Demoralizing the Taliban

According to an article in the New York Times, American attacks on middlemen “field commanders” this past year have helped widen the gap between lower and higher levels of the Taliban. The lower ranks of Taliban who fight on the ground are starting to feel defeated and demoralized as a rift has been created between them and the leadership which takes sanctuary in Pakistan. Additionally, many lower ranked Taliban who have retreated their families to sanctuaries in Pakistan after defeats in Helmand and Kandahar are hesitant to return and refuse to take orders from the leadership who isn’t willing to leave their families behind either. Even Taliban forces safe in the North have blatantly refused to help in more active southern places like the Helmand Province. The demoralization has gotten to the point that Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Muhammad Omar has had to publically encourage the Taliban to keep fighting out US and allied forces.

The article comes after an interview with a longtime Taliban leader who is in hiding from American forces and who chose to remain anonymous in the article. He verified, as General Petraeus has acknowledged before, “unprecedented discord among the members of the Quetta Shura, the Taliban senior leadership body” and that there is internal tension among the higher ranks of the Taliban as well. He confirms that the losses at Helmand had been particularly demoralizing for the Taliban and that many “are tired of fighting ... But this is our vow, not to leave our country to foreigners” yet there is a possibility they will consider “peace talks… with the Afghan government after foreign forces leave”

Ultimately, though focusing on middle-level field commanders has begun to work to demoralize the Taliban, it is hard to end insurgency in Afghanistan when the leadership in Pakistan isn’t being affected by the work of US and allied troupes. When the people in charge are “secure across the border, and tightly controlled by Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies” it will be near impossible to improve conditions in Afghanistan.