Deciphering terrorism and the Taliban

After the 2001 September 11 attacks, the United States under President Bush and its close allies unleashed war on Afghanistan, attacking and conquering the Taliban, the most wanted terrorist group.

The military operations were carried out with the aid of NATO and the main goals were to dismantle terrorist group in Afghanistan. The Taliban which is believed to offer asylum to the Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, is frequently dubbed as inhuman and barbaric. The West carries out anti-terrorist operations against the innocent civilians in Afghanistan with the help of bombs and drones justifying their actions citing this savage nature of the Taliban. The US has offered a reward of one crore dollars for any information leading to the capture of the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. He is the founder as well as the serving leader of the Taliban since its formation in 1994. But now new realizations seemed to have dawned on the Western powers regarding the militant group. The White House Deputy Secretary Eric Schultz said in a statement that Taliban was an “armed insurgency” rather than a terrorist group and that it was dissimilar to Pakistan Taliban. US said that the tactics adopted by Taliban was same as terrorism but the terror tactics were basically focused on Afghanistan unlike the Al Qaeda or the Islamic State which have network worldwide.

The Islamic State is an Al Qaeda splinter group that has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria. The group also functions in Libya, the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and parts of Middle East. This controversial distinction between the two militant organisations may be mainly after the agreement with the Taliban to free the US army officials. The world has heard only of Al Qaeda and the Taliban before 2001. But recently many new terrorist outfits have been spewing up including the surge of Pak Taliban that carries out widespread destruction and mass killings, shocking the world. Western powers, the US in particular, plays a significant role in distinguishing, categorizing and branding the terrorist groups. The United Nations as well as the rest of the world blatantly follows the US. Questions like from where do the new terrorist outfits surface, the ideas and the backing force behind them and their alleged goals remain unanswered. It is evident that the Islamic State (IS) receives a huge fund, arms and support from the US.

Another extremist group Al Shabab, which is linked to Al Qaeda, is fighting the US backed government in Somalia and had surfaced in the wake of conflicts between Europe and China regarding sharing the Oil and Uranium resources in the country. While 6347 people were killed in Nigeria in the conflicts, around 2116 were slaughtered in Middle African Republic, 1817, in Sudan and 4425 people, in Somalia. The Western forces have been vying with each other for constructing military arsenals in Jithubhi and this has led to political and social discords in the region. The fact that the unpleasant political scenario had led to the rise of the terrorist group Boko Haram, is often forgotten. Thousands have been victims to the internal conflicts in the region. Waging war and murdering innocent civilians along with carrying out the secret agendas are the actual reasons that trigger terrorism and should therefore be curbed.