BOOK REVIEWTwo faces of Islamism in AfPak
An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan by Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn
An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban/Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan by Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn
Reviewed by Brian M Downing
Peace talks between the US and the Taliban are in the offing and the relationship between the latter and al-Qaeda will figure highly in them. Strick Van Linschoten and Kuehn argue that the two Islamist groups have never had close ties. This will strike longtime observers as a straw argument but the book makes clear that the misperception has shaped US policy over the years, most portentously and tragically after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The title may also cause some to wince as it seems to promise preaching about Western foolhardiness. But An Enemy We Created is an excellent study of the Taliban and al-Qaeda - mainly the former. Based on interviews with Taliban officials and on
documents captured after their 2001 ouster, it traces each group's intellectual origins, roles in the Soviet war, and present embodiments. Along the way, it notes considerable differences and even antagonisms between the two groups and examines varying opinions and changes within the Taliban.
The Taliban developed out of Deobandi thought, which in turn came from mid-19th-century Muslim opposition to Hindu ascendancy in and British domination of the subcontinent. Their concerns were essentially nationalist and they had no agenda outside the region.
The origins of al-Qaeda lie in Sayyid Qutb's (1906-66) Islamist thought which gained a following after the failure of Arab nationalism and Egypt's defeat in the 1967 war with Israel. This form of Islamism is international in outlook as it seeks to transcend the failed and failing nation-states of the Muslim world and restore Islamic unity.
The Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-89) brought the Taliban and the Arab fighters who would become al-Qaeda into the same cause, though owing to differing locations, without significant contact. The Taliban developed from mujahideen bands in southern Afghanistan that were based on school networks and loyalty to mullahs. READ MORE
