What is the difference between past and present Taliban?
An important secret of today's Taliban military might be the Taliban's placement of non-Pashtun nations in its ranks.
Pakistani journalist Aqeel Yousafzai says a major difference between the Taliban movement of the 1990s and today is that after 9/11, the Taliban helped non-Pashtun ethnic groups move forward in their movement.
He believes that because of this, his influence spread to areas of northern Afghanistan that were strongholds of the Northern Alliance against him.
According to Aqeel Yousafzai, the evidence for this argument becomes clearer by looking at the current Taliban leadership. For example, Qari Fasihuddin, the current deputy head of the Taliban Military Commission, belongs to the Tajik nation of Badakhshan Province.
Badakhshan and adjoining Takhar are two Tajik-majority provinces that were strongholds of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban could not capture them despite all efforts.
Both are now among the first provinces to be captured by the Taliban in all of their districts, except for the provincial capitals. The real strategy of the Taliban's astonishing advances in northern Afghanistan has been to build strong allies within these nations over the past two decades, taking advantage of their internal social, and economic distances.
Ibrahim Baheth, a young Afghan researcher with the International Crisis Group Afghanistan, says that in addition to Tajiks and Uzbeks, the Taliban now include Hazaras in the local ranks who have a dark history of bloody wars with the Taliban before 9/11.
The Taliban also recently aired a video of its top leader, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, meeting with Hazara elders in the Hazara-majority central Afghan province of Daikundi, calling Muttaqi Hazara Shiites "brothers of the Taliban" in the future. The Taliban promise equal representation in government.
According to Aqeel Yousafzai, the initial goals of the Taliban were local and unclear. Within a year, he gained control of Kabul, including eighty-five percent of Afghanistan's territory, and suddenly gained power over the entire country for which he was not mentally prepared.
So the Taliban needed a large workforce to secure their power.
Perhaps this is what Joe Ba'ath says is that the Taliban's military might in the 1990s was characterized by a tribal style that included key Taliban commanders from various Pashtun tribes in southern Afghanistan, members of their own tribe. Were strong groups. They complemented the Taliban's military might.
But after 2007, the organized organizations emerged within the Taliban.
Military, political, media, financial, and various commissions were set up to bring the Taliban movement under control instead of tribes and individuals.
In addition, through organizational divisions into provincial and district units, the Taliban appointed provincial and district governors for areas under their control across the country and formed a parallel government. Ba'ath says all sub-militant groups were eliminated and included in the organization's structure, and those who refused to accept it were expelled from the movement.
Khalid Zadran, close to the top leadership of the Afghan Taliban, said that although the Taliban began in the 1990s with young students who were unfamiliar with war and political tactics, the Taliban have now become an organized force.
Zadran says the Taliban are now preparing to form an organized army that will have a regular uniform and a well-organized organizational structure like a regular army. According to Zadran, the Taliban has so far trained about 100,000 fighters over the years.
Kandahar: Afghan Taliban claim control of Afghanistan's second-largest city after Ghazni and Herat
The Taliban's advance in Afghanistan is accelerating, and on Friday they claimed control of Lashkar Gah, in addition to the country's second-largest city, Kandahar. No official confirmation of the fall of Kandahar or Lashkar Gah, but they can be seen inside the city in videos released by the Taliban.
If the Taliban's capture of Kandahar is confirmed, it will be the 12th provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in the last ten days.
After Kandahar, Afghan government control is now limited to four major cities, including Kabul, two of which are currently under Taliban siege.
Kandahar is also important because the Taliban movement was born here and in the past, it was their stronghold. Kandahar is the country's leading commercial center. But the Afghanistan government denies the Taliban's claim of control of Kandahar has not yet been confirmed or denied.
Also on Thursday, the Taliban claimed control of several provincial capitals, including Ghazni, Qala-e-Naw, and Herat.
A statement issued by the Taliban on Friday morning claimed control of Kandahar and Lashkar Gah. The Taliban's media wing from these cities has also shared photos and videos on social media. A tweet from Taliban spokesman Zabihullah claimed that the Taliban had taken over "the whole of Kandahar" and Lashkar Gah.
Earlier, the Taliban claimed control of Kandahar's main jail, while several videos have been shared on social media showing inmates escaping.
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Zadran's claim is also clear from his videos after the Taliban's agreement with the United States. In them, the Taliban have aired videos of their combat training centers detailing how hundreds of deployed officers received combat training in accordance with modern military requirements.
The Taliban have also dubbed their newly trained fighters "victorious forces" and claim that their efforts are in line with modern requirements to maintain peace on the borders of Afghanistan and the country under their control in the future.
It should be noted that after the Doha Accords, the Taliban considered themselves the rulers of the near future of Afghanistan and constantly reminded their supporters that the withdrawal of the United States and its allies from Afghanistan was a part of their war.
However, the real goal of his 20-year struggle is to re-establish the Islamic rule in the country as he did in the 1990s.
Taliban to be in Kabul on September 2021
Given the pace of the Taliban's advance, US intelligence believes that if their fighters continue to advance at this rate, they will be able to lay siege to Kabul for the next 30 days and possibly conquer it in 90 days.
A US defense official told Reuters that although the situation was not inevitable and that the Afghan army could fight the Taliban, it could be prevented.
Refugees arriving in Kabul from all sides.
All of these people have migrated from areas where there is either fierce fighting or the area has fallen to the Taliban.
US sources said there were fears of suicide bombers in the crowd and feared that if any bomber managed to enter the diplomatic quarters, the rest of the international community in the country would be forced to leave Kabul.
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