In the introduction of his new book Decoding The New Taliban, Dr Antonio Giustozzi argues the public debate surrounding Afghanistan has been "dominated by superficial or plainly wrong assumptions."
In an attempt to gain a better understanding of those violently resisting British and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, I spoke with Giustozzi at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he works as a research fellow in the crisis states research centre.
Since 2003 the 43-year-old Italian academic has visited Afghanistan about three times a year every year, including 12 months working for the United Nations assistance mission in Afghanistan.
Giustozzi uses the term "neo-Taliban" or "new Taliban" to refer to the Taliban which has been operating in Afghanistan since the US-NATO invasion and occupation in October 2001.
In southern Afghanistan, an area dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, the Taliban and the insurgency are essentially synonymous, Giustozzi says.
"By and large there was a certain correspondence between clerical influence and the spread of the Taliban, for the obvious reason that during the Taliban government they were in power," he says.
In areas such as the south where state education has been traditionally weak, Giustozzi notes: "The Taliban and clergy have been proportionally stronger."
From this core base, the Taliban was able to gain additional support from marginalised people who were dissatisfied with or opposed to the government presence in their community through a gradual process of Talibanisation.
However, Giustozzi sees the large-scale NATO deployment to the south in 2006 – the British to Helmand, the Canadians to Kandahar and the Dutch and Australians to Oruzgan – as "a turning point" in the conflict.
"Up to 2006 Helmand was not a stronghold of the Taliban," he says.
This resistance "was crushed" by the British forces, with thousands of Taliban fighters dying. However, Giustozzi says if you look at the fighting from the Taliban’s perspective, "it gave an impression, not only in Helmand but throughout the country, of popular mobilisation – a people’s war against the British. Whole communities rising up."
In addition the large number of Taliban casualties meant whole "communities got disrupted and destroyed. And people, particularly young men, were on the loose. These people became recruitable by the Taliban as core fighters."
Similarly Giustozzi believes what has become known as the battle of Pashmul was another example of what he calls the "Tet offensive effect" – when a superior military force is successful on the battlefield, but loses the propaganda war.
Engaging a large Taliban force in the vineyards just outside Kandahar in summer 2006, the newly arrived Canadian troops inflicted a heavy defeat on the Taliban.
Just like the British experience in Helmand, this propaganda success "started to have a big effect in terms of recruitment and opened new constituencies to Taliban influence," he says.
Although speaking to Giustozzi for more than an hour is certainly informative, it is difficult to tell what he personally thinks about the war in Afghanistan.
Throughout the interview he continually highlights the contradictory nature of Afghanistan and the current war and rarely provides blanket answers.
Regarding President Barack Obama ordering of an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan, Giustozzi argues that the "numbers don’t mean much.
"It depends how they use the troops," he says. "If the troops stay in the barracks it won’t have any effect."
However, if the US soldiers engage the Taliban and the fighting is "indecisive, protracted and creates destruction" he contends this is likely to have "a destabilising impact, certainly at the beginning. Also it produces extremists."
Giustozzi’s description of growing support for the Taliban and his belief that between 60,000 and 70,000 Afghans are now actively involved in the insurgency jars uneasily with the dominant narrative in the West of the Taliban being very unpopular.
In particular I ask him about the 2009 BBC/ABC News opinion poll conducted in Afghanistan which put support for the Taliban at around 9 per cent and support for the government at 65 per cent.
"The 9 per cent is an underestimate," he replies.
"The sampling is very, very biased … there are very few unemployed people, whereas even the government says unemployment is 40 per cent.
If the sampling was balanced, he estimates the Taliban would get around 15 per cent support nationwide and 30-40 per cent support in the south.
Interestingly, Giustozzi mentions that he has seen polls conducted by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which use different methodologies and get very different results – much higher support for the Taliban and much lower support for the government.
"In ISAF polls in early 2009 support for (Afghan President) Karzai was 4 per cent," he says.
Antonio Giustozzi’s latest book Decoding The New Taliban: Insights From The Afghan Field is published by C Hurst & Co, priced £16.99.
* Ian Sinclair is a freelance writer based in London, UK. [email protected].
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate