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How the Taliban Outlasted a Superpower: Tenacity
and Carnage
“A grim history looms. The last time an occupying
power left Afghanistan — when the U.S.-backed mujahedeen insurgency helped push
the Soviets to withdraw in 1989 — guerrillas toppled the remaining government
and then fought each other over its remains, with the Taliban coming out on top….
Over
the years, the group’s top leadership has mostly remained in Pakistan, where
the insurgency’s reconstitution was supported by Inter-Services Intelligence,
the Pakistani military spy agency. Those havens have offered continuity even as
the rank and file suffer heavy casualties in Afghanistan”.
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