Hard-line Taliban are not ‘al Qaeda lite’

David Rohde’s account of being held hostage by the Taliban for seven months is a fantastic piece of journalism, I’d urge you to read the whole thing. One point in it struck me as particularly pertinent to the current debate about Afghanistan:

“Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.”

If Nato was to move to a more purely counter-terrorist mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban would quickly expand its control over various areas.