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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Mullah Wars The Afghan Taliban between village and state, 1979-2001 Strick Van Linschoten, William Alexander Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 Mullah Wars: the Afghan Taliban between village and state, 1979-2001 Alex Strick van Linschoten 0202417 Ph.D. thesis Submitted May 2016 Abstract Many articles and books have been written about the Taliban, but much of this has been polemic in nature and has ignored the growing mass of primary source material that is available to the interested researcher. From Ahmed Rashid to Bruce Riedel, accounts of the Taliban movement have been a mixture of theory attached to a limited and continually repeated set of anecdotal evidence and highly detailed reportage from time spent together with the Taliban. Moreover, researchers ofen come with preconceptions relating to the Islamic nature of the movement, and fnd it difficult to offer a balanced perspective; politics is seen as politics, whereas for the Taliban, culture is also a form of politics. I explore the evolving identity of the Taliban movement through its history, using a translation and exploration of the primary sources (including new interviews) relating to the movement which have not thus far been given a proper airing. Where did the movement that emerged in 1994 come from, and to what extent was the leadership rooted in the experiences of the 1980s jihad as carried out in Loy or greater Kandahar? How did this movement change during its six years of rule in Afghanistan, whether as a result of internal or external infuence? What were the sources of the movement’s power within the country, and to what extent were these cultural, religious or political? Tis is a study of what the Taliban movement themselves have issued as statements of their identity (from political messages to statements with cultural resonance) as opposed to research borne out of rumour and guesswork. It is a study of ideals (and their compromise) and how these strands have shifed and changed over time, taking as a primary assumption the fact that the Taliban are not a static entity. 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 9 a. Histories of the Taliban 10 b. Research questions 12 c. Teoretical assumptions 12 d. Research thesis 16 i. Roots 17 ii. Jihad 18 iii. 1990s 20 iv. 1994 21 v. 1994-2001 21 e. Components and sources of Taliban identity 26 i. Religious 27 ii. Cultural 29 iii. Institutional 31 f. Mechanisms of Taliban identity generation 31 i. Improvisation / chance 33 ii. Moral drive 34 iii. Confict 34 iv. Internal debate 35 v. External infuence 36 g. Methodology and sources 37 2. Aspects of a Deobandi Education 41 a. Religious Experience and Practice in Afghanistan 42 i. Islam and Hanafsm 42 ii. Sufsm and village culture 44 b. “A Deobandi Education” 47 i. Te role of Islam pre-1980s 50 ii. Where did the Talibs study? 54 iii. Te Taliban’s education 57 iv. Why were Afghans travelling abroad for study? 59 3 v. What did they study? 61 vi. Dars-i Nizami 61 vii. Fruits of the jihad 62 viii. Educating fghters 65 ix. Justifcations for jihad 67 x. Moral vision 69 3. Taranay and Afghaniyat 73 a. Taliban cultural identity 74 b. Historical precedent 76 c. Tarana 79 i. Source provenance and authorship 79 ii. Sound 81 iii. Style 82 iv. Tematic overview 82 1. Values 84 2. Martial 91 3. Artistic 94 v. Emotion and the Taliban 98 d. Afghaniyaat and being Pashtun 99 i. Ethnicity, Mullah Mohammad Omar and the Taliban 103 ii. State policy 104 4. A Hand-Me-Down State? 109 a. Te jihad 111 i. ‘Band of brothers’ 116 ii. Ulemaa with power 117 iii. Justice, courts and militarised power 119 iv. Austerity 121 v. Ways of interacting / consulting 124 vi. External sponsorship 125 vii. Geographic roots 126 viii. Military tactics 127 b. Power and the logic of system choice 128 i. What the Taliban inherited 129 ii. Te Taliban as an institution 131 1. General conservatism and the lack of innovation 132 2. Te Taliban and other Afghan groups 133 4 3. Pragmatists and principalists 135 4. Mullah Mohammad Omar 135 5. Te Prophetic model 140 6. ‘Obedience to the Amir’: the Islamic model 141 iii. Social Change 143 5. Mechanisms I — Internal 152 a. Moral drive 152 b. Pragmatic politics 159 c. Improvisation / chance 166 i. Inexperience and other factors 166 ii. Responders, not planners 171 6. Policy in Practice I — Internal 175 a. Structuring government 175 i. Teories of Taliban governance 175 ii. ‘Temporary’ 176 iii. Taliban approaches to the state, 1995-7 177 iv. Structures 183 1. “an Islamic system” 183 2. Te system 184 3. Amir ul-Mu’mineen 191 4. Courts and the justice sector 194 5. Al-Amr bil Ma’rouf wa al-Nahi ‘an al-Munkar 197 v. Constitutional Commission 202 b. Cultural policy 205 i. Culture’s role 205 ii. Moral drive 209 iii. Music 211 iv. Leisure 215 v. Other changes 215 vi. A Taliban culture 216 c. Education policy 218 i. Local experiences under the Islamic Emirate 224 d. “Protecting the Islamic Movement from veering off the course” 228 5 7. Mechanisms II — External 230 a. Negative interactions 231 i. Persuasion 232 ii. Treats 235 iii. Physical force 236 iv. Criticism 238 b. Positive interactions 239 i. Flattery 240 ii. Friendship 241 iii. Money 243 iv. Fitting into what the Taliban already knew 245 8. Policy in Practice II — External 247 a. Indian Airlines hijacking (1999) 247 i. Taliban reaction 248 ii. Afermath 251 iii. Conclusion 253 b. Bamiyan Buddhas (2001) 254 c. Foreign Islamist groups (1996-2001) 260 i. Inheriting bin Laden 261 ii. 1998 266 iii. 1999-2001: Growing closer? 276 9. Conclusion 285 a. Religious heritage and identity 286 b. Cultural heritage and identity 287 c. Social history and political heritage 288 d. Mechanisms of policy generation 289 e. Not unique 290 f. Tings the Taliban lef unchanged 291 6 g. Tings the Taliban changed 293 h. What we might never know 295 i. Future research 296 j. Portents and the Taliban post-2001 299 k. Te Taliban post-2016? 301 10. Acknowledgements 306 11. Bibliography 307 Figures: Figure 1: Taliban leadership education tally 55 Figure 2: Educational background of key Taliban associates 55 Figure 3: Non-Pashtuns in the senior Taliban leadership 106 Figure 4: Te core territory that saw ‘taliban’ fronts during the 1980s 127 Figure 5: Ages of Taliban fgures in 1996 167 Figure 6: Locations of prominent Taliban fgures during 1990–4 period 172 Figure 7: Taliban government structure, 1998-2001 189 Figure 8: Taliban internal power dynamics, 1998-2001 190 7 “As an independent country, Afghanistan has been forced to wage a sanguinary war for the attainment of its identity.” Mullah Mohammad Omar, November 20101 “One half of the Koran is fne, the other half we write ourselves.” An Afghan in conversation with Willem Vogelsang2 “Te religious scholars are the light in this world Tey are the guidance for all humanity If the chemist seeks the best match Te friendship of the religious scholars is the best chemistry In the companionship of the religious scholars, one becomes gold Even if you are a stone or a grain of sand in the desert I, Rahman, will keep the company of the religious scholars Whether they are young, middle aged or the elderly” Pashtun poet Rahman Baba, quoted in Tolo-ye Afghan newspaper, April 19953 1. Omar, 2010. 2. Vogelsang, 2008, xi. 3. Moosa, 1995. 8 1. Introduction “I just love the feel of a PK heavy machine gun in my hands,” Sikander Gul says.4 “You haven’t tried it? Really, you should, it’s the best feeling in the world. TAK....TAK...TAK…”5 He mimes with an imaginary gun. Sikander Gul is an occasional Talib, not fghting for money — fghters affiliated with the Taliban movement do not receive salaries, in any case — but out of boredom. Te camaraderie and excitement of an attack once every so ofen is enough for stories and tales weeks aferwards. Sikander Gul’s fght isn’t a jihad. It’s weekend sport. He comes from one of the districts west of Kandahar City and his occasional off-on relationship with the Taliban fghters in the area he grew up means that he will sometimes fght against the foreigners.