Recent increase in the influence and power of Taliban in a number of Northern provinces of the country is much alarming. After their losses and continuous strikes of our security forces, it was expected that, this terrorist group would become extinct with the passage of time but unfortunately, the exact reverse of it is happening. In their recent invasions, three districts of Kunduz province almost fell into the hands of Taliban. Our security forces have also launched a wide-scaled military operation to retake the areas and bring them into the government’s control. However, this is not going to be an easy task as reports show that large numbers of militants are fighting in these districts.

Usually, the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar have been considered the breeding places of Taliban and northern areas of the country were peaceful when the southern areas were considered the most dangerous parts of the country. There were so many reasons behind this scenario. Taliban got their birth in 1994 in Kandahar province and later on, this province became the functional base of their government. In the same way, Helmand was supportive for Taliban when the residents of the province provided them with immense moral, material and physical support. It is the reason why, large numbers of Taliban officers and commanders belonged to this province and the name of province became synonymous with Taliban and militancy. It is the reason why, even after the restoration of peace and order in almost all parts of the country, Kandahar and Helmand were still the most restive parts and military operations against Taliban never came to halt. At the end of 2014, when British forces withdrew from Helmand and ISAF forces left Kandahar, some of the areas of these provinces were still not under the proper control of government. Last year’s attack and domination of a number of areas of Helmand by Taliban was a great challenge for security forces when our forces remained busy for weeks to take back the control of the places that had gone into the control of Taliban. At the same time, the northern areas of the country were different from the southern part of the country in two respects. One, there was very less or almost no existence of Taliban or other militant groups. Secondly, people of the area did not grow addictive drugs.

However, in last two years, we witnessed a gradual change in the scenario. Though the southern provinces remain under the constant threat of Taliban, northern part of the country is no more a safe and secure place. In these provinces, people gradually started cultivating addictive drugs when they saw that their normal crops were not meeting their expenses. Having a look at the lucrative income from this cultivation, the trend expanded to more and more areas and now, these drugs are cultivated on a very large area in a number of Northern provinces. In the same way, a group of ‘Mullahs’ was slowly brought into existence that believed in extremist ideas. This was in fact an indirect arrangement to pave way for the emergence of Taliban in the region. Later on, Taliban became more organized by the formation of their hierarchy. According to informal reports, a complete bureaucratic setup of Taliban exist in these provinces that includes of the governor, assistant governor, police and security chiefs and others. They also have an informal system of tax collection and courts. With all these, they made a vast network of hiring militants and it is the reason why, large numbers of people joined them as militants, which enabled them to stretch their control to increased number of districts and provinces in the Northern areas of the country.

According to political and economic analysts of the area, it was not the case right from the beginning. When the democratic government was established, large numbers of projects were launched in different parts of the country and there was a general wave of prosperity in every corner of the country. People realized that this flow of prosperity would continue only if they kept peace and order in the country and for that reason, they were strong supporters of peace and opposed strictly all those factors that might endanger their prosperity. Large numbers of people were having jobs, they were earning well, and there was no time with them to heed to anyone who might talk against government. However, in last years, the things started changing. With fear of the exit of foreign forces, international donors stopped their donations and almost all the projects were wrapped up. In the same way, many NGOs left the country, leaving behind large number of people unemployed. Fear of future uncertainty also deterred the businesses to make expansions and in many cases, people find it safer to roll back the business, collect their investments and buy property from it in abroad. Due to these reasons, economic activities came to a halt and financial conditions of people badly deteriorated. All these adverse circumstances were very favorable for the emergence and expansion of Taliban. Due to their financial worries, people were not happy of the government and when Taliban emerged, they were indifferent to this as they were already suffering in the time of government. The increase in the poppy cultivation in the northern areas of the country is also due to the same reason.

In order to tackle joblessness and financial problems, people were left with very limited options. Getting a decent job was very difficult so they had to rely on jobs with very less income. However, in most of the cases, such jobs were also rare or unavailable. It is the reason why, we see that large number of people are doing jobs with meager salaries, not good enough to run their families. Next, they had the option of going abroad. It is the reason why, thousands of Afghans head to foreign countries but hundreds of them are killed on the way, many more are caught, imprisoned and deported to Afghanistan and many more end up with jobs that are still less attractive. In such circumstances, Taliban opened an option for the jobless people. Taliban are paying from 300-400 dollars a month for their normal members while the high ranked officials are paid even better.  It is the reason why, large numbers of people joined Taliban and we see that thousands of Taliban have emerged from nowhere.

As we saw, economic failure and lack of action by government to provide people with decent jobs is the only reason for the increasing influence of Taliban in our country. To tackle this problem, first of all government must work seriously on establishing new factories and attracting local and foreign investors to invest in the country so that more and more jobs are created. This is the most important step government can take to address the actual causes of the problem. After this, the links of Taliban with their foreign masters and sponsors can be cut so that they should not be able to pay to their soldiers. As far as military operation is concerned, it may clean an area of Taliban but then they would move to another area and the problem would remain the same.