Ten years on, who are the Taliban today?

Ten years on, who are the Taliban today?

A decade ago, when American bomber jets and special forces forced the Taliban regime from power in Afghanistan, the movement which was born in the religious schools of Pakistan's tribal belts seemed shattered, never to return.

Since then, the various groups and factions of the Taliban -- which means "students" in Arabic and Pashto -- have split, regrouped and coalesced into an effective if diffuse guerrilla movement operating in two countries.

They believe Afghanistan and Pakistan should be ruled by strict Islamic law. They are likely to have a prominent voice in any peace settlement on the future of Afghanistan, and have already helped destabilise Pakistan.

Here are some questions and answers about who the Taliban factions are, and how the fight against them is going:

WHO ARE THE TALIBAN?

The Taliban include several loosely allied factions in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The biggest are the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Pakistani Taliban.

The Afghan Taliban rose to prominence in 1994 under the leadership of Mullah Omar, a former imam and mujahideen guerrilla, whose army of young and fanatical fighters seized power in Afghanistan in 1996 but were ousted by U.S.-backed forces five years later.

Often referred to in shorthand as the Quetta Shura because of its leadership's base in exile, it prefers to call itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), is an umbrella organisation of about 13 groups in Pakistan's northwest and western tribal areas. Established in December 2007, it is blamed for many suicide bombings across Pakistan. It has also struck American targets in Afghanistan, and it shares some resources and ideology with the Afghan Taliban.

The Haqqani network, based in the lawless tribal areas of the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, is perhaps the most politically worrying for the United States. The Haqqanis are battling for control over their traditional power base in eastern Afghanistan, spread over Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces.

Leader Jalaluddin Haqqani rose to power as a mujahideen leader in the fight against Soviet troops in the 1980s. He allied with the Afghan Taliban after Omar seized Kabul.

Mullah Omar is still the nominal head of the entire Taliban movement and most other factions in both Pakistan and Afghanistan swear loyalty to him as Amir-ul-Mu'minin, or "Leader of the Faithful."

HOW DO THESE GROUPS OPERATE?

Given the dispersed nature of the groups, the Taliban factions often act like franchises, comprised of myriad regional cells that operate independently at the local level, but which follow the grand strategy and Islamic principles of the movement's shadowy leadership -- primarily Omar's.

A Taliban cell at village level might typically have 10-50 part-time fighters and plenty more local mercenaries.

All three major factions share an ideology of jihad, or holy war. They often share resources, safe houses and fighters, with the Haqqanis often serving as the communications channel.

WHERE ARE THE TALIBAN BASED?

Militant cells are scattered all across both countries but in Afghanistan are particularly strong in the south, southwest and the eastern frontier with Pakistan, where coalition forces have struggled to flush them out.

In Pakistan, they operate in the borderlands known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and in the northwest of the country bordering Afghanistan.

The leadership of all three factions is likely to be in Pakistan. Mullah Omar is believed to be based in Quetta, a Pakistani city about 130 km (81 miles) from the Afghan border, but both the Afghan Taliban and Islamabad deny this.

The Haqqanis are primarily active in North Waziristan in Pakistan, and Paktia, Paktika and Khost in Afghanistan. This central area allows them to funnel men and ammunition into Afghanistan from Pakistan, and their wounded back to safe havens on the eastern side of the border.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, the operational leader, recently told Reuters his group is no longer based in Pakistan but is secure in Afghanistan.

The TTP is based in South Waziristan and throughout the tribal areas. The Pakistan military has been attacking their positions, but attacks and suicide bombings are still relatively common. Some TTP fighters operate in Afghanistan alongside the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqanis.

HOW MUCH SUPPORT DO THESE GROUPS HAVE?

In many parts of Afghanistan, and particularly among ethnic Tajiks and Hazaras in the north and northeast, many of whom suffered under their rule, the Afghan Taliban are reviled.

To some Pashtuns, however, they are seen as defenders of Islam, battling foreign invaders. This view of the Afghan Taliban is also widely held in Pakistan.

The TTP enjoys very little support in either country, however, because it is blamed for killing up to 35,000 Pakistan civilians, troops and policemen.

Many Afghans and American officials accuse Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of providing support to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network.

Pakistan denies this, but admits to "contacts" with the Haqqanis and other groups. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point report says Pakistan often uses the group as a conduit between the TTP and the Afghan Taliban leadership.

Analysts say Pakistan maintains contact and possible support because it wants to limit Indian influence in Afghanistan after NATO forces leave.

WHAT'S THE STATE OF THE FIGHT AGAINST THE AFGHAN TALIBAN?

NATO-led and Afghan forces have reported success in securing parts of the country but there is no guarantee they can keep the Taliban at bay, especially beyond the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.

Last month's assassination of former president and Afghanistan's top peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani was a blow to a fledgling reconciliation process that the government and much of the international community had hoped would lead to dialogue with the Afghan Taliban.

The involvement of Pakistan, with its influence over the Taliban, is seen as crucial to any negotiation process but as long as ties with the United States remain strained, it is unlikely the different parties can come to the table any time soon.

WHAT'S THE STATE OF THE FIGHT AGAINST THE TTP?

Pakistani leaders said after an all-party meeting attended by top military and intelligence officials last month they would seek reconciliation with militants to end the insurgency.

This led the TTP to say it would consider talks with the Pakistani government if an Arab country such as Saudi Arabia were involved.

Previous peace agreements with militants have usually resulted in Pakistan ceding control over swaths of territory to them with a pledge to maintain the peace, agreements almost always broken by the militants.

Why there is no Indian Steve Jobs ????

Why there is no Indian Steve Jobs ????

VIRTUALLY every Saturday, Ajai Chowdhry, chairman and CEO of HCL Infosystems and one of the six co-founders of India's oldest computer company, HCL, spends a few hours listening to wannabe entrepreneurs. He listens to their ideas, looks at their business models and considers their pitches. Every once in a while, if he comes across an idea that interests or excites him, he goes a step further. He, and a few other senior executives like him, then ensure that that particular wannabe entrepreneur can manage to make the transition to actual entrepreneur.

They help out with critical start-up funding. But much more than money, they offer what these entrepreneurs really need and what they cannot find in any business school or bank. They offer mentoring and advice and the wisdom learnt through their experience of having walked this path earlier, on their own.

History

It's hard work, and consumes a lot of what every busy chief executive like Chowdhry is most short of — time. But he, and the dozens of other successful businessmen who form the Indian Angel Network, know that this is the critical difference between a dream staying on paper and the dream turning into reality.

Ajai Chowdhry should know that better than most. In 1976, his colleague in the Delhi Cloth Mills ( DCM), Shiv Nadar, had talked him, and four other colleagues and friends, into quitting DCM and starting their own computer company. Hindustan Computers Limited, as it was then known, managed to ship its first home designed, home- built microcomputer in 1978. Around the same time that a Syrian-American college drop-out called Steve Jobs had shipped his first microcomputer — the Macintosh.

This was the predecessor of the PC. But IBM was to lay claim to that term, and make it its own, a full three years later, when it managed to roll out its first desktop PC. IBM, of course, took a different route to becoming the world's largest technology company. And Jobs took Apple on a different journey altogether, making it arguably the world's most inventive technology company, and eventually the world's most valuable one. Period.

But what of HCL? Just imagine. Thirty six years ago, all three companies were virtually at the same point in the industry's lifecycle. Apple and HCL, in fact, were so similar, they could have been twins. Jobs started Apple in a garage.

Nadar, Chowdhry and their friends started their company in a south Delhi ' barsati'. Apple took an off- the- shelf microprocessor and built a computer around it. And then developed the software to make it run. HCL took an off- the- shelf microprocessor and built a computer around it. And then wrote the software to make it run. At virtually the same time.

Nearly four decades later, the picture has changed dramatically. Today, HCL is admittedly a very successful company. It has revenues in excess of $ 6 billion and is among the top five players in the country in all the sectors that it operates in.

Difference

But look at Apple. Apple recorded net sales ( in 2010) of over $ 65 billion. In the stock market, at $ 350 billion, Apple is nearly a hundred times more valuable than HCL. It is not just the top player in its segments in the US — it is the top player in the world.

What happened? Why did HCL get left behind, while Apple managed to surge ahead unstoppably? What was the ' X' factor which powered Apple to such heights? Apple fans would unhesitatingly say: Steve Jobs. Yes, the man was a genius.

True, he had the uncanny ability to visualise not just what the consumer would want, but what the consumer would lust after, what the consumer would lose sleep over and what the consumer would be willing to queue up for hours and days in sun and rain to buy. There has never been an entrepreneur quite like him. Arguably, there never might be an entrepreneur quite like him again.

But if Apple and Jobs were in a special league, it does not mean that HCL was not something special too. It too was a powerhouse of invention. Not only did HCL develop a microcomputer at the same time as Apple or a desktop PC three years ahead of IBM. They continued to invent. HCL developed a working UNIX computer years ahead of Sun and its own relational database management system ( RDBMS) ahead of Oracle. In 1981, HCL's Shiv Nadar funded two college dorm- mates who started a fledgling information technology training company called NIIT. Nevertheless, there was one key element which was different, the reason why Apple and Sun and IBM and Oracle became the kind of global giants that they are and the reason why HCL's growth was stunted.

The difference was that HCL was an Indian company, working in Indian conditions.

The others were all American. And the ecosystem available to HCL and its American counterparts was incomparably different.

The very factor which helped create HCL may have helped to choke it, and companies like it. In 1977, George Fernandes' quirky nationalism drove IBM out of India, opening the doors for HCL. But over the next 13 years — the unlucky 13 perhaps — before reforms started, government regulations and the licence permit Raj ensured that HCL was left comprehensively behind. It could not make enough computers to meet demand, because it didn't have the licence to produce the extra number.

When it got the licence, it could not import the components needed, because foreign exchange was short and you needed a separate permit for precious foreign exchange. It could not move into other markets abroad because that was controlled too. And so on.

HCL can justifiably blame the lack of reforms for its lack of growth. But for hundreds of thousands of would- be inventors and entrepreneurs, there are still as many and equally insuperable hurdles, in their way. From a Kerala inventor reduced to sending emails to journalists about his heat exchanger which does the work of an AC at a hundredth the cost, to the son of a Gujarat potter whose ' rural fridge' wins him global awards and recognition, but no help in product ionising it, the lack of an ecosystem which encourages and supports innovation and enterprise is killing off the vision of thousands of Indian Steve Jobs before they can be turned to reality.

Lesson

That is the real lesson we can learn from looking at the life of Steve Jobs. Jobs was what he was because he was Steve Jobs — a genius. But Apple became Apple because it managed to find an environment where the company could convert its ideas into reality and reap adequate reward for its inventiveness.

What if Jobs had decided to stay on in India after his 1974 visit? What if he had started Apple in India, not the US? Could a college drop- out have managed to get the funding to start a company? Would anybody have taken the technology developed by a non- graduate seriously? The answer is obvious. It is not just enough to be inventive or even entrepreneurial.

Without a viable ecosystem which encourages new ideas, is genuinely open to competition and one which rewards intellectual innovation adequately, we would never be able to boast about our own Apples or our own Steves.

But two decades down the reforms road, we are still to learn that lesson.