The recent news of the young couple stoned to death in Kunduz Province in Northern Afghanistan suggests that the Taliban are returning to power, town by town spot by spot through an assertive campaign based on long-accepted conservative social practices.
Belief and adherence to Shar’iah has long been a lodestar to the principally conservative Pashtun majority of Kunduz. Hence, along with registering grievance against the German led ISAF force in the region, moving decisively to discipline the “demonstrably wicked” in ways deemed by elders to be in line with ancient Islamic teachings is a winning strategy.
In these circumstances, animalistic and truly ungodly, it becomes hard to separate out friend from foe. Is the ISAF fighting against the Taliban here or for the Taliban, in its mutable guises?