Afghanistan & The Recipe for Global Jihadism
A historical tragicomedy
This article was originally published on 15 August 2021 — The day the Afghan Government collapsed. It has been amended slightly in this republication.
A few kilometres and two thousand years from where I stood every day whilst deployed in Helmand in 2012 was a fortress named Mukhtar Kala. This mud and stone castle was supposedly one of several built by Alexander the Great whilst campaigning through South Asia and the Gereshk Valley. It stands alone, as a witness to the endless fighting and blood that has been shed over the land since. From the top of the castle, the only way you can even tell what century you are in is by the uniforms worn by the invading soldiers. I think about the dozens of wars over millennia that had led me to stand in the same place and look at the same thing a Macedonian, or Indian or Mongolian or Russian or other British soldiers once did. It seems that everyone who comes here is spat out as if the earth itself resisted any conquest. Looking south towards the fortress in the crisp azure dawn, the sun glistens off the Arghandab River and casts deep shadows along the valley shelf; I can’t see over this plateau, but I know that if I could I would be looking across the brutally barren Registan Desert and into Pakistan some 150 miles away. I would truly believe this place to be the most alien and fantastical on earth. Its vastness and enigmatic splendour hide a beautiful land and incredible people.
By 2021 our military withdrawal was done, and the international community left behind either a failed mission or a successful non-mission. A year after the Taliban stood victorious in Kabul, we must look at how it all came about — time to look at the history and international drama. The origins of the War in Afghanistan are not complicated, but they are tragic and if possible to remove the emotions, also comedic.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier
This verse of the poem by Rudyard Kipling written in 1890 depicts a more experienced soldier giving advice to a younger private. I can’t imagine this poetic style for a modern-day Sergeant Major addressing a pack of newly arrived recruits with fresh high-and-tight haircuts.
Kipling who was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in British India spent much of his childhood and early adult life in India known as the Raj. The Raj was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire which is literally represented with the British-owned Indian-mined Koh-i-Noor, one of the world’s largest cut diamonds. The gem is now set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother and lives on display in the Tower of London. Several attempts have been made to return the jewel to India; even the Taliban laid claim to it.
The immense value of British India stemmed from cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, maroon rubies, neon emeralds and sparkling diamonds, not to mention the vast supply of textiles. India also had a huge population that was socially and culturally aligned through a caste system into servitude. The British capitalised on this and raised huge sepoy armies to secure the subcontinent. At its peak, nearly 300,000 native Indians were employed by the East India Company.
Afghanistan was an inconvenient block to great powers. It still is.
British India was not vulnerable from the Himalayan north in any sense and certainly not too vulnerable from the seas (Rule, Britannia!, Britannia rule the waves) therefore any challenge to the British Raj would have to come from Pakistan and Afghanistan — from Persia, from Russia.
To Imperial Britain, Afghanistan was an inconvenient block, a buffer between greater powers who desired strategic depth. It still is. Britain wanted control because of this position. Afghanistan was a newly-established Emirate in the 1800s when the British made a pass and several bloody wars were fought as a result, however, the Islamic monarchy remained mostly uncontrolled by the powerful British. These Anglo-Afghan wars were one of the matches in the Great Game. The term describes the rivalry that occurred between Britain and Russia as their spheres of influence in Central Asia collided. It was an Imperial Cold War.
Kipling, although not a participant in the Anglo-Afghan wars, was a keen spectator on the colonial front lines. It was during this time where many lines on maps were drawn, and the wind was sown. There isn’t a single Intelligence Corps soldier or officer from my generation worth their salt who doesn’t know of the Durand Line. After the Second Anglo-Afghan War and another British defeat, in 1893, Sir Mortimer Durand, the Foreign Secretary of the colonial government of India, drew the border in agreement with the Emir of Afghanistan. This line scrawled on parchment mapping became real on the mountains and deserts between Afghanistan and Pakistan to signal the edge of the complicated and now intertwined empires. The people divided by this line did not care. The Pashtuns today still live as they have for centuries by ignoring the line on a map drawn by a long-dead British diplomat. It was the nature of this porous border and Pashtun people which allowed support to revolutions, insurgencies and terrorism.
Afghanistan modernised outside colonial control and made friends with a recently revolutionised Russia in the 1920s. Later this decade the Emirate became the Kingdom of Afghanistan which would outlive the Great Game after the partition of India in the 1940s signalled the end of British Rule. Afghanistan remained removed from any strong external influence until a coup d’etat in 1973. The Republic of Afghanistan was established, and the monarchy was abolished. The newly created government moved away from the Soviets, and here is where the fire was lit under this dark and meaty stew, and so many hungry spoons came to find a portion.
Gradually the communists in Afghanistan became a bubbling threat, which was uncorked when the 1979 Saur Revolution usurped the Republic and created the Marxist Democratic Republic through a military coup. The coup led to civil war and just like Syria in 2015, the beacons were lit all the way to Moscow. So the bear went over the mountain a hundred years later than the British thought. Russia invaded Afghanistan to support the Marxist government and defeat the opposition. They stayed in Afghan-itnam for ten years and left utterly defeated to cauterise what had become a bleeding wound.
This invasion is nestled in a larger performance of Cold War proxy conflicts, Islamic revolutions and great power politics. The warmup act for Russia’s decade long failed counter-insurgency was the 1977 bloodless coup in Pakistan and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The former began the Sunni Islamisation of Pakistan and the latter created the Shia Islamic Republic in Iran. To drag the United States onto this stage, it should be noted that the CIA had an invisible hand in the Pakistan revolution as it was not unusual that Islamic nationalism was used to oust communists.
In the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan would become the factory floor for manufacturing the Mujahideen. This term which means ‘one who wages jihad or holy war’ could apply to a variety of groups, but the most famous of which was the Afghan Mujahideen. They were a collection of militias who rebelled against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and when confronted by the Soviet invasion, did not back down. This loosely formed but formidable opposition would be supported by the US-led western nations to undercut the Soviets. We as soldiers in training laughed at the post-9/11 irony when we watched Rambo III where Sylvester Stallone joins the Mujahideen, but at the time they were heroes and convenient friends in the Cold War.
The Af-Pak border is, as mentioned, a porous entity that allowed funds, Islamic teaching and munitions to pass freely. Over a decade of conflict, the US, UK and many Muslim states gave c.$40bn to the Mujahideen through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This money went to fund an Afghan insurgency of almost 100,000 fighters in size, and when the money didn’t have to cover pensions, airpower or armoured divisions, the Mujahedeen got a good bang for their buck. The Vietcong floated at between 200,000 and 350,000 by comparison.
The Mujahedeen recruited from all over the globe to oppose the foreign invasion of Afghanistan, many answered the call bringing money, connections and fundamentalist Sunni Islamic teachings
A key figure of the Mujahideen was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, at the time of writing he lives in political exile in India, but in the 1980s he was the man responsible for globalising the jihad against the Soviets. Sayyaf, a long-time member of the Afghan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood held very close ties with the Saudi royal family particularly due to his Wahabi leanings; an ultraconservative and traditionalist movement from the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam.
Although later an opponent of the Taliban and in 2001 a member of the Northern Alliance (his number was probably on a Post-it Note on some desk in Langley) he was close friends with Osama bin Laden at the time and invited him to Afghanistan. Sayyaf founded an Islamic military university of Dawa’a al-Jihad (‘Call to Struggle’); a pseudo-school established at a refugee camp near Peshawar in Pakistan. The Mujahedeen recruited Muslims from all over the globe to oppose the foreign invasion of Afghanistan, and like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh) years later, many answered the call bringing with them money, connections and fundamentalist Sunni Islamic teachings.
By the mid-1980s, many connected, well-funded, educated, revered and battle-proven Islamic leaders were moving through Dawa’a al-Jihad and Peshawar and other parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan whilst raising funds and fighting against the Soviets. They were part of something much bigger than themselves. The melting pot of conservative, traditionalist and orthodox Sunni Islam brought about some of the most hard-line Islamic views. This is something that would later be coined as Salafi jihadism; a puritanical offshoot of Wahhabism now at the centre of modern global jihadism.
Notable leaders of transnational jihadist organisations at the time were all travelling in circles here: Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the founding members of al-Qaeda to name a few. They all shared battlefields, prayer mats and dining tables in Peshawar. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian Jordanian Salafist rose to reverence as a theologian who, whilst being involved in anti-Israel paramilitary operations formed a wider view of pan-Islamism. He studied for a doctorate in Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence and worked at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. It is likely that he met his protégé and future partner here in 1986: Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was a well-connected Saudi businessman who was one of the main fundraisers for the Mujahideen. Whilst there are many accusations of direct CIA-Bin Laden connections (Operation Cyclone), what is more likely, is that he simply helped funnel money into the fight. The final key al-Qaeda figure was Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who from an early age was involved in right-wing and conservative Islamic movements. In the early 80s, he spent time in Peshawar in the Mujahedeen circles and whilst studying medicine in Saudi Arabia he met Bin Laden.
There were and are of course other significant players in the creation of global jihad: Ramzi Ahmed Yousef of the World Trade Centre Bombing 1993 fame and Khaled Sheikh Mohammad were both trained in camps by Sayyaf after the Soviets left. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who would later found the Islamic State of Iraq also arrived just after the fighting; he would wear a pakol hat, drink sheer chai and make many friends in this jihadist hive. Later, famous letters between al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi showed how Iraq and Afghanistan were not two wars, but one fought by global jihadists across two battlefields. The connection for it all was established here, in Dawa’a al-Jihad and in the border towns and training camps on the Durand Line.
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind
The leaders and ideology of modern global Islamic terrorism were made here. Like the revolutionaries of France, or Russia or even the United States, these young men met and planned a better world for their people. Was this moustache-twirling villainy, or just the other side of our western interventionism? Either way, this collection of men has likely had more influence on our lives than we may ever realise.
The Salafist jihadist fervour has spread since this seed and is found at the core of all modern jihadist conflicts, from Egypt, Lebanon and Algeria to Syria and Iraq. Even Islamic insurgencies in Malaysia, Niger and Mali are all tied together by this fundamentalist Islamic movement.
As the last Russian troops left their tanks on Afghanistan’s plains and crossed over the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan at the end of their war in 1989, they went to the dying embers of the Soviet Union. Some, mainly Pashtun Afghan Mujahideen would go on to form the Taliban under Mohammad Omar (Mullah Umar), his followers were products of madrasas in Peshawar and Quetta, his allies were the Haqqani network and other radical Islamic groups in Central Asia. The Taliban transition to power was not immediate or bloodless; a civil war occurred between the various Mujahedeen militias between 1992 and 1996 in the power vacuum left by Russia and the collapsing communist stooge government. The primary groups were the Islamic State of Afghanistan, which was the official interim government, Hezb-e Islam and the Taliban. Pakistan would initially back Hezb-e Islam but switched to the Taliban when they were in sight of victory. Defeated, the Islamic State of Afghanistan had continued to oppose the Taliban and distanced themselves from al-Qaeda.
As the “legitimate” government of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban, subscribe to a unique blend of Deobandi Islam and Pashtunwali culture (Pashtun traditionalist lifestyle). Rooted in pre-Islamic traditions, Pashtunwali, or ‘way of the Pashtuns’ promotes three main principles; hospitality, asylum and revenge — a potent combination when mixed with global jihadist ideology. Whilst the Taliban may have been content to only work inside the borders of Afghanistan, they would offer asylum to other former Mujahedeen groupings including al-Qaeda who had an international agenda.
The next step is well known; al-Qaeda planned and conducted the ultimate jihadist exaltation in downtown Manhattan on 11th September 2001. The global war on terror would begin. Al-Qaeda must be punished. The Taliban must be removed from power. The nation would finally be aligned with the West.
The Taliban were waiting for the music to stop so they could sit down
Ahmad Shah Massoud, a revered hero of the Mujahideen and probable choice to lead a ‘free’ Afghanistan was assassinated on 9th September 2001 by al-Qaeda. I’m sure it is not a coincidence that the ‘Afghan Che Guevara’ and leader of the most powerful Taliban and al-Qaeda opposition grouping was killed just when a dinner invitation was sent to America. The Islamic State of Afghanistan would become the Northern Alliance and in no surprise to anyone, the US-led Western forces would use the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban who would melt into the mountains and seep across the Durand Line. A shaky fractured government was installed but needed help, which it got from twenty years of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Operation Resolute Support. By August 2021, that help was gone, but through revolution, insurgency, counter-narcotics operations, special forces raids and drone warfare, the Taliban were still there — waiting for the music to stop so they could sit down.
There are many other characters in this tragicomedy but we must face the fact that by developing the Mujahideen — Taliban — al-Qaeda pipeline to counter the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, we are all to blame for where we stand. The West did fund and support Islamic fighters, and sadly ISAF troops were probably killed in Afghanistan by these men trained by the CIA and MI6.
Overall it is too simple to say that Pakistan was the Islamic master, or the US the bank account of al-Qaeda, but they did bring the ingredients to the table and cooked up a radical anti-imperialist jihadist movement. When Afghanistan was no longer important, the US could back away leaving Pakistan to face the militants and their extremism, drugs and guns. The immediate consequence was the insurgency in Khyber which plagues northwest Pakistan to this day. And what of the jihadist ideologues? Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was killed before the end of the 1980s, he never saw the globalisation of his work. Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011, an announcement that came to me in basic training. Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed just a year after the collapse of Afghanistan in 2022. Leaders and creators of this movement may come and go, a small dedicated team may find them in their homes or a teenager in Las Vegas flying a drone may end their life, but the Islamic jihadism will live on. It will metastasize, it will change names and flags and faces, but it certainly won't go away.
The cold stew is now long since rancid but will be left for the people of Afghanistan whilst we, the fed and yet still hungry western militaries left their spoons for another empire. I fear that the future of Afghanistan will not be happy, that many people will be killed, and women shackled into servitude. I fear too that as the Taliban become the “official” government, the people who sent us to war will make a deal with them, and this will be a sour pill to swallow for the millennium warfighting generation. This defeat has affected the moral component of military fighting power which must be addressed by our leadership. From the gates of Downing Street, you can almost see the Iraq and Afghanistan memorial that sits across the road outside the Ministry of Defence, but fortunately for the Prime Minister of the day, it’s just out of sight.
Afghanistan may become secular to embrace modernity and be more peaceful in the end, but I fear most of all that Mukhtar Kala has not seen the last foreign soldier.
For those keen geographers — Mukhtar Kala on Google Maps
