therefore, will provide a brief history of the Taliban (1) beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan up until the 2001 invasion by Coalition forces. The Taliban did not emerge as an organisation until around 1994, but the recent history of Afghanistan prior to that is essential for providing the appropriate context. Next, an overview of Pashtun society (2) will be given – where it is, how it is structured and how the Taliban fit into it. This will be followed by how the Taliban itself is organised (3).
3.1 History of the Taliban
3.1.1 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979 – 1989)
An understanding of how the Taliban emerged and how they managed to gain control of Afghanistan must start in the chaos that followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The tanks of the Soviet Army rolled into the country to defend a communist regime that had been created the previous year in a coup by the Afghan communist party, the PDPA. Once in power the PDPA set about initiating a wide range of reform policies that would transform the country into a socialist state. Afghanistan was a very conservative society, especially in the rural areas and the new policies, notably land reform and rights for women, did not sit well with these rural communities who began to stir in opposition to the communist regime in Kabul (Collins, 2011). The policies being enacted by the communists were not in line with the approach the Soviet Union wanted Afghanistan to take (Collins, 2011), and so coupled with the unrest that was brewing they decided to intervene in this strategically important country on their southern border.
The Soviet intervention of 1979 set off a conflict that would last a decade. Afghanistan, historically hostile to outsiders, erupted into resistance with many mujahideen groups forming to engage the invader in jihad and repel the atheistic Soviet Union from the country. The conflict was asymmetrical with the Soviet Army controlling the major cities and highways but rarely holding areas in the countryside (Collins, 2011) where the mujahideen were able to conduct a campaign of guerilla
17 warfare against Soviet supply convoys and patrols. The Soviets would find themselves embroiled in their very own Vietnam, an asymmetric conflict that they could not win with their military machine. In 1989 the last Soviet Army soldier left Afghanistan, making the Soviet Union another in a long line of conquerors who were unable to hold this land.
Though defeated the Soviet invasion had great ramifications on Afghan society. A decade of conflict had destroyed communities, uprooted deeply embedded tribal systems and created a massive refugee population, mostly located across the border in neighboring Pakistan. Mujahideen groups armed by Pakistan and the United States now permeated the shattered Afghan society. These groups had operated locally, around ethnic and tribal identities (International Crisis Group (ICG), 2003) and so had not been unified except in their goal to eject the Soviet invader. The communist regime in Kabul would survive for a few years after the withdrawal of Soviet troops but in 1992 the regime fell, paving the way for a civil war between the disparate armed groups.
3.1.2 Afghan Civil War (1989 –1996)
The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan did not spell the end of war in the country, rather it marked a new phase of hostilities. One wherein the various mujahideen groups fought against each other and the communist regime in Kabul, which held on even after the Soviet departure. The Afghan communists would maintain their grip on power in large part due to continued Soviet security
assistance. However, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, so too did communist rule in Afghanistan fall in April 1992 (Liakhovsky, 2000). Tajik and Uzbek mujahideen leaders from the north, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum, took control of the capital in 1992 but the end of hostilities between mujahideen and communists only meant a shift to increased conflict between the mujahideen groups. The forces of Shad Massoud and Dostum were most notably in conflict with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-i-Islami, a mainly Pashtun mujahideen group supported by Pakistan (Dorronsoro, 1995). Hekmatyar and his forces launched attacks against their rivals in Kabul but were ultimately unsuccessful. This phase of the civil war saw different mujahideen groups in control of different areas of Afghanistan with law and order disintegrating across the
country. This period was known as the rule of the “pataks”, or checkpoints, (Gopal & van Linschoten, 2017, pg.23) wherein the multitude of groups of armed men would set up checkpoints along the roads of Afghanistan and rob, rape and murder the local population (Collins, 2011). Out of this chaos arose a group who promised to end the violence and disorder and restore the stability of the war-torn country.
18
3.1.3 Rise of the Taliban (1994 – 1996)
The conflicts that plagued Afghanistan since 1979 had created a refugee population across the border in Pakistan. Amongst the ethnic Pashtun refugee camps would grow the core of the Taliban (Afsar et al. 2008). They were the students of madrassahs, religious schools, that taught a modified and selectively interpreted version of Wahhabist Islam, which promoted ultraconservative approaches to society and politics (Afsar et al. 2008). They saw the violence and terror of the mujahideen groups in Afghanistan and set out to restore peace as they saw it by disarming the population, enforcing Sharia and defending the integrity and Islamic character of Afghanistan (Rashid, 2010). They took up the name of ‘Taliban’, which means students, and gathered around the leadership of Mullah Omar, a one-eyed veteran of the jihad against the Soviets. The prestige of Mullah Omar and the Taliban emerged after they saved two abducted girls, taken by a local commander in the region of Kandahar, in the south-west near the border of Pakistan, and killed the commander. They asked for no reward or credit from the local population, asking only that they lend their support in setting up an Islamic system (Rashid, 2010). Amidst the criminality and chaos of the mujahideen warlords the Taliban stood out as a group apart, one that could restore some semblance of law and order to Afghanistan. In 1996, Mullah Omar would solidify his place as supreme leader of the Taliban by travelling to the shrine of the Cloak of the Prophet Muhammad, removing the relic and wearing it in front of a crowd of his followers. The devout Taliban named him there ‘Amir-ul Momineen’ or Commander of the Faithful (Rashid, 2010).
Emerging at the end of 1994 the Taliban launched a lighting fast campaign that would see them in power over most of the country within two years. Pakistan at this time began to withdraw support from Hekmatyar and Hizb-i-Islami and instead focus on supporting the nascent Taliban (Rashid, 2010). Armed with Pakistani-supplied arms and munitions the Taliban were quickly able to seize Kandahar in November 1994 - a key city in the Pashtun dominated south-west of the country. By September 1996, the Taliban had pushed northwards and taken control of Kabul.
3.1.4 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996 – 2001)
Under Taliban rule the country was renamed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) and Sharia law was imposed (Ghufran, 2001). Though hailed as bringers of law and order during the disarray of the civil war, the law that the Taliban brought alienated a large part of the country. Their interpretation of the Sharia required all women to wear the burka and their list of banned things included music, kite flying and gambling, to name a few (Collins, 2011).
19 Pertinent to the eventual demise of their Emirate was their allowance of Osama Bin Laden and
Al-Qaeda to operate freely inside Afghanistan. Bin Laden had left Afghanistan where he had been fighting as a volunteer in the jihad against the Soviets but returned in 1996 where he would strike up a friendship with Mullah Omar and live in the country under Taliban protection, free to pursue his own jihad against the United States (Rashid, 2010). This would culminate in the planning and organisation of the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Afghanistan as the base of operations for the attack on the United States, as well as the refusal of the Taliban and Mullah Omar to hand over their guest, would be the precedent for the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan.
3.1.5 United States invasion of Afghanistan, Taliban resurgence (2001 -)
Operation Enduring Freedom, the invasion of Afghanistan by Coalition forces, began on October 7, 2001. CIA paramilitary and special operations forces operated with the Northern Alliance, the last significant resistance to the Taliban led by Shah Massoud, to oust the Taliban. American air support allowed the Northern Alliance troops to make significant headway against Mullah Omar’s forces (Crews, 2008) who by December of 2001 had lost control of all major cities in Afghanistan (Smith, 2011). The Taliban unable to compete against the firepower aimed against them dispersed, fighters headed back to their local villages living to fight another day (Qazi, 2011).
The Taliban did not maintain much support when the invasion began. Their draconian policies and strict interpretation of the Sharia had alienated many in the country, even amongst the Pashtuns, the ethnic base from which they had emerged. Northern Alliance forces consisting mainly of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras from the north would combine with Western friendly Pashtun groups to form the next government after the fall of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, would be the leader of the post-Taliban Afghanistan until 2014.
The Pashtun homeland inside Afghanistan lay in the southwest of the country. It would be from here that the Taliban would reemerge as an insurgent force, to carry out an asymmetrical war against the foreign invader and what they saw as a puppet regime in Kabul. Some observers refer to this reorganized group (or groups) as the ‘neo-Taliban’ (Smith, 2011)(Qazi,2011)(Brahimi, 2010). This Taliban was able to regroup as early as 2002 (Smith, 2011) and launch a sustained insurgency by 2004 (Qazi, 2011), which has continued to the present day. The term ‘neo-Taliban’ is generally used to refer to this organisation that reformed itself in the wake of the 2001 invasion and the collapse of the Islamic Emirate. It is used to differentiate it from the organisation that emerged in the Afghan Civil War and went on to rule the country. Essentially it is the same group but the differentiation is used to help clarify the time periods as well as the goals and actions of the group pre and post 2001.
20 ‘Neo-Taliban’ is used to emphasise the restructured nature of the organisation that was destroyed by the 2001 invasion and which reemerged around 2002.
The resurgence of the Taliban brought with it the new tactic of suicide bombing as one of the tools in the Taliban’s repertoire of insurgency. The Taliban have also been able to maintain a long war with its adversaries without collapsing as an insurgent movement, which is difficult to do without a support base. The Pashtun homeland of southwestern Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan has provided this base for the Taliban. Their campaign of suicide bombing adopted in 2005 has not abated. This paper seeks to answer what effect the idea of constituency cost had on the Taliban’s ability to sustain that campaign. To do so an understanding of Pashtun culture and society is necessary.
3.2 The Pashtuns
3.2.1 Pashtunistan
The modern state of Afghanistan is home to some fifty-five distinct ethnic groups of which the four dominant groups are Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara. Of these four dominant groups the Pashtun are the most populous, making up approximately 40% of the population of Afghanistan (ICG, 2003) (Barfield, 2012) (Saikal, 2010). Sources on the precise number differ due to the lack of a census and refugee flows (ICG, 2003).
In Pakistan the Pashtun homeland is located mainly in the southwest and includes such major cities as Kandahar, near the Pakistan border. Land inhabited by the Pashtuns also extends across this border. In 1893 an international boundary was demarcated between British India and Afghanistan, ignoring the Pashtuns who lived in the region who then found themselves living in different nations (Samples, 2008). Though this boundary, known as the Durand Line, would become the border between
Afghanistan and Pakistan when the latter became a country in 1947, it really did not create a massive disruption in the lives of the Pashtun living there. The border between the countries is little more than a line on a map in reality, with the Pashtuns moving relatively freely across this mountainous area. More Pashtuns live in Pakistan than in Afghanistan and they are located in an area that had previously been known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), though this merged with the
neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018. This research paper deals with events concerning FATA prior to its merger in 2018 and therefore will refer to the region as FATA.
21 This region inhabited mainly by Pashtuns that straddles the Afghan-Pakistan border has been referred to historically by Pashtun nationalists as Pashtunistan (Schetter, 2013). Successive Afghan rulers have not recognised the legitimacy of the Durand Line including the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah (Schetter, 2013).
Pashtunistan, an aspiration for some nationalists, is used here to outline an area dominated by the Pashtun ethnic group and to highlight that this area does not end at the border with Pakistan, but rather is its own region that ultimately follows its own rules. Understanding that there is a Pashtunistan is important in understanding how the Taliban have been able to operate in the Pashtun homeland, both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan.
3.2.2 Tribal System
It is said that the Pashtuns have the largest tribal society in the world (Glatzer, 2002). A patrilineal descent from a single common ancestor has evolved into approximately thirty tribes (ICG, 2003), which itself branches off into innumerable sub-tribes, clans, sub-clans and lineages. The Pashtun tribes are organised into five major confederacies, the Durrani, Ghilzai, Karlanris, Sarbanis and Ghurghushts (Afsar et al.2008).
The Durrani have historically been the tribal grouping that has provided the leadership in Afghanistan, from the kings of the modern state through to former president Hamid Karzai. The Ghilzai have long been the archrival of the Durrani, many Taliban leaders including Mullah Omar are Ghilzai (Afsar et al. 2008).
The tribal system of the Pashtuns is characterised by a shifting pattern of alliances and conflict. Two tribes may be at odds against one another, but then may unite against a common enemy, shifting back to their original stances once the common enemy has been defeated (Glatzer, 2002). This adherence to the tribal system has made the Pashtuns a difficult people to govern from a central government. It is the tribe that reigns supreme in the heartlands of the Pashtun, and this style of society has given rise to its own rules for how society is to be structured.
3.2.3 Pashtunwali
The Pashtuns have always been an extremely independent people (Afsar et al., 2008). Ever resistant to complete control from the centre, e.g. Kabul, the Pashtun and his strong sense of ethnic identity has shaped a distinctive code of tradition and conduct known as ‘Pastunwali’ – the way of the Pashtuns (ICG, 2003). Pashtunwali predates Islam and is specific to the Pashtuns. It is based on a number of
22 fundamental tenets that every Pashtun must follow and provides the basis for how individuals, tribes and tribal confederations interact with one another and wider society (Hawkins, 2009). A few of the most important and pertinent of these tenets are briefly explained here:
Nang (honour): A tribesmen is obliged to use all means available to protect his honour and that of his family. If this honour is infringed upon then it must be restored, even at the cost of one’s life
(Samples, 2008).
Badal (revenge): A key aspect of the Pashtunwali code, this tenet often manifests itself as revenge killing, which is a means by which an individual or tribe can maintain their respect and honour (Hawkins, 2009). Badal can cause there to be blood feuds between tribes that last generations. If a tribesman kills a member of a rival tribe his sons and grandsons can be targeted for revenge by that rival tribe.
Melmastia (hospitality): This principle has several layers within Pashtun society, as it also involves the ideas of sanctuary and asylum. The duties of the host not only include feeding and housing their guest but also defending him if need be. Great honour is bestowed upon the host who provides melmastia (Hawkins, 2009).
Nanawatay (forgiveness): This is the only alternative to badal. It means to go in and seek forgiveness from the victim to whom a wrong has been done (Samples, 2008).
Pashtunwali emphasizes bravery in service of nang and living to fight another day (Coll, 2018). Suicide attack has been seen within Pashtun society as a cowardly act and one that cannot be used in service of badal as it does not highlight the bravery inherent in restoring honour (Dearing, 2008).
3.2.4 Religion
The Pashtun tribes are mostly Sunni Muslims. The Islamic tradition in their society is a fusion of pre-Islamic beliefs and the traditional customs of Pashtunwali (Samples, 2008), mixed with Islamic schools of thought drawn from Sufism, Deobandism and more recently Wahhabism. Sufism, a mystical version of Islam is widespread amongst the Pashtuns where it has been influenced by pre-Islamic beliefs and manifests itself in the veneration of saints and the patronage of their shrines (Liebl, 2007). Deboandism, widespread in Pakistan has also been a great influence, especially since the Soviet invasion, which drove many Pashtuns into Deobandi run refugee camps (Liebl, 2007). Developing as a reaction to British colonialism, Deobandism is very directive in what it allows and
23 disallows within its version of Islam. Its rigidity and intolerance have been injected into Pashtun society, which has in turn been injected into the traditionally tolerant but xenophobic Pashtuns (Liebl, 2007). In recent decades, Salafism and Wahhabism have also spread to this part of the world.
Following an influx after the Soviet invasion, many of the NGOs and Islamic charities in Pakistan that support the Pashtun refugees of Afghanistan’s wars have been run by Salafist and Wahhabist
organisations - their intolerant version of Islam spreading into Pashtun society. This has created a mix of cultural, historical and religious traditions that makes up the religious life of the Pashtun.
3.2.5 The Taliban & the Pashtuns
The Taliban grew out of the madrassahs set up in the Pakistan border area to teach the children of the Pashtun refugees fleeing war in Afghanistan. The madrassahs were run by inexperienced semi-literate Pakistani mullahs from the Deobandi schools and were in large part funded by Wahhabist Saudis (Johnson & Mason, 2007). This combination created an environment in which the students that would become the Taliban represented a brand of Islam that represented nobody but themselves (Samples, 2008). And on their campaign that would eventually bring them to Kabul they brought with them their strict interpretation of Islam that they would enforce across Afghanistan.
Many of the early leaders of the Taliban came from the Pashtun Ghilzai tribal confederacy including their leader, Mullah Omar. Though not exclusively a Ghilzai tribal movement the Taliban’s main areas of influence during their insurgency against Coalition forces and the Kabul government has been in areas dominated by Ghilzai Pashtuns (Johnson & Mason, 2007). Historically, the Ghilzai have been at odds with the Durrani Pashtuns who have traditionally occupied positions of central power, such as the Durrani led government in Kabul, installed after the fall of the Islamic Emirate. However, there are Durranis present within the Taliban. There is often as much infighting between tribal groups in the same confederacy as there is between the tribal confederacies themselves.
The Taliban mainly consisting of ethnic Pashtuns have been able to insert themselves into Afghan Pashtun society and exploit the traditions of Pashtunwali. Central to their insurgency since their resurgence has been the use of the concept of badal to recruit new fighters. The Taliban have been able to capitalize on the alienation felt by the Pashtun population who have lost relatives to operations by Coalition forces that have resulted in ‘collateral damage.’ The dead’s kin are now mortal enemies of the occupying forces who then join the Taliban to regain honour (Jonson, 2007). Melamstia has been used effectively by the Taliban to harbour their fighters in Pashtun areas and avoid capture by Coalition forces hunting them, as the Pashtun hosts will not give them up. Misunderstanding of this tradition by Coalition forces has led to these hosts being treated as if they were themselves Taliban
24 and so punished accordingly, which in turn has led to future badal. It was partly due to this principle of hospitality that Mullah Omar and the Taliban did not comply with handing over Osama Bin Laden to the United States, setting the stage for the war in Afghanistan. A lack of cultural understanding in relation to nanawatay has also led to Coalition forces not being able to stem the tide of badal. This practice of forgiveness is the only alternative to revenge. The fact that foreign forces have overlooked this has allowed the Taliban to de-emphasise this aspect of Pashtunwali and accelerate their
recruitment of fighters.
Pashtunistan has also aided the Taliban by giving them a large area from which to operate an insurgency from. The FATA provides a large safe haven and base to which the Taliban can take sanctuary and plan attacks with less threat from the United States and its allies than if it was to solely conduct itself from Afghanistan.
3.3 Organisation of the Taliban
The structure of the Taliban has changed since the days of the Islamic Emirate. During their reign the Taliban had a government in Kabul but would usually defer to their supreme leader, Mullah Omar who was based in Kandahar. With the invasion of Coalition forces in 2001 and the collapse of the Islamic Emirate the Taliban’s structure and leadership retreated from view, with senior figures like Mullah Omar going into hiding. In 2002 the Taliban was able to reemerge as the ‘neo-Taliban’ as Mullah Omar was able to reestablish contact with his commanders. This group differed in that it was now an insurgent movement conducting an asymmetrical war against the occupying forces and the central government. Mullah Omar at this time became a spiritual figurehead of the Taliban. Though he retained his title as Commander of the Faithful, operational power was transferred to his deputies who would make up the leadership in a collection of Shuras (councils).
3.3.1 Structure
After 2001 the top Taliban leadership reorganised as the Quetta Shura, named for the city in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan and the Pashtun regions. The Taliban’s structure can perhaps best be described as a ‘network of networks’ (Ruttig, 2010). Local groups who want to fight against the insurgency can take up the name Taliban. These groups will have connections to the Quetta Shura who devise an overall strategy for the insurgency, but the local groups and their commanders also retain a level of autonomy. The Taliban therefore can be seen not as an entirely monolithic organisation but a movement of allied groups that take a mixture of instruction from the central leadership, where the different fighting groups will have a member present, and have some freedom to
25 operate independently in waging the insurgency. This organisational structure is a reflection of the Pashtun societal structure from which the Taliban draws its members and support.
3.3.2 Taliban soldiers
The larger fighting units of the Taliban range in size from approximately twelve to thirty-plus fighters. At district level and below operations are carried out by soldiers local to the area in units around five strong. The smaller the group unit gets the more autonomy from the central command they seem to have (Dressler & Forsberg, 2009). Though the Taliban leadership uses the rhetoric of jihad for their insurgency, many of the Taliban rank-and-file are not motivated by ideology. Taliban commanders employ financial incentives as a means to recruit fighters. Some estimates put the average soldier’s salary at approximately $100-150 a month, while local commanders can make around $350 a month. Taliban fighters do not usually work year-round but rather a call-up system is used to rally young men in Taliban controlled regions, who participate in short, temporary operations.
3.3.3 The Haqqani Network
The Haqqani Network and their relationship to the Taliban reflect the complex nature of life on the ground in Afghanistan and especially amongst the Pashtun. The Haqqani Network exists as an independent power within the Pashtun tribal areas spanning the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, whilst also being a fundamental component of the Taliban insurgency. 1
Jalaluddin Haqqani was a famed mujahideen during the resistance against the Soviets. US
Congressman Charlie Wilson once described him as “goodness personified” in relation to his exploits in the 1980s (Dressler, 2010, pg.8). Jalaluddin would form a militant organisation that would rule his native region of Paktia in the east of Afghanistan. This militant group that would form around Jalaluddin to become the Haqqani Network is really more of an extended family group, comprising the tribal kin of Jalaluddin (Coll, 2018) (Dressler, 2010).
Jalaluddin led the Haqqani Network through the Afghan civil war and the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate and into the invasion and occupation of the country by Coalition forces, where they would participate
1Hizb-i-Islami have also participated in the insurgency against the Coalition forces alongside the Taliban. However,
Hizb-i-Islami has kept itself distinct from the Taliban in a way that the Haqqani Network has not. The Haqqanis have formed part of the leadership of the Taliban and have worked closely with them as a component of the Taliban movement.
Hizb-i-Islami, conversely has not incorporated itself into the Taliban. Though there has been cooperation between the groups during the insurgency, it occurred as temporary partnerships between the two organisations (DuPee, 2010). Therefore, this research paper does not include them as part of the Taliban and so they will not be analysed as part of its organisational framework.
26 in the insurgency. By mid-2005 it was reported that Jalaluddin’s son, Siraj Haqqani, was spearheading their insurgency (Dressler, 2010).
The Haqqani Network and Al-Qaeda have been affiliated with one another since the 1980s when Jalaluddin and Osama Bin Laden struck up a friendship during their time as mujahideen fighting the Soviets (Dressler, 2010). Jalaluddin has much more of a global view than the inward-looking Mullah Omar, which is reflected in how they have led their organisations. Jalaluddin set up fundraising offices in the Gulf states and made the Haqqani Network a key receiver of donations by overseas Islamic donors (Peters, 2012). These connections to the wider Islamic world have given the network a view on global jihad that the organisation shares with Al-Qaeda (Weinbaum & Babbar, 2016). This has continued into the tenure of his son, Siraj – a child of Jalaluddin by an Arab wife.
Since its formation in 1988 Al-Qaeda has been greatly assisted by the Haqqani Network in building up its organisation in Afghanistan. The infamous ‘Lion’s Den’ where Arab volunteers in Afghanistan were trained was built in Haqqani territory (Dressler, 2010).
The Haqqani Network is a component of the Taliban but operates independently from the larger organisation. Jalaluddin and now Siraj enjoy command over their militant organisation and the areas of Afghanistan that they control, however both pledged loyalty to Mullah Omar and operate within the Taliban structure. After the Taliban took over Kabul Jalaluddin joined the movement and was given a top position in their government – Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs (Qazi, 2008). After the fall of the Islamic Emirate and the reconstitution of the Taliban leadership in the Quetta Shura, Jalaluddin and then Siraj have both taken seats on its ten-member council (Dressler, 2010).
Siraj Haqqani has publicly denied the existence of the Haqqani Network, saying instead it is a term used to divide the solidarity of the resistance movement (Dressler, 2010). However, this appears to be a strategic move rather than the whole truth. Their relationship seems to be based on expediency; Mullah Omar and the Taliban were never really able to make large gains in Paktia, the Haqqani’s home ground, and the subsuming of the Haqqani Network under the Quetta Shura has given the Haqqani’s power and legitimacy as part of a wider insurgency.
The Haqqani Network largely maintains its own independence from the Quetta Shura, despite being under its umbrella, reflecting the way that alliances have always taken shape amongst the Pashtun of Afghanistan. This paper includes the Haqqani Network as part of the Taliban organisation for the purposes of its research. The Haqqanis can be analysed as their own entity but from the information provided it seems clear that for a full understanding of the Taliban organisation as a whole the
27 Haqqanis must be included to reach any sort of robust conclusion on why the Taliban adopted suicide bombing.
3.3.4 Conclusion
The background and context provided in this section allows for a fuller understanding of the underlying factors affecting the Taliban’s ability to implement a suicide bombing campaign. The Soviet invasion caused a situation wherein a large Pashtun refugee population base across the border in Pakistan was created, out of which would eventually form the Taliban, who in later years could look to this area for recruits for its organisation, including suicide missions. The Taliban’s
establishment of the Islamic Emirate after its success in the Civil War was toppled swiftly in 2001 by Coalition forces. One of the reasons for the speed of its collapse was the lack of support the Taliban received from the local populace during the invasion due to the strict Islamic law imposed on Afghanistan during Taliban rule. This event would show the organisation the importance of
maintaining a popular support base when fighting a technologically superior enemy, and how losing it through actions that the constituency disagrees with can be fatal. The Pashtun population of
Afghanistan would provide this popular support during the Taliban’s insurgency post-2001. Reliance on and manipulation of the tenets of Pashtun tribal society would allow a constituency to be formed from which the Taliban could operate a successful insurgency campaign against Coalition and Afghan government forces. Its organisational structure would also allow groups such as the Haqqani Network to be a part of the Taliban. This inclusion within the organisation would have the implication of allowing groups within the structure of the Taliban to independently influence how the Taliban would fight the insurgency. These factors together create the conditions that would allow for the Taliban to implement its campaign of suicide bombing without greatly risking the cost to its constituency.
