Season 4, Episode 4. “Taliban transforming the education system”

The Taliban are pursuing an ambitious education policy, covering the country’s schools, madrassahs and universities. As well as excluding girls from secondary and tertiary education, the Taliban have taken an impressive range of measures designed to end western cultural influence and produce a new generation of Afghans who “think like Taliban”. This could be described as the world’s largest extremism promotion project. Michael and Tamim explore the ambitiousness of the Taliban educational reforms.

Season 4, Episode 3 - Feuds, job cuts and morality policing – latest developments in the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate and the Afghan response”.

This episode is a catch-up on developments in the Islamic Emirate. Michael and Tamim talk through the harsh realities which the Taliban, the general population and opposition are being forced to confront. The Taliban, struggling with a budget shortfall, are implementing mass redundancies, cutting salaries and failing to pay many of their bills. The population faces harassment at the hands of the Taliban and immiseration as economic conditions deteriorate. And the opposition struggles to find a way to scale up resistance to Taliban rule. Although armed resistance for now poses no threat to the Emirate, the general alienation from the regime hints at possible future challenges.

Season, 4, Episode 2 - “Unprecedented? The latest Taliban in-fighting and what it tells us about the state of the Emirate”. We consider the cold war between the Taliban’s Amir and the faction led by Interior Minister Seraj Haqqani. Why Seraj disappeared from view for seven weeks. The issues in dispute – power, resources and policy. What options both sides have. Assessment of the leadership’s prospects for maintaining unity versus the risk of a split and direct challenge to the authority of the Amir.

Season 4, Episode 1 - “Emirate Studies – what every Talib is meant to know about their movement”. We discuss a new book, entitled Emirate Studies and published in Pashto. It is written by a Taliban member of the insurgency-era Culture Commission. Emirate Studies presents the latest official Taliban’s perspective of Afghan history, the anti-Soviet jihad, the post-2001 insurgency, the Taliban’s periods in power and their worldview. We examine what the text tells us about Taliban attitudes and domestic and foreign policies.

Season 3, Episode 9 - How serious are the Taliban on counter-narcotics policy?

As part of the series of Doha dialogues convened by the UN, a working group on counter-narcotics has been formed. This is supposed to bring together international officials and Emirate representatives. Ahead of another possible round of dialogue this episode does reality check on the Emirate’s track record. We try to reconcile satellite observations of reduced opium poppy cultivation with other reporting that suggests that the Taliban remain deeply involved in narcotics trafficking.

Series 3, Episode 8 - “The Taliban’s relations with Afghanistan’s tough region”

The episode considers the Taliban’s performance in managing Afghanistan’s regional relations. It considers their declared strategy, which is economy led, and under which they have opened up for inward investment from the neighbours, in particular China. But the undeclared strategy is shaped by their harbouring of militant groups opposed to each of the neighbouring countries. The result is a proliferation of hedging approaches adopted by countries in the region, who deal with the Taliban as the de facto power in Afghanistan but are not necessarily banking on the Emirate being around for long.

“Speaking up and pushing back – is there space for civic resistance in Afghanistan?”

The episode considers recent examples of Afghans in the country who have criticised Taliban policies and their Islamic Emirate or protested against them. We have assumed for a while that engaging in public criticism is well nigh impossible under Taliban authoritarianism. Do recent signs of unrest force us to reconsider how tight a lid the Taliban are able to keep on the population?

Doha 3 Conference – Opportunity or distraction”.

In this episode, we discuss the manoeuvring around the UN-led Doha 3 conference planned for 30 June and 1 July, exploring the challenges of advancing political dialogue while the Emirate leadership rules out compromise on rights and political participation.

Season 3, Episode 5 - “Have the Taliban really succeeded in developing sustainable armed forces for Afghanistan?”.

Prompted by a boast by Emirate Foreign Minister Amir Khan Motaqi, we consider whether the Taliban have achieved a goal which has eluded Afghanistan for two decades – the creation of security forces paid for by Afghan revenues. To answer the question, we look at what the Taliban have done with the security structure they inherited from the Republic and how Taliban fighters have made the transition from the insurgency into acting as state forces and how the Taliban pay for this.

Season 3, Episode 4 – “Life in struggle, a conversation with Dr. Sima Samar”.

We have a conversation with special guest Dr. Sima Samar on the occasion of the publication of her English memoir “Outspoken My fight for freedom and human rights in Afghanistan”. Dr. Sima tells us about struggle and popular mobilisation as Afghans started to resist the Communist government in 1978. She reflects on the threats and opportunities facing a new generation of Afghans mobilising to regain their freedom.