Know Thine Enemy – Why the Taliban Cannot Be Flipped, by Barbara Elias, Director of the Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Taliban Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
“The chief objective of both Taliban groupings is to control territory in Central and South Asia. Al Qaedas agenda, meanwhile, is diffuse, global, and inherently anti-American. So what has kept the al QaedaTaliban alliance together? The boons al Qaeda receives are obvious — safe haven, support, and training grounds. Exactly how the Taliban benefits is less clear, especially when one considers the high costs the alliance has carried for them…The reason the Taliban have chosen repeatedly not to seek legitimacy through governance or diplomatic compromise has little to do with the incentives offered them and everything to do with how their leaders see the world. The fact is that the Taliban and al Qaeda are neither permanently bound by ideology nor held together merely by a fleeting correspondence of interests. Their relationship is rooted in more complex issues of legitimacy and identity.”
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