>"The rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops has left the agency seeking ways to maintain its intelligence-gathering, war-fighting and counterterrorism operations in the country."

Well that has no basis in fact. The Mujahidin armed by the CIA during the Soviet war in Afghanistan are most definitely not the same people as the Taliban. Nor did the Taliban exist in the 80s. The Taliban grew in reaction to the vacuum that occurred after the failure of the next government following the Soviet retreat. And much of the Taliban was foreign fighters. The Taliban only emerged in 1994, in part, out of hatred for Islamic moderate leaders like Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was a primary recipient of those arms the CIA dispensed through Pakistan. He was the head of the Northern Alliance (or one of its leaders), which was instrumental to dislodging Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and fighting the Taliban. Massoud was also educated in the west. And he was Tajik (so, no, not orchestrating attacks on Tajikstan). All of this is narrated in great detail in Steve Coll’s Putlitzer-prize winning “Ghost Wars.”