Late November 2001. Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was in hiding. His forces were being pummeled by the Americans and their Northern Alliance allies. The Taliban’s northern front had disintegrated.
As Kabul fell to the Northern Alliance in early November, Taliban formations were collapsing across the country. In the south, Hamid Karzai narrowly escaped an American air strike as he was leading local resistance forces against the Taliban.
Soon thereafter, Afghan leaders (with US urging) chose Karzai to head the new Afghan Transitional Administration—a caretaker government until Afghans could establish a new constitution and hold elections. A leader of the Popalzai tribe from Kandahar, Karzai came from a distinguished Pashtun family. International figures, such as US special envoy Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, recognized the appeal of having a southern Pashtun as the interim head. They hoped this might rob the Taliban of support and lower the risk of southern Pashtun resistance.
The Taliban continued fighting in the Loya Kandahar region—an area encompassing the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, and Zabul—the Taliban’s traditional heartland. It is here that, almost 25 years ago, the Taliban first arose. The group’s original purpose was to end the sickening butchery of innocent Afghans. The people had welcomed the “religious students” movement (Taliban means religious students in Pashtu) because they wanted the violence to end.
The bloodshed that catalyzed the birth of the Taliban was, at the time, perpetuated by the warlords. These latter were the former mujahideen (holy warrior) leaders who led the Afghan insurgency against the Soviets from 1979 to 1987. By 1992, these fighters had overthrown the Afghan communist government.
Unable to agree on a leader, the warlords created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and distributed government ministries among themselves. Like riders in the Afghan sport bushkazi, the warlords were fighting over the country as if it were a goat carcass. A civil war ensued. The warlords and their followers inflicted horrific atrocities on the Afghan people.
Overthrowing the Islamic State of Afghanistan was thus the most popular thing the Taliban ever did. Their policies and practices while in government, including human rights abuses, destroying the historic Buddha statues in Bamiyan province, and harboring al Qaeda, made the Taliban deeply unpopular among the Afghan people and the international community.
With the United States and seemingly the entire world backing Karzai, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar reportedly weighed the risks and opportunities of ending the fighting and throwing his support behind Karzai.
The one-eyed leader of the Taliban decided to give it a shot.
He sent word to Karzai that he was willing to negotiate an end to the fighting. Representatives of the two leaders agreed to meet on a hill in the Kandahar district of Shah Wali Kot. The Taliban delegation was led by Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. Mohammad Tayyeb Agha, the Taliban leader’s secretary and trusted confidante, and others accompanied him.1
Haji Ibrahim joined the Karzai delegation. A Popalzai kinsman of Karzai, he explained the meeting to me years later. He wore the traditional southern Pashtun black turban over his bald head and a white shalwar kameez (loose fitting clothing worn by Afghans) with a black pinstripe vest. Deep grooves wrinkled his leathery face and framed a set of piercing eyes.
Weeks before the fateful meeting in Shah Wali Kot, when Karzai was trapped by Taliban forces, Haji Ibrahim had sped Karzai out to safety on his motorcycle.
During the parley, the Taliban reportedly offered a cease-fire and support to the Karzai administration in exchange for the Taliban being allowed to live in peace. It was a shrewd move—Karzai had no political constituency in Afghanistan. The Taliban could provide that as well as become a counterbalance to the conquering Northern Alliance.
There were other Pashtun rivals who could make Karzai’s life difficult. Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a leader of one of the Soviet war–era mujahideen parties, had accrued a significant following in and around Kabul. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HiG), another mujahideen party, had been in exile in Iran and could begin angling for power. His party was powerful in the east as well as in the Pashtun enclaves of the north.
As Karzai tells the story, he agreed in principle to the Taliban’s offer but knew he needed to gain American approved before proceeding.
It seemed like a win-win. Karzai would gain important southern Pashtun backing. Mullah Omar would openly support the new Afghan government. Provided sensible guarantees could have been made, the United States might have gained the Taliban’s support for America’s primary objective: locating Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s high command. But the United States did not see a distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban.
American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flatly refused Karzai’s proposal. “There are a lot of fanatical people,” he concluded. “And we need to finish the job.”2 The United States meant to eradicate both the Taliban and al Qaeda.
US forces continued hunting Taliban senior leaders. Those that turned themselves in or were captured were sent to military prisons in Bagram, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Taliban fled to Pakistan. Like the Taliban, the best early chance for a favorable and durable outcome to the conflict in Afghanistan vanished.