Over the past two months, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has captured four senior leaders of the Afghan Taliban, including Mullah Omar's deputy who served as the head of the top shura, the leader of a regional shura, and two shadow governors. These captures, combined with the US-led offensive in Helmand which will expand into Kandahar and the Afghan East later this year, have given rise to reports of the potential collapse of the group.
| Collapse is a lovely idea. |
The Afghan Taliban's leadership council and its regional shuras and committees have weathered the capture and death of senior leaders in the past. The Taliban have a deep bench of leaders with experience ranging back to the rise of the Taliban movement in the early 1990s. On prior occasions, younger commanders are known to have stepped into the place of killed or captured leaders. It remains to be seen if the sustained US offensive and possible future detentions in Pakistan will grind down the Taliban's leadership cadre.
| It worked beautifully in Iraq... |
This report looks at the Afghan Taliban's top leadership council, the Quetta shura; its four regional military councils; the 10 committees; and existing as well as killed or captured members of the shura. Because the Taliban is a deliberately opaque movement, it is difficult to gain real-time intelligence on the structure of the Taliban command. The following information on the structure of the Taliban and its key leaders has been gathered from press reports and studies on the Taliban, and from discussions with US intelligence officials. |