Taliban vs Mujahideen

As surprising as it may sound, many people I talk to cannot differentiate between the Taliban and the Mujahideen. For an easy understanding, let me just say that the Mujahideen fought against the Soviets in the 1980s and the Taliban fought against the Americans. But there is more significance in that difference. Will discuss shortly.

The Afghans who witnessed peace in Afghanistan are either dead or living abroad comfortably in western nations. The generation that came after that has only seen and lived in war, which was not their own but only fought on their land by foreign powers. There has been a pendulum war, if you will. The Soviets invaded the country and occupied it for about a decade, followed by a civil war. During that, the immoral actions by America’s favourite fighters, the Mujahideen, caused the creation of the Taliban. That civil war was followed by another invasion in 2001. Now after two decades, the occupation is ending or has ended, depending on who you ask, and a looming threat of another civil war is the talk of the day, especially among intelligence circles.

In order to avoid a Saigon style airlift situation, the Biden administration is working hard to keep the US embassy alive and kicking inside Kabul. The official story is that the US embassy is pushing to give visas to the Afghans that helped the Americans during the war. But the other side of the story, which in plain English is called truth, is the ability to keep the work of the CIA going untrammelled.

We always hear stories that the Afghans are unconquerable. And that is true. The Brits failed. The Soviets failed and now the Americans failed. But just like the Americans are the mightiest and led the longest occupation of the land, their defeat is also quite astounding in scale. Let us compare the Soviet defeat to the American one. And that, by the way, is the real story of the difference between the Taliban and the Mujahideen.

The Mujahideen undoubtedly fought against a mighty Soviet Red Army. However, they were made up of both local Afghan fighters and global volunteers that willingly enlisted to fight the Jihad against the infidel godless communists. Most importantly, this global Jihad was supported by the richest and strongest nations around the world. The Americans, Saudis, and many others provided cash, weapons, training and propaganda support to the Mujahideen. While the Mujahideen’s defeat of the Soviets was quite a momentous task, it dwarfs in comparison to what the Taliban just did.

The Taliban fought this war alone. They did not have the backing of some superpower providing arms and money. It did not have the moral support of the western media which had portrayed Osama bin Laden as a freedom fighter during the 1980s. The Taliban have always been labeled as terrorists and extremists. The Mujahideen killing the Soviets was hailed as the noble work of jihad while the Taliban killings are labeled as terrorism. The Taliban were not welcomed and hosted inside the White House by the incumbent president and equated with the founding fathers of the US.

Most importantly, the Taliban defeated the mightiest army in the history of mankind plus the coalition of allied countries that had occupied their land, plus the local government in Kabul. At the risk of sounding and being labeled as a Taliban sympathiser, the most unavoidable truth is that what the Taliban did is what nobody before has been able to do in Afghan history. Usually, the first book or movie is better than the sequel that follows. But in this case, the reverse is true. It’s sort of like the virus variant that adjusts to the vaccine and the immune system and gets even fiercer. I can bet the western media would love this last sentence only.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2021.

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