How Qatar came to host the Taliban. 21 June 2013Last updated at 19:34 ET The Taliban chose Qatar for the office because they saw it as a neutral location After nearly 12 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan, long-awaited peace talks with the Taliban are set to begin.
But why and how have these negotiations ended up taking place in the Gulf emirate of Qatar? The BBC World Service's Dawood Azami has this assessment from Doha. Taliban representatives secretly arrived in Qatar about three years ago to talk to Western officials. In March 2012, the Taliban suspended initial talks with the US focused on prisoner exchanges. They wanted the release of five Taliban figures held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for the freedom of US soldier Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, believed to have been held by the Taliban since 2009. But the number of Taliban representatives and their activities in Qatar have gradually increased.
Those in Qatar represent only the Taliban in Afghanistan, the main insurgent group led by Mullah Mohammed Omar. Shopping encounter. How Qatar came to host the Taliban. Who are the Taliban? Media playback is unsupported on your device The hardline Islamic Taliban movement has proved to be a formidable fighting force in Afghanistan and a major threat to its government.
The Taliban have also threatened to destabilise Pakistan, where they have controlled areas in the north-west in recent years. Despite a major military offensive against them since 2014, they continue to mount frequent suicide bombings and other attacks across the country. Many observers now believe that future peace in Afghanistan can only come if the government in Kabul negotiates with the Taliban. The announcement of Taliban plans to open an office in Qatar in June 2013 was seen as a positive step in those negotiations, but mistrust on both sides remains high. Despite this, talks between the Taliban and Afghan government officials took place for the first time in July 2015. Those talks came a month after a group of Afghan women met Taliban representatives in Oslo. Austere rule Image copyright AFP/Getty Images. What is jihadism? 10 December 2014Last updated at 19:08 ET A BBC investigation has found that more than 5,000 people around the world died during November as a result of violence caused by al-Qaeda, its offshoots and groups which subscribe to a similar ideology, commonly referred to as "jihadism".
What does jihad mean? The word "jihad" is widely used, though often inaccurately, by Western politicians and media. In Arabic, the word means "effort" or "struggle". In Islam, it could be an individual's internal struggle against baser instincts, the struggle to build a good Muslim society, or a war for the faith against unbelievers. BBC Religion: Jihad. Wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ICSR-REPORT-The-New-Jihadism-A-Global-Snapshot.pdf. « Plus de 80 % des victimes du djihadisme sont des musulmans »
ICSR Insight: Up to 11,000 foreign fighters in Syria; steep rise among Western Europeans / ICSR. Up to 11,000 foreign fighters in Syria; steep rise among Western Europeans ** Correction: In an earlier version, we gave a “high end” figure for Switzerland of 8, which should have been 1.
Figure 1 has been corrected accordingly. By Aaron Y. Zelin, ICSR Rena and Sami David Fellow – with contributions from other ICSR staff. Comment le djihad recrute de jeunes Européens. LE MONDE | • Mis à jour le | Par Philippe Bernard (Londres, correspondant) Au sixième étage d’un bâtiment universitaire du King’s College, au cœur de Londres, une batterie de chercheurs, penchés sur des écrans d’ordinateurs, entretient des dialogues un peu particuliers par le biais des réseaux sociaux : ils suivent en permanence l’abondante production en ligne des jeunes Européens partis faire le djihad en Syrie ou en Irak et de ceux qui rêvent de les suivre.
Avec certains, ils conversent. Le Centre international pour l’étude de la radicalisation (ICSR), créé en 2008, s’est fait une spécialité d’analyser la montée de l’islamisme sous toutes ses formes et, en particulier, les mécanismes de l’engagement de ressortissants des pays occidentaux dans le djihadisme. Son directeur, le politologue Peter Neumann publiait, jeudi 11 décembre, la première étude consacrée au coût humain du djihadisme mondial, dont il a confié l’exclusivité française au Monde. Malaise identitaire M. Jihadism: Tracking a month of deadly attacks.