The Rise, Fall and the Resurgence of the Taliban

Contents: Introduction. I. The rise: 1. Who are the Taliban? 2. The rise to prominence. 3. Pakistan\'s Afghan interventions. 4. Pakistan and Taliban--an unholy alliance. 5. Other players. 6. The Bin Laden-Taliban connection. 7. Pakistan\'s interests in Afghanistan. II. The fall: 1. Inherent flaw. 2. Useless, costly and troublesome. 3. Disappearance and hideout. III. The resurgence: 1. Where are they surfacing and gathering? 2. Areas under Taliban control. 3. The new Taliban: a much divided force. 4. Resurgence: players and strategies. 5. Resurgent Taliban and their strategies. IV. The future: 1. What are the chances of success for the Taliban? 2. India and the resurgent Taliban. Conclusions. Select bibliography. Taliban--a timeline. Index.

"The Taliban were gold-like figures for a war-torn country\'s war-weary people. They promised to rid the country of anarchy, lawlessness and disintegration and thus earned the support of Afghans. The Taliban were defeated, or so we were told, by the Americans when the Frankenstein came back to haunt them. The Taliban were consigned to the dustbin of history, or so we thought, when Hamid Karzai was anointed as the newest ruler in Kabul.

However, if lessons of history, canons of geo-strategy and reports from Afghanistan are anything to go by, Taliban were not done away with, not by default but by design. The author rejects the widely-believed argument that the Taliban movement has been defeated once and for all.

The author claims that the endgame in Afghanistan is likely to be an eventual induction of the Taliban elements into the Afghan Government by way of a consensus reached among Pakistan, the US and Karzai. However, in the course of time such a status-quo is unlikely to endure. Pakistan\'s internal and geo-strategic compulsions will prompt it to advocate for more and more space for the Taliban in the Afghan Government.

In short, this study is an in-depth analysis of the raison d\'etre of the rise, fall and resurgence of the Taliban." (jacket)