Peshawar: Seven years after it emerged in Afghanistan's southwestern Kandahar province, the Taliban movement lost power in December 2001 as a result of a ferocious, US-led military campaign.

US forces supported an Afghan coalition made of the militarily dominant Northern Alliance and pro-West politicians headed by Hamid Karzai.

A new government was put in place following the UN-sponsored inter-Afghan conference in Bonn, Germany, and all those who mattered including generals and analysts started writing Taliban's obituary.

However, the euphoria generated by the US-led coalition's quick victory was shortlived. As it turned out, it was premature to write-off the Taliban as a spent force.

Resourceful

In fact, Taliban decided not to fight the more resourceful and technologically advanced US forces after realising their hopeless situation.

Their retreat helped Taliban to survive as a force that could be regrouped at an opportune time. Only a few thousand Taliban fighters were killed, injured or captured.

The bulk of their fighting force survived and its members melted into the Afghan countryside or crossed the 2,500km-long and porous Durand Line to take refuge among sympathetic Pashtun tribes in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan.

By early 2002, Taliban fighters started launching small guerilla-style attacks in their birthplace, Kandahar, and strongholds such as Helmand and Zabul.

Weapon of choice

The first ever suicide attack in Afghanistan was a failed attempt on the life of then transitional president Hamid Karzai. Many more were to follow in subsequent years and by 2006-2007, suicide bombing became Taliban's weapon of choice.

Taliban attacks kept growing in frequency and intensity in 2003 and 2004 but it was only in 2005 that the world media, particularly the one in the West, starting taking notice of the fast-spreading insurgency.

There are several reasons for Taliban resurgence. First, the survival of their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and other top commanders has provided them with a leadership that they have come to trust.

Omar has also been reorganising Taliban command structure keeping in view the circumstances and the wishes of his followers

Performance

Second, the poor performance of President Karzai's government, corruption and excesses of warlords and officials loyal to the regime in Kabul, and the deteriorating law and order situation have frustrated people who have started yearning for the security that prevailed during Taliban rule.

Third, the strongarm military tactics employed by US-led coalition forces and their bombing campaigns that cause unusually high "collateral damage" and alienate the civilian population. Fourth, the non-fulfillment of promises made to the Afghan people, the disappointment of the masses due to economic difficulties and slow reconstruction during the last six years.

Massive hunt for militants

Peshawar: Almost 100,000 armed men, including 48,000 foreign soldiers and the rest Afghan National Army troops and Afghan National Police personnel, are involved in efforts to rein in Taliban and ultimately defeat them.

Besides, there are militias made up of pro-government Afghan villagers who are supposed to defend their villages against Taliban attacks.

Then there are about 90,000 Pakistani troops deployed in the tribal areas of North-West Frontier Provinces (NWFP), neighbouring Balochistan and along the Durand Line border with Afghanistan to prevent infiltration by Taliban and those loyal to former mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar.

On US request, Pakistani troops are deployed in blocking positions to prevent fleeing Taliban and Al Qaida fighters from entering Pakistan whenever the US-led coalition forces are involved in major military operations.

Despite all this, Taliban have survived and grown in strength in recent years.

A number of strategies and tactics have been tried to tackle Taliban. A small number of their leaders and military commanders were won over by employing the classic carrot-and-stick approach.

President Hamid Karzai announced general amnesty for Taliban except some 50 to 70 of their leaders whose hands, in his words, were red with the blood of Afghan people. It didn't work and there were only a few defections. A national reconciliation commission headed by former Afghan president Sebghatullah Mojadeddi is claiming to have attracted a significant number of Taliban to lay down arms.