17. The Taliban gradually regained control of much of Afghanistan
By 2006, the Taliban’s insurgency campaign, which consisted largely of suicide bombings and the use of IEDs, had allowed them to control over 50% of Afghanistan, despite the continuing presence of NATO forces and the Afghan security forces. Recruiting for Taliban forces had by then reached as far as Xinjiang, China, where Uyghur Muslims responded to the call. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, and numerous other countries contributed Islamic fighters to support the Taliban. Other nations, opposed to NATO, provided financial support and weapons. Despite the vast investment in people and resources to Afghanistan by the United States, it had become the quagmire seen previously by the British Empire and the Soviet Union. Besides the Taliban, other militant groups emerged in the fighting. Some supported NATO, some the Taliban, and some opposed both.
By 2007 suicide bombers and car bombs made up the bulk of the attacks carried out by Taliban terrorists. That year alone 140 suicide bombers struck in Afghanistan, killing over 300 people, the majority of them civilians. The Taliban recruited the majority of their suicide bombers in Pakistan, where their leaders attracted poorly educated young men with promises of the rewards of jihad. Taliban raids on smaller towns and villages led to kidnappings, destruction of local government and infrastructure, and killings of those sympathetic to the NATO-supported government. Less than a decade after the US led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban was again strong enough to threaten reprisals against those Afghans who voted in elections. In January 2010, the Taliban launched multiple attacks against civilians and security forces in Kabul even as the president was swearing in his new cabinet ministers.
