A Resurgent Taliban in Badakhshan Province

The province of Badakhshan is seeing an increase in criminal and insurgent activity. This remote area located in the northeast of Afghanistan is mountainous and rural. It also serves as a major through way for narcotics trafficking to the Central Asian states. The Taliban in the northeast are a bit different than the Taliban in the south; some of their outlooks are less conservative. For instance, girls are allowed to attend school, beheadings are not common, and some members of the Taliban are former mujahideen of Uzbek or Tajik descent. This suggests a fragmentation of the Taliban resistance with a patchwork of forces with conflicting ideals and motivations. Read more in "As the U.S. mission winds down, Afghan insurgency grows more complex", by Sudarsan Raghavan - The Washington Post, February 12, 2015.