The Endless War In Afghanistan: A Complex Web Of Conflict And Geopolitics

Afghanistan has been at war since 2001, when the United States and its allies invaded the country following the September 11 attacks. The conflict has consisted of three phases: the first, toppling the Taliban regime, was brief and lasted just two months. The second phase, from 2002 until 2008, was marked by a US strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase, which began in 2008, saw a shift to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, with a focus on protecting the population from Taliban attacks and reintegrating insurgents into Afghan society. Despite these efforts, the war has resulted in high civilian casualties and a reversal of any gains in liberal and democratic rights and freedoms.

The Taliban's war on women and girls

Since the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the human rights situation of women and girls has deteriorated severely. The Taliban has been introducing new restrictions with the apparent aim of completely erasing women and girls from public life. The Taliban's policies have further oppressed women and girls in almost all aspects of their lives.

The Taliban's treatment of women may amount to gender apartheid, according to the United Nations. The Taliban's severe restrictions and unlawful crackdown on women's rights should be investigated as possible crimes under international law, including the crime against humanity of gender persecution.

• In September 2021, the Taliban restricted access to education for teenage girls by only allowing boys to resume schooling. Additionally, they prohibited women from working in most sectors beyond health and education.
• In July 2022, Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban's leader, rejected international criticism and demands for easing human rights restrictions, refusing any negotiations or compromises on the Taliban's "Islamic system" of governance.
• In December 2022, the Taliban extended the ban on education for women, prohibiting them from attending universities. They also barred women from working in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and ordered all such organizations to cease the employment of female employees.
• In February 2023, the Taliban began to restrict access to contraceptives, ordering pharmacies to clear their stocks of birth control medicine and threatening midwives.
• In March 2024, the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, announced the reinstatement of flogging and death by stoning for women, stating that "the Taliban's work did not end with the takeover of Kabul, it has only just begun."

The Taliban's restrictions on women and girls violate human rights guarantees contained in numerous international treaties to which Afghanistan is a party, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The role of the US and NATO

The US-led war in Afghanistan was triggered by the September 11 attacks, and the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who had provided sanctuary to the perpetrators of the attacks. The US and NATO forces aimed to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for international terrorists and to ensure that the country could not be used to launch further attacks on member countries.

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, and the Taliban regime was quickly ousted. However, the Taliban leadership relocated to southern Afghanistan and Pakistan, from where they waged an insurgency against the Western-backed government and coalition troops. The US and NATO forces remained in Afghanistan for nearly two decades, and their efforts included training and supporting Afghan security forces, countering the Taliban insurgency, and working to create conditions for the Afghan government to exercise its authority and build its capacity.

In 2020, the US and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement, which set a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Despite the agreement, violence continued, and the Taliban made significant territorial gains. In 2021, the US and NATO forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Taliban soon seized control of the country, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government and security forces.

The US and NATO forces faced several challenges during their presence in Afghanistan, including strong resistance from the Taliban, the complex security environment, and the need to balance military operations with nation-building efforts. The war also caused significant civilian casualties and had a devastating impact on Afghanistan's economy, public health, security, and infrastructure.

The rise of ISIS-K

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has an affiliate group in Afghanistan called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-Khorasan, also known as ISIS-K. ISIS-K was founded in 2015 by disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban, who embraced a more violent version of Islam. The group's initial aims were broad, advocating for mass-casualty attacks against civilians and states, and intending to topple the Pakistani government, punish the Iranian government, and "purify" Afghanistan.

ISIS-K recruited from various insurgent groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Afghan Taliban. They also tapped into a crucial sectarian minority of Salafis in eastern Afghanistan, leveraging their rural networks to gain territorial control in the provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar.

Over the years, ISIS-K's goals have evolved as they have faced military campaigns from the U.S., the former Afghan government, and the Afghan Taliban. Their anti-Pakistan and anti-Iran priorities have been replaced by a broad-reaching anti-Taliban and anti-Afghan religious minorities agenda. ISIS-K considers the Taliban its irreconcilable enemy due to sectarian differences and ideological disagreements over nationalism.

ISIS-K has carried out numerous attacks in Afghanistan, including the 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal, which killed 13 U.S. troops and up to 170 civilians. This attack raised the group's international profile and posed a significant threat to the Taliban's ability to govern. ISIS-K has also been linked to attacks beyond Afghanistan, including the March 2024 concert hall bombing in Moscow, which killed over 130 people.

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan has brought both opportunities and pressures for ISIS-K. While they can gain support from anti-Taliban and disillusioned Islamist constituencies, they also face constraints due to the Taliban's military power and control over security institutions. The United States and the Taliban have occasionally worked together to combat ISIS-K, but the complex nature of the relationships between these groups presents challenging policy choices for U.S. policymakers.

The impact on civilians

The impact of the war in Afghanistan on civilians has been devastating, with high casualties and immense suffering. The conflict has resulted in a massive loss of life, including civilian deaths, and has caused social and economic upheaval, with Afghans facing food insecurity, poverty, and limited access to essential services such as healthcare and education.

Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the country has been plagued by continuous warfare, with civilian casualties remaining high over the years. The United Nations documented a record high of 10,993 civilian casualties in 2018, and in 2017, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported over 10,000 civilian casualties. According to Brown University's Costs of War project, an estimated 241,000 people have died as a direct result of the war since the US invasion, with 71,344 civilian deaths on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Of these civilian deaths, at least 47,245 occurred in Afghanistan, and an additional 24,099 in Pakistan.

The war has also caused widespread displacement, with 2.7 million Afghans forced to flee the country as refugees and an additional four million internally displaced, according to the UN. The US post-9/11 wars, including the conflict in Afghanistan, have forcibly displaced at least 38 million people, a number that exceeds the total displaced by every war since 1900 except World War II.

The conflict has had severe consequences for the physical and mental health of Afghans. The breakdown of the economy, public health infrastructure, security, and essential services has left 92% of the population facing food insecurity, with 3 million children at risk of acute malnutrition. The war has also exacerbated issues such as poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and lack of access to healthcare, contributing to elevated rates of disease and premature death. In 2009, the Afghan Ministry of Public Health reported that two-thirds of Afghans suffer from mental health problems, indicating the war's invisible wounds.

Civilians in Afghanistan have faced attacks from multiple armed groups, including the Taliban, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (IS-KP), and other insurgent forces. The Taliban has been responsible for suicide attacks, targeted killings, and the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that have inflicted heavy casualties on civilians. Additionally, the US military's relaxation of rules of engagement for airstrikes in 2017 resulted in a dramatic increase in civilian casualties, with a 330% rise in civilian deaths from US-led airstrikes between the last year of the Obama administration and the Trump administration.

The war has also left civilians vulnerable to human rights abuses. The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on women and girls, limiting their access to education, employment, and public spaces. Ethnic and religious minorities have faced increasing marginalization, prejudice, forced evictions, and persecution. The culture of impunity has persisted, with war crimes and crimes against humanity going unpunished. Freedom of expression has been curtailed, with journalists and critics of the Taliban facing detention, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment.

The impact of the war on Afghanistan's civilians has been profound and far-reaching, upending lives, disrupting livelihoods, and causing widespread suffering. The conflict has resulted in immense loss of life, displacement, and the erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms. The road to recovery and rebuilding for Afghanistan's civilians will be long and challenging.

The legacy of the British campaign

Schools, hospitals, roads, reservoirs, and power generation projects were all part of the British effort to help the Afghans become economically invested in stability. Agricultural projects also became a priority to persuade farmers to grow alternatives to opium. However, the fighting remained heavy, despite large-scale operations designed to drive the insurgents out of Helmand.

Public opinion in the UK increasingly turned against the war. The British began to invest heavily in the training and mentoring of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, so they would take more responsibility for the security situation in Helmand and the country as a whole.

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