Making Peace with the Taliban Theo Farrell and Michael Semple Theo Farrell is Professor of War in the Modern World and Head of the Department of War Michael Semple is Visiting Research Studies at King’s College London. Professor in the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justics at Queen’s University Belfast. We are grateful to Antonio Giustozzi, Ed Hadley, Chris Kolenda, Carter Malkasian and Jonathan Schroden for their helpful comments, and to the UK Economic and Social Research Council for funding this research (Grant ES/L008041/1). Note: this is an unedited version of a paper forthcoming in (2016). Survival On 28 September 2015, the northern Afghan city of Kunduz fell to the Taliban. Some 5,000 Afghan soldiers, police and militia were protecting Kunduz, but these quickly retreated as hundreds of Taliban swept into the city to join up with insurgents who had infiltrated beforehand. This was a hard won victory for the Taliban. Pouring fighters into the north, they had by degrees taken increasingly control of the districts around Kunduz city over the past two years, even compromising on their usual austere rule in order win over local support. The Afghan government vowed to quickly retake Kunduz, but the army had to fight through Taliban held territory surrounding the city. Supported by US airstrikes and special forces, Afghan commandos began to clear the Taliban out of the city on 1 October. It took two weeks to achieve this. In seizing Kundaz, the Taliban achieved a key stated objective of their 2015 campaign, which was to capture a provincial capital. Appearing before the Senate
Making Peace with the Taliban Theo Farrell and Michael Semple Theo Farrell is Professor of War in the Modern World and Head of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Michael Semple is Visiting Research Professor in the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justics at Queen’s University Belfast. We are grateful to Antonio Giustozzi, Ed Hadley, Chris Kolenda, Carter Malkasian and Jonathan Schroden for their helpful comments, and to the UK Economic and Social Research Council for funding this research (Grant ES/L008041/1). Note: this is an unedited version of a paper forthcoming in Survival (2016). On 28 September 2015, the northern Afghan city of Kunduz fell to the Taliban. Some 5,000 Afghan soldiers, police and militia were protecting Kunduz, but these quickly retreated as hundreds of Taliban swept into the city to join up with insurgents who had infiltrated beforehand. This was a hard won victory for the Taliban. Pouring fighters into the north, they had by degrees taken increasingly control of the districts around Kunduz city over the past two years, even compromising on their usual austere rule in order win over local support. The Afghan government vowed to quickly retake Kunduz, but the army had to fight through Taliban held territory surrounding the city. Supported by US airstrikes and special forces, Afghan commandos began to clear the Taliban out of the city on 1 October. It took two weeks to achieve this. In seizing Kundaz, the Taliban achieved a key stated objective of their 2015 campaign, which was to capture a provincial capital. Appearing before the Senate
Farrell_Semple_Making_Peace_with_the_Taliban.docx