The Taliban
Grand strategy for profit and control, masked as Jihad
The claim
Decades of pressure turned the Taliban into a criminal organization. The religious framing covers a strategy of profit and control.
The paper traces the Taliban from its origins among Pashtun Sunni clerics and seminary students after the Soviet-Afghan war. It chose its name, the plural of 'talib', precisely to distance itself from the Mujahideen. The paper follows it through its capture of Kandahar and Kabul, to its relationship with al-Qaeda.
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