Inside the Taliban

By ⋅ July 14, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
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The Taliban have risen, fallen, and then risen again in the past 15 years. The Islamist movement rose to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, ruled the country in the late 90s, and fell to the US-led invasion in 2001. Nowadays, the Taliban seem to be regaining strength, not only in Afghanistan but in neighboring Pakistan. Reporter Charles Sennott covered the Taliban from their rise in Afghanistan, to their ouster in 2001. Sennott recently returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan to do a series of reports on the history and fluctuating fortunes of the Taliban. Sennott begins his series with a visit to a refugee camp in northwest Pakistan. There, he meets Pakistanis displaced by the fighting between the country’s military, and Taliban forces. Sennott travels to the camp with Rahimullah Yusufzai, the Pakistani journalist who is widely credited with making the first report on the Taliban in 1994, and who has interviewed Osama bin Laden several times. Looking around the camps, Yusufzai tells Sennott: “It’s a familar story I think. When I look at these camps, I remember the camps for Afghan refugees, which became the nursuries for the Afghan Taliban. Some of them joined Al-Qaeda. So, maybe this is being repeated.”

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PART I

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Read the transcript of Part I of Inside the Taliban here.

PART II

Pakistan is now a crucial battleground in the fight against Islamist extremism. The fighting and the disruption of life for more than two million displaced people is putting a severe strain on the country. Some of those displaced are now returning. In Part Two of our series Inside the Taliban, Charles Sennott reports on Pakistan’s new internal war on terror, and how the country has turned against the movement it once supported.

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PART III

Sally Goodrich in Afghanistan. 2007. Photo by Jean Chung

Sally Goodrich in Afghanistan. 2007. Photo by Jean Chung

Peter Goodrich was a victim of the September 11 attacks in 2001. He was a passenger on the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. Goodrich was 33 years old; his parents were devastated. But Peter’s mother, Sally Goodrich, found a way to honor his life. She raised money to build a school for girls in Afghanistan’s Logar Province. In 2007, Sally Goodrich journeyed from her Vermont home to Afghanistan, to visit the school she helped build. Charles Sennott traveled with her, and filed this report for The World. You can find more pictures, and a transcript of that original story here.

Now, fast forward to 2009. In today’s Afghanistan, schools for girls lie directly on the front line in the war against the Taliban. Almost daily, girls’ schools are bombed and burned. The Afghan Ministry of Education now estimates that at least 20 percent of its 11,000 schools across the country are in districts under control of the Taliban. For our Inside the Taliban series, Charles Sennott and Sally Goodrich return to the school she helped build, only to find that it now appears to be under control of the Taliban.

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PART IV

In the final part of our series on the Taliban, Charles Sennott sat down with former Taliban leaders, clerics and US counter-insurgency experts to try to discover the minds of the Taliban and whether the US military is making any progress in understanding them.

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Sennott, who is Executive Editor at GlobalPost, prepared this short video below. Inside the Taliban is a partnership between The World and GlobalPost. The series is made possible by a grant from The Henry Luce Foundation. Arsalla Rahmani in Kabul, June 2009. Photos courtesy of Seamus Murphy/VII for GlobalPost. You can see more of Seamus Murphy’s Afghanistan photographs here.

Discussion

12 comments for “Inside the Taliban”

  • Mustapha

    I heard some of your report and you really painted the wrong image of Islam. Clearly despite your 15 years of experience working with the afghans, you haven’t learned anything about Islam. Little bit of vocabulary for you, Taliban is an arabic word not pashtun with its root being Talib meaning knowledge, therefore taliban means seeker of knowledge or simply student.
    Learning the Quran by recitation is not a crime nor is a sinister sign for something bad preparing to happen has you portrayed in your report.It is a way to teach kids. I will simply stop for now because I have too much to say about the flaws in your report or maybe it was done on purpose to paint a dark image of Islam. Knowledge is freedom and power. if you remember, the islamic world contributed alot in the development of art, medecine, astronomy, physics, calculus, algorism,engineering, robotism etc and graciously shared it with the of the world mainly Europe in the name of Islam.
    As a respected reporter, you should be unbias and use due diligence when adressing sensible subjects. We can continue this conversation later.
    Thanks

    • http://globalpost.com Charles Sennott

      Mustapha,
      I appreciate you taking the time to comment on my report. I wanted to let you know that I have studied and tried to learn about Islam in many years of reporting in the Muslim world. I still have much to learn, but I genuinely admire the faith and see the wisdom and simple beauty and universal spirit of its message. I hope you might listen to the whole series and get back to me on your impressions about my reporting and let me know if I have indeed failed, as you suggest in this initial comment. On your point of fact about the origin of the word Taliban. Actually, “Taliban” is a Pashtun construction as there is no “an” ending in Arabic. In the popular language it has come to mean “religious students.” But it is a word that is clearly derived from the Arabic word “Talib,” which means “one who seeks.”
      Respectfully, Charlie

  • shazia

    I didn’t like the tone that Mr. Sennotts was setting. Children all over the world learn by repeating after their teachers. Their memorization sounded beautiful to me, but he made it sound like it should have been banned. I guess distrust and hate has to start somewhere, Mr. Sennotts was planting the seeds.

    • http://globalpost.com Charles Sennott

      Shazia,
      I believe the sound of children chanting the Koran is beautiful. I’ve heard it in so many places, but it always feels mesmerizing and warm and hopeful. I did not suggest otherwise in the report, and I certainly have never in 20 years of reporting been accused of spreading distrust and hate. But I have to say that what I saw so many years ago in some of the madrassas which were funded by Salafist organizations were indeed something straight of Dickens. I stand by that observation in the report. As a Catholic who has reported on his church and its scandals, I am not a stranger to the idea that it is possible that children can be treated cruelly even by those who claim to be teaching the faith.
      Charlie

  • Michael Schramm

    Mustapha,

    I was surprised by your assessment of Charles Sennott’s report. As one who is admittedly uninformed about Islam and the Taliban, the report engendered in me a desire to learn more and gave me a better understanding of how and why the Taliban formed. I was not left with a dark image of Islam as you suggested, but rather a clearer idea of the communal arrogance and absolutism that have led to the current situation.

  • Mike Smith

    I found the report to be enlightening, and look forward to hearing the rest of the series.

    Reading the comments left by other listeners, I’m even more interested now.

    I must say, I did not know what to expect from the report, and listened with a thirsty ear. I heard nothing that left me with the impression that the report was painting a “dark image of Islam” or was “planting the seeds” of “disgust and hate.” I will listen again (thank you, internet!) to see if I can hear this supposed bias.

  • Infidel Alliance

    If one wants to learn about Islam, one should start with its founder, Muhammed. He is revered by Muslims as “al-insan al-kamil” or “the perfect man”. He is feted in the Koran as “an excellent model of conduct”. But was he perfect? was he an excellent model of conduct?

    The truth about Muhammed can be found in the Islamic texts, and it is clear that he is far from being a perfect man or an excellent model of conduct. In fact he is the polar opposite.

    Muhammed was a sadistic sociopath, a murderer, a torturer, a slaver, a decapitator, an amputator, a mutilator, a looting thief, a sex trafficker, a rapist, liar, a paedophile, a sexual pervert, a terrorist, and a genocidist, motivated by greed, unquenchable lust and power. (don’t take my word for it…read the Koran, Ahadith & life of Muhammed and see for yourself)

    Muhammed was perhaps one of the most vile men in the pantheon of human history. Yet it was Muhammed who set the standard for Islam.

    Knowing this, is there any wonder why Islam has such a hard time living in peace?

    ~ The Infidel Alliance

  • Infidel Alliance

    Dear PRI,

    I know it’s unfashionable, indeed politically incorrect, to inquire and question the foundations of Tslam. My previous post regarding the truth about Muhammed fall into that category, but my post is supported factually in each & every aspect by primary Islamic sources.

    What I have said is an ugly truth, but it is the truth. Thus, I kindly ask that, in the interest of truth and journalistic integrity, you please do not censor my post. Thank you.

    Sincerely,

    ~ The Infidel Alliance

  • RK

    Wouldn’t it be better for PRI to keep good reporting like this away from the plague of hatred spreading by some self declared research scholars? Apparently not even slightly aware of the art of argument making. This way a positive discussion can be promoted if PRI can moderate the forum a little not to bar the freedom of speech but to filter out the bigotry a little.

  • Mike Smith

    Wait! Isn’t this series about the Taliban?

    C’mon, people!

  • Rusk Reeder

    I just came here to say that I believe that Mr. Sennott’s reporting is journalism of the highest order. I would nominate it for an award, and I suspect that it will be nominated for some.

    I did not expect to find comments about it being a dark portrayal of Islam nor did I expect to encounter the overtly harsh attack on Islam, an attack that I felt was unfair and one that I can assure everyone, is not correct.

    Actually, I have found his reports to be enlightening and sympathetic. Mr. Sennott is obviously someone who has spent a good deal of time in the region and is trying to piece together the string of events that has caused the Taliban to be what it is right now.

    The way I read the report is that the Taliban was originally a central part of what fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan of the late 70s through the mid 80s. Because of great losses in the war there was a big vacuum which was filled by a new generation of young students. After the Soviet retreat the Taliban tried to govern, something it was not experienced in. Then in the middle of all this, Osama Bin Laden, a disaffected Saudi comes to Afghanistan and radicalizes a significant portion of the Taliban, which created confusion in it and tension with the Afghan people who were in desperate need of a stable government instead of a hodgepodge of Warlords and Taliban, some good and some bad.

    And that brings up to the present situation where the radical element has spilled over into Pakistan, which has finally decided that it can no longer put up with the violence and turmoil it is creating.

    I have seen a documentary on the Afghan people. They are a fine and generous people. They desperately desire peace, tolerance, and stability. It is unfortunate that they have been caught between the complex conflicts of the Taliban and Warlords. It is for these fine people that the UN forces must work together to forge a peace and workable system of self-government that will allow the industrious people of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to thrive as they have every right to.

    But primarily, I just wanted to commend Mr. Sennott on the quality and depth of his radio journalism. Is is a generous, carefully thought out, and well-written series.

    Sincerely,

    Rusk Reeder

  • Christina Dillmann

    Dear Mr. Sennott,
    I am impressed that you took the time to address some of the more critical comments with a humble, honest, and open attitude. Thank you for your hard work and all your efforts to learn and communicate what you have learned about this culture, and this part of the world to those of us seeking to understand more. I thank you for your pursuit of knowledge. I, like all of us, don’t know where journalism is going but I am excited and applaud the effort (of everyone involved) of this new innovative platform of the Global Post. Journalism is such a hard job, one is going to make mistakes but one has to try to better understand the world and gather information to help people learn more. Thank you. Keep going!