The notion of the Taliban insurgency as a fractured entity, rife with internal strife, has lingered in much of the commentary and analysis on the Afghan conflict. This is in spite of the last five years, which have witnessed the Taliban pull out of its bloodiest internal crisis and achieve its strongest position since 2001. Long after the United States quietly abandoned its stated aim of “shattering” the Taliban, even Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani was said to refer to his long-term plan for ending the conflict as “fight, fracture, talk.”

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