After 20 years of war, US forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan and the Taliban has taken control of the capital, Kabul, and the country. This is and will be one of the biggest and most devastating news stories of the year – already, there is a flood of information on every news platform and your social feeds. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed and confused by this unfolding story. To understand how and why the Taliban have been able to take over Afghanistan, you need to know about the recent, complicated history of war in the country.
Read on for your basic* Explainer on the history of Afghanistan, the Taliban’s takeover, Australia’s involvement and how we can help the Afghan people.
*When we say basic, we mean it! This is such a complicated story with a much longer history and more nuance than can be captured below. If this piques your interest, do more reading.
What’s the History of Afghanistan, the US and the Taliban?
Like so many of the conflicts that we try to break down for you, the history of war in Afghanistan goes back a long time – much further than this timeline. But for the purposes of understanding the current situation, we’re starting in the late 70s:
- 1978 Cold War: The communist party People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) gains power in Afghanistan, but faces fierce opposition from Islamist mujahideens (fighters) that explodes into a civil guerilla war. The Soviet Union got involved to support the communist PDPA; the US secretly gets involved to support the Islamists in overthrowing the PDPA, as the Soviet Union and communism were the global threats to the Western world at the time.
Note: When people say “the US is funding the Taliban” this is what’s being (correctly or incorrectly) referenced – the funding and support provided during the Cold War. - 1992: The Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan in the late 80s, and by 1992 the PDPA is overthrown and dissolved. This creates a power vacuum, and a civil war breaks out between warlords trying to take control of the country (the Afghanistan Civil War)
- 1996: During this civil war, the Taliban is formed – a fundamentalist group that believes in the strictest interpretation of Islam. It grew in size (with support provided from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) to ultimately control most of Afghanistan by the late 90s.
Al-Qaeda’s infamous leader Osama Bin Laden comes to Afghanistan in 1996. With the Taliban in control, Al-Qaeda (a network of groups with the same fundamentalist beliefs) is able to use Afghanistan as a training ground. - 1998: Al-Qaeda bombs the US Embassy in Tanzania and Kenya. The US and UN ask the Taliban (who is in control of Afghanistan) to hand over Bin Laden and close down Al-Qaeda’s training grounds. The Taliban refuses.
- 11 September 2001: Al-Qaeda hijacks two planes and crashes them into the Twin Towers in New York, a third into the Pentagon in Virginia. US President George W. Bush (Jr) demands the Taliban hands over Bin Laden – again they refuse.
- October 2001: The US sends military troops to invade Afghanistan, with the aim to a) get Bin Laden and b) shut down the Al-Qaeda network. This is the beginning of the war that will continue for 20 years. There were questions over the technical legality of this war from an international law perspective, but it went ahead anyway. The Taliban is pushed out in the process of the US occupying Afghanistan and shutting down Al-Qaeda.
- May 2011: Bin Laden was finally found and killed by US Special Forces – you may remember the footage of then President Barack Obama saying “We got him”. With the mission of the war now arguably ‘complete’ many people in the US and Australia start calling for their troops to be withdrawn and brought back home.
- 2012: The US and Afghanistan sign a strategic agreement to outline what the relationship between the two countries will be going forward. The US begins slowly withdrawing troops from the country and transferring responsibilities and control of regions back to the Afghan government and people.
However, the Taliban reemerges in the areas that the US leaves and restarts its efforts to take control of Afghanistan. - 2015: Despite having intended to be mostly out of Afghanistan by now, the US decides to remain in the country to help fight back against the Taliban’s takeover attempts and the emergence of ISIS (another fundamentalist militant group).
- 2019: Under Donald Trump, the US begins negotiating a peace agreement with the Taliban. It includes a timeline for the complete withdrawal of US troops and a commitment that the Taliban will not host terrorist groups (as it did with Al-Qaeda). Meanwhile, Taliban continues to advance upon Afghan districts and ends up controlling more of the country than ever before.
- 2020: The US-Taliban peace agreement is finalised, with the last US troops set to leave by the end of September 2021.
- 2021: As the phased removal of US troops continues the Taliban accelerates it’s takeover. While the departure of troops was expected and planned, the speed at which the Taliban is able to capture key cities – including the capital, Kabul – is unexpected.
- 15 August 2021: US diplomats and members of the Afghan government, including the President Ashraf Ghani, flee the country. The Taliban takes Kabul, and now controls Afghanistan.
What about Australia’s support and involvement in all this?
The US is Australia’s major ally, and our government supported the invasion of Afghanistan. Since 2001, 39,000 Australian armed forces have been deployed to Afghanistan – 41 died in action, 261 injured and at least 500 have died by suicide. It is estimated that Australia has spent AU$10 billion on the war, while the US has spent an estimated USD$2 trillion.
In the aftermath of the war, serious questions have been raised about the conduct of some Australian soldiers in Afghanistan – the most high profile of these being war crime allegations against Ben Roberts-Smith.
Why did the US decide to leave and why now?
There is a misconception that the US ‘suddenly’ decided to withdraw from Afghanistan – that’s not true. As the timeline shows, they’ve been slowly leaving (or attempting to leave) the country since 2012. There are a few main reasons behind the decision to finalise their withdrawal by September 2021:
- After 20 years, it became clear that this was an ‘unwinnable’ war. The Taliban has never really been defeated or lost support from some within Afghanistan. The only way to stop it’s reemergence over the past seven years would be to start sending troops back to the country again – the US doesn’t want to do this because…
- The US had already helped to establish democratic and security institutions in Afghanistan. The original planned exit always intended to hand back the power to these institutions and leave them to run their own country. As current President Joe Biden said in his statement: “An endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”
- The US now has much bigger problems ‘back home’. They have already spent an incredible amount of money already spent on this war, and with a lack of public support for continuing it, that cash is better spent on fixing their own issues.
- On top of that, while terrorism in the Middle East was considered the main threat of the late 90s and early 00s, it is no longer the biggest threat to global security. The US and many countries (including Australia) have shifted their focus and security efforts to China and the Asia-Pacific region.
How did the Taliban take over and what will they do?
The Taliban is a military with narrow, fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. It’s not trying to form a ‘government’ as we understand it. Now that they have control, their rules are the rules of the country that all in Afghanistan will be forced to live by – essentially an extreme bastardisation of Islamic teachings.
The specifics of how this plays out for those in Afghanistan remains to be seen, but it is likely to:
- Put the constant threat of death or imprisonment on any person in the country who does not agree or comply with the Taliban’s strict rules (especially women and people of different religious beliefs or more progressive beliefs, e.g.: the Hazaras) – in fact this is guaranteed to happen.
- Become a safe haven for extremist organisations again
- Create a humanitarian crisis for the Afghan people. The Taliban makes a lot of its money through shady means (drug deals, extortion, foreign funding) – it’s very unlikely they will spend the money on creating a healthy economy to help Afghans thrive. As we know from other countries like Yemen, ongoing wars, corrupt governing and unstable economies ultimately leave people starving and without medical aid.
How many Afghans will have to flee?
According to the UNHCR, an estimated 3.3 million people have been displaced or forced to flee Afghanistan from 2020 to today. The desperation of those trying to leave the country on 15 August is heartbreakingly clear in the images and footage from Kabul airport.
This story from an anonymous female reporter who has fled her city paints a stark picture of what millions of Afghans now face under Taliban rule.
What happens next & is there any way to help?
The hard truth is that there isn’t a lot that everyday Australians can do about this. However, there is one group that we and our Government can absolutely help: Afghan refugees.
At the very least, the Government should be actively working to provide asylum for the Afghan interpreters who worked with the Australian forces – however Scott Morrison has already conceded that we won’t be able to help them all.
We should also take the lead from Canada, which has announced plans to resettle 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan. In Australia, former Afghan refugee, writer and advocate Sajjad Askary outlines three clear, concrete steps our Federal government should take to help the next big refugee crisis:
- Grant permanent visas to the Afghan refugees already living in Australia on temporary visas
- Grant citizenship to all Afghans living in Australia, and bring over their families
- Create a special intake program for Afghan religious minorities – similar to the 2015 program for Syrian refugees
You can help by putting pressure on our government to actually do it. Write a letter to your Federal MP, Defence Minister Peter Dutton, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke. You can also sign public letters and petitions – like this open letter from Monash University.
Main image: AP Photo/Zabi Karimi
