[mapuc]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I think you have Al Quaeda and the Taliban mixed up.

Two points on that:

1) Al Quaeda, as an organization, is not territorial. There are few Afghan members of Al Quaeda as such; its leadership does not know the local languages and has no interest in governance. The group itself is fairly small; it did cooperate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it never controlled any territory beyond a few small camps of its own. Nor would it be able to, because control territory is not what they do.

2) If we're talking about the Taliban, that is also untrue. The Taliban had control over most of the country in the 1990s, but far from all of it; holdouts of resistance remained (and were able to advance on Kabul and form the new government when the Taliban was ousted), and the country was in constant war throughout that period. They faced heavy resistance from locals, most of whom wanted nothing of their ideology, having cultures of their own that disagreed with the one Taliban promoted. In fact, arguably the Taliban had the least control over Afghanistan of any government for the past 50 years, despite what convenient arguments might suggest. They were just the most overtly hardline and violent.

You're right it was Taliban thanks for correcting me.

Markus