India, Oct. 30 -- The Pashtun Taliban has risen like a phoenix: transformed from Mujahideen who pushed back the Soviets in 1979 to take power in Kabul in 1996 - as the creation of Pakistan (by Maj Gen Nasirullah Khan Babar); melted away from Afghanistan when the US and Northern Alliance (NA) ousted it from power in 2001 and then returned to Kabul in 2021, forcing the Americans to flee in a repeat of Saigon, Vietnam in 1973.

The images of US helicopters and C117 Globemasters evacuating soldiers from Saigon and Kabul still haunt US Nam and Afghan veterans. Both the British East India Company and Taliban, non-state actors, took power by use of military force - the Taliban twice - to alter the geopolitics and geostrategy of Afghanistan, the ...