The flogging incidents in Afghanistan show that the Taliban hasn’t changed. It is as ruthless as it was two decades back.

Those who denied that the Taliban were savages or claimed that they had left behind the savagery that characterized their first innings in power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, now face acute embarrassment. The recent merciless flogging of men—and even women--once again indicates that they are medieval barbarians, The flogging of a woman for going shopping without a male escort, showed that they were also horrible misogynists.

Besides imposing a nightmarish existence on the country’s people, the Taliban’s forcible capture of power in Afghanistan, conveys sinister messages to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists globally, giving a massive thrust to their strikes the world over. According to a report by Joe Wallen in The Telegraph (UK) of December 8, 2022, the Islamic State--Khorasan Province (IS-KP), an affiliate of the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL), has perpetrated at least 220 attacks since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan (in August 2021) and that the Pentagon has warned that that it will be ready to launch attacks internationally by 2023.

The Taliban, who have totally failed to arrest the rapid expansion of the IS-KP’s influence in Afghanistan despite a prolonged and bloody campaign, will launch their own global jihad when they are ready in the course of the next couple of years. Any argument that they have no intention of doing so will be as laughable as the one that they are either not, or have ceased to be, savages

The Taliban believe in the doctrinal and strategic imperative of a global jihad but claim that its waging has to be calibrated according to circumstances, and that both Hanafi and Shafi’i schools of Islamic jurisprudence legitimize truces with infidels to serve broader strategic jihadi goals. The IS-KP, however, accuses them of abandoning jihad by signing the Doha agreement of February 29, 2020, with the United States. It has dubbed the Taliban as apostates, which justifies the latter’s killing.

As the conflict with the IS-KP rages, the Taliban will be under growing pressure to pursue increasingly fanatical policies and intensify their global jihad to prove that they have not sold out to the US. This will be besides the actions of the other jihadi groups fired by the message their ascent to power has sent around--that it was possible for a lightly-armed militia without air support, but armed with a jihadi zeal and ideology, to defeat a mighty super power like the United States.

Support from Pakistan was, doubtless, a decisive factor in the Taliban’s victory. It was, however, covert as Islamabad had to keep up with the façade of cooperating with Washington’s war on the Taliban. Even otherwise, Pakistan was in no position to even remotely match the kind of assistance and combat support the US and its NATO allies provided to the Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani governments.

The Taliban’s enforcement of savage punishments under Sharia law in the teeth of sharp criticism by an overwhelming majority of countries of the world, will further spur global jihad by showing to fundamentalist Islamist terrorists worldwide that they too could implement Islamic jurisprudence by establishing Islamic emirates in their own countries and, eventually, one over the whole world.

To construct a rational sequence for the progression of the global jihad, it is likely to begin with the neighbouring countries of central Asia besides Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Initially, the main weapon will be terrorism unleashed with the help of local fifth columns charged up by the developments in Afghanistan. A process of escalation in the manner of the Taliban in Afghanistan, would follow leading, in the expectation of the jihadis, to the same kind of denouement that one saw in Afghanistan.

The massively powerful US and its allies may, of course, crush the jihadi surge. The world, already battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fall-out of the Ukraine war, will, however, have to pay, in the process. Terrorism cannot be crushed by sticking to the cannons of libertarian Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. As experience shows, fear of retaliation prevents many witnesses from testifying against terrorists, lawyers from appearing against them, and some judges from convicting them. The threat of violence can close down courts. Draconian anti-terrorism laws which severely restrict individual freedom and democratic rights, are already on the statute books of many countries, including India. Harsher legislation may follow, leading to authoritarian transformations of democracies, as statutes, however dangerous, have a way of staying in the books even after they are no longer needed.

The hope that aid and friendship can moderate and win over the Taliban, rests on shifting sand. No country has helped the Taliban more than Pakistan, which is now at the receiving end of border clashes with Afghanistan and Kabul’s support to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has persisted with a violent campaign against Islamabad. The Taliban will have to be ousted from power for the world to be spared its scourge. New Delhi needs to bear this in mind. The Taliban continues to shelter the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, both vicious terror groups primarily targeting India.

(The author is Consulting Editor, The Pioneer. The views expressed are personal)