♪ ♪ >> War is, full of mistakes, full of incredible loss, tragedy, heartbreak, hardship and casualties.

>> NARRATOR: Drawing on years of reporting, from both sides of the war... >> You set off a car bomb, it’s going to kill women and children and innocent civilians.

>> This was fighting.

>> You reject the idea that you handed a good deal to the Taliban?

>> Not at all.

I got a good deal for the United States.

We wanted out, we got out safely.

>> NARRATOR: Correspondent Martin Smith investigates the missteps... >> No one really knew how this would unfold.

>> NARRATOR: And miscalculations... >> People ask,” What was the Americans’ strategy?

The Americans didn’t have a strategy for Afghanistan.

>> Why do you think we lost?

>> I think it’s a matter of willpower.

>> We didn’t have the will?

>> We had a good amount of it, but they had more.

>> NARRATOR: Now on FRONTLINE, the first of an epic three part series... >> Why did we fail on our mission?

And who was responsible?

>> NARRATOR: America and the Taliban.

(indistinct chatter) ♪ ♪ >> MARTIN SMITH: In the first weeks after the fall of Kabul, Afghans were adjusting to a new peace.

The war was over.

The city was relatively safe.

But no one was quite sure what would happen next.

(ambient city noise) The Taliban had rolled into Kabul on August 15, 2021.

They quickly seized total control.

(guns firing, people shouting) (crowd panicking) (car horns honking, people clamoring) >> A stunning turn of events in Kabul started today with the news that the Taliban fighters were surrounding the city.

Now they're inside the presidential palace.

>> Taliban sitting in the president's desk, some of them lounging elsewhere in the office.

This has happened so fast.

>> SMITH: Immediately after they entered the city, scenes of a mass evacuation were beamed around the world.

>> But America and other NATO countries were certainly caught totally off guard and are now having to cope with this surge of people desperate to get out of the country from the airport, now the only safe way to escape for those who fear for their lives.

(indistinct chatter) >> SMITH: Two days after their victory, the Taliban held their first press conference.

(camera shutters clicking) They promised they would not allow militant groups like Al-Qaeda to operate from Afghanistan.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: Chief government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also made new promises to the women of Afghanistan.

>> (speaking Pashto): (speaking Dari): >> SMITH: Why should the United States trust you?

>> (speaking Pashto): (camera shutter clicking) >> SMITH: Over the last 18 months, I have come to Afghanistan to meet and interview numerous Taliban officials.

(camera shutter clicking) Many have never spoken before.

This is the story of how they won the war.

>> (speaking Pashto): (cars honking) >> July was the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

>> SMITH: This is also the story of how America's defeat became inevitable.

(weapons firing) A story rooted in two decades of mistakes, miscalculations, and hubris.

(explosion roaring) >> Problems had been festering for 20 years.

My concern is that people won't look at what were the real underlying issues that allowed it to collapse so spectacularly.

(car horn honking) >> SMITH: I traveled the length of the country.

What I saw was people struggling to shake off decades of conflict.

(horns honking) War widows begged in the middle of traffic, often with their children on their laps.

Is this a... pediatrics?

>> SMITH: Childhood malnutrition clinics were packed.

>> (speaking Dari): >> SMITH: Jobs were scarce.

>> (speaking Dari): >> SMITH: Most people we speak to on the streets don't have jobs, the healthcare is weak, you have social problems with women not agreeing with Taliban restrictions.

How do you answer all this?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: The Taliban were not only unconcerned, they were busy punishing all those who disobeyed their rules.

(indistinct shouting, clamoring) In Afghanistan, justice can be brutal.

(weapons firing, people panicking) (chanting) >> On a hill overlooking Kabul, these are Afghanistan's new soldiers of God.

Praying, they say, for peace and stability, in a country that's known only conflict for nearly two decades.

>> SMITH: The Taliban first seized control of Afghanistan in 1996, after years of civil war.

The movement was established by veterans of the anti-Soviet war of the 1980s, which lasted a decade and left the country in ruins.

>> Where the fear of war is fast being replaced by a fear of repression.

It's symbolized by the white flag of the Taliban militiamen, heavily armed religious students who patrol the streets enforcing their vision of Islamic law.

>> SMITH: There are two major factions within the Taliban: one centered in Kandahar, the other in eastern Afghanistan, along the Pakistani border.

The Kandahari faction was led by a reclusive young mullah, Muhammad Omar Mujahid.

Omar distinguished himself battling the Soviets.

He lost his right eye during a Russian attack.

>> SMITH: I sat down with one of Omar's closest associates.

And how did Mullah Omar emerge as your leader?

>> The Taliban have been holding an assembly of mullahs from all over Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar was declared to be the Amir of all Muslims everywhere.

Because this was regarded as a key moment for the Afghan nation, Mullah Omar displayed the holy cloak of the prophet Muhammad to the crowd.

Neither the cloak nor the ceremony has ever been filmed before, nor has Mullah Omar.

>> SMITH: Mullah Omar was extreme in his interpretation of Islam.

Imagery depicting humans was forbidden.

He ordered the destruction of the giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan, an archeological treasure almost 1,500 years old.

Omar cracked down on alcohol, music, and movies.

Those who were deemed sinners could be subject to public execution.

(weapon firing, woman screaming) (chanting) Also, in a profoundly fateful move, Mullah Omar gave sanctuary to a wealthy Saudi fugitive, Osama bin Laden; and an Egyptian jihadist, Ayman al Zawahiri.

Both of whom then plotted attacks against the West from Afghanistan.

>> This morning, a U.S. destroyer sits crippled in a Yemen harbor.

At least six crew members of the U.S.S.

Cole are dead.

>> Two bomb blasts today at the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were clearly a part of someone's war against the United States.

>> SMITH: The Taliban insisted that they were innocent.

>> Still unclear at this hour who our enemy is.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> In the days leading up to 9/11, leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan, of course, we offered the Taliban every opportunity to turn Al-Qaeda over and to turn Osama bin Laden over, and they said no.

♪ ♪ >> Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom.

Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution.

Justice will be done.

(engines roaring) >> Unleashing its wrath, America with the help from Britain has struck at Taliban targets and terrorist training camps across Afghanistan.

>> SMITH: Within a month of 9/11, the U.S. launched Operation Enduring Freedom.

>> Explosions over Kabul, over Kandahar, over Jalalabad.

>> SMITH: The Taliban's fall was swift and decisive.

>> Now with near breathtaking speed, the takeover of the country's capital, Kabul.

>> SMITH: After a month, the Taliban were in full retreat and Mullah Omar was on the run.

>> Mullah Omar is thought to be hiding, a $10 million bounty on his head.

>> SMITH: The U.S. and the rest of the international community now found itself needing to fill a power vacuum.

In late November 2001, at a big hotel outside Bonn, Germany, the U.N. sponsored a conference to determine who would rule the new Afghanistan.

>> The U.N. really putting the pressure on Afghan delegates.

>> SMITH: But the Taliban were excluded.

>> They keep on urging them, this is your chance here to come to an agreement, the world is watching you, don't blow it.

>> SMITH: So, at that conference, there were a whole slew of Afghan participants invited from the Northern Alliance, to Pakistan-exiled Afghan Pashtuns, Afghans with ties to Iran... No Taliban.

Was it ever discussed that perhaps there should be an invitation made to the Taliban to participate?

>> You know, not to my recollection.

I think you have to go back in time and think about how everybody felt at that moment.

And, of course, the Taliban connected to Al-Qaeda, connected to the 11th of September.

I think the general feeling was that they'd been defeated, they were out, and we were gonna try to do the best we can with the groups that you mentioned.

>> SMITH: It is customary in postwar situations to invite the vanquished to sit at the table, to discuss the future.

A decision is made not to invite the Taliban.

Was that a mistake?

>> I think it may have been too early in Bonn, because the Talibs hadn't quite been defeated.

There were still pockets of resistance, and they regarded themselves as the legitimate government.

So, for many in the U.S., it was too early.

>> SMITH: By the end of the conference, Hamid Karzai-- a charismatic, English-speaking Afghan politician with connections to the C.I.A.-- was chosen as Afghanistan's new interim leader.

But some Taliban leaders were still looking to negotiate a deal, offering to surrender if they could remain in Afghanistan and, quote, "live in dignity."

>> They did not want to go out of Afghanistan to Pakistan or Iran.

They wanted to collaborate with the new government of President Karzai, help them, and told them that, "Look, we just want to stay in Afghanistan, let us live here."

♪ ♪ >> If you're asking would an arrangement with Omar where he could, quote, "live in dignity" in the Kandahar area or some place in Afghanistan, be consistent with what I have said, the answer is no, it would not be consistent with what I have said.

>> The answer was firm.

The Taliban have no place in a future Afghan government and, um, they should be captured and imprisoned, certainly at the leadership level, whenever possible.

♪ ♪ >> Terrorists are now scattered.

>> Bounties were put out, Taliban were chased down.

>> And in every cave, in every dark corner of that country, we will hunt down the killers, and bring them to justice.

(cheers and applause) >> SMITH: Among the Taliban arrested was their ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Zaeef, seized by Pakistanis and rendered to U.S. custody.

Zaeef says he was beaten.

>> SMITH: What were they trying to find out?

What were they asking from you?

>> SMITH: The Taliban were trying to negotiate some kind of space for themselves to live in Kandahar and Helmand.

Why not respond to those entreaties by the Taliban?

>> I think it's a very valid question.

And in my own postmortem of "why didn't things turn out better in Afghanistan," one of the questions that lingers, that hangs over this, is why we did not actually try to incorporate the Taliban into the new Afghanistan.

>> Counterfactual history is a dangerous exercise.

It's very hard to rerun history and ask, could it have been different?

I do think in the 20-year history of this war, if there was an opportunity to prevent the Taliban's insurgency from gathering force and disrupting the American and NATO project in Afghanistan, that was probably the moment.

>> SMITH: What the U.S. and its allies didn't appreciate was that the Taliban had a legitimacy in Afghanistan that the U.S. could never match.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> The Taliban had a gravity, especially among the remote areas in the Pashtun south and east.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> They competed well, against the legitimacy of the Afghan government.

♪ ♪ >> While it seemed outrageous in Washington or London, in Southern Afghanistan on the ground, when the Taliban came knocking and said, "We were kicked out unjustly," they started to find some takers for them.

(motor churning) >> Across the world, we are hunting down the killers.

One by one.

We are winning.

And we're showing them... >> SMITH: By 2002, with the Taliban on the run, the Bush administration was essentially declaring victory in Afghanistan and was preparing to fight another war.

>> In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East.

>> There's no debate that we did take our eye off the ball.

We did it deliberately.

We entered another campaign, an order of magnitude larger and more difficult than what we were undertaking in Afghanistan.

We opened for ourselves a two-front war.

(bomb bursting) >> Shock and awe.

Hundreds of bombs and cruise missiles ripping into Saddam Hussein's palaces.

>> This was central Baghdad today... >> SMITH: With the Americans distracted by Iraq, the Taliban were able to quietly regroup.

Mullah Omar's faction set up headquarters, just over the border in Pakistan.

(horns honking) >> The sanctuary itself was terribly important because it allowed the Taliban to regroup politically and militarily.

And they started to do what guerilla groups do when they prepare for an insurgency: to train, to organize, to choose commanders.

The Taliban start thinking about campaigns, objectives, they start to communicate, they start sending messages into the Afghan people saying, "We're coming.

We're on our way.

We need you to join us."

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: 8,000 miles away, Mullah Zaeef had spent more than three years in Guantanamo, where the defense department was still trying to firmly establish his connection to Al-Qaeda.

He says his interrogator assured him the war was over.

>> SMITH: He told you that your movement was history.

>> SMITH: Zaeef was then told he could be released only if he would sign a letter that said he was Al-Qaeda.

♪ ♪ >> SMITH: In the end, Zaeef says he signed the letter but added an amendment stating that he was not Al-Qaeda.

(jet screeching) He was released from Guantanamo on September 11, 2005, and returned to Afghanistan the next day.

Over the ensuing years, the Taliban mounted a fierce counter offensive.

>> Today, the news is bad.

>> There's been an explosion of violence in Afghanistan, some of the worst fighting since the U.S. helped overthrow the Taliban government... (shots firing) (rapid machine gun fire) >> Pitched battles between NATO and U.S. forces and masked gangs of Taliban fighters are raging daily in Afghanistan.

>> There's some, uh, ICOM chatter saying that the Taliban are looking at us right now.

(rapid gunfire) >> The Taliban were never truly rooted out of these hills, and now they're back.

>> Allahu akbar!

>> Thousands, better armed than ever, have organized into large-scale units.

>> We began to see an upsurge in Taliban violence centered mostly in the south, so Helmand and Kandahar.

And the indicators here were pretty clear.

The, uh, frequency of, uh, roadside bombs... I.E.D.s, improvised explosive devices.

♪ ♪ >> This weekend the Taliban's leader-in-hiding, Mullah Omar, released a bold audio recording saying, quote, "those who thought the Taliban "were eliminated were wrong.

"We control a large part of the country."

>> The cables that were coming to Washington from Kabul made clear that the war was going badly.

(weapons firing, men shouting) >> And, that, in the absence of more resources and more attention, uh, it was gonna get a lot worse quickly.

(motors rumbling) >> SMITH: Adding to the Taliban's growing strength was the Haqqani network fighting in Afghanistan's east, led by another veteran of the anti-Soviet war, Jalaladdin Haqqani.

>> (man speaking Pashto) >> SMITH: During the Soviet war, Haqqani had received millions of dollars and tons of armaments from the C.I.A.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: But Haqqani, the one-time U.S. ally, had begun regularly mounting attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces.

>> Allahu akbar!

Allahu akbar!

(gunfire) According to his son, the U.S. had tried to coax him from the battlefield.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> Allahu akbar!

(weapons firing) >> SMITH: Over time, the Haqqani network became the most lethal branch of the Taliban.

♪ ♪ All the while, the Haqqanis maintained strong ties to foreign militants, including bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

Haqqani also had a tight connection to Pakistani intelligence, who used the network to further their aims in Afghanistan.

They were betting that the Americans would eventually leave Afghanistan, so they wanted to maintain a strong alliance with the Taliban.

>> Pakistan did give them sanctuary.

I mean, I know they would deny it, but it's not deniable.

Particularly their leaders, and then Pakistan provided that space for them.

And without that space, it would not have been easier for the Taliban to operate the way they did.

(indistinct chatter, cars honking) >> So you have a situation where our partners, to whom we're paying billions of dollars a year in various forms of security and economic assistance, basically are slow rolling us.

And the bottom line is that the Pakistanis were very duplicitous.

We had a sense that they were confronting this, and the reality was that they were not going to do that.

>> SMITH: It was a fact that continued to anger President Karzai.

But attempts to get the Pakistanis to crack down on the Taliban failed.

Haqqani's effectiveness was due in large part to his prolific use of suicide bombs.

>> (speaking Arabic): >> SMITH: In this Taliban video, a suicide bomber is heading toward his target: a convoy of two American Humvees.

>> (speaking Arabic): >> SMITH: The bomber is guided by another militant who kept his distance.

(explosion bursting) >> (speaking Arabic): >> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: The Haqqani network relied on young suicide bombers.

Are you comfortable with, or how do you feel about this as a method of war?

>> (speaking Pashto): (weapons firing, explosion blasting) >> Allahu akbar!

(man shouting in Pashto) Allahu akbar!

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: Haji Mali Khan is another senior member of the Haqqani clan, a brother-in-law to its founder, Jalaladin Haqqani.

Mali Khan was captured by U.S. troops and imprisoned at Bagram Air Base in 2011.

>> (speaking Pashto): (song playing, explosions echoing) >> (speaking Pashto): (series of explosions echoing) (aftershock vibration rumbles) >> I was a leader of suicide attack on foreigners.

No... >> SMITH: Any attacks on foreigners?

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> SMITH: Samiullah Al Muhammedi was one of Haqqani's operatives.

So you made car bombs?

>> Yeah.

Car bombs.

Uh, suicide bomb... (indistinct) >> SMITH: Bomb vests?

>> Yeah.

>> SMITH: Suicide vests?

>> Yeah.

>> SMITH: Muhammedi emphasized the Haqqanis' ties to Pakistan.

But you say the Pakistan military was supporting the training... >> Yeah.

>> SMITH: ...that you received.

>> Yes.

This, this was their national interest, to train us.

>> SMITH: The national interest was what?

>> In that time they wanted to destroy the local government of Afghanistan.

>> SMITH: So the Pakistanis were training you to go back to Afghanistan.

>> And to kill Americans.

In that time, this... that was their national interest.

(siren blaring) >> SMITH: One of Haqqani's biggest suicide attacks came in downtown Kabul in 2008.

>> Forty people are dead after a car bomb tore through the front wall of India's embassy in Afghanistan... >> SMITH: Though Pakistan condemned it, intercepted communications established that the Pakistani spy service, the I.S.I., had helped the Haqqani network plan the attack.

>> Most of the Haqqani network also attacked the Intercontinental Hotel, killing 12 Afghans.

>> At least 89 people were killed after a suicide bomber... >> Three civilians died and scores... >> Afghan civilians have been... >> The Americans also accuse him of the attack on the American embassy, killing of other Americans and all that.

>> SMITH: The attack on the Serena Hotel?

>> Attack on the Serena Hotel and... >> SMITH: And these attacks, inevitably, killed civilians.

>> Yes.

>> SMITH: Well, I have a list of all the attacks that were mounted by the Taliban and the Haqqani network and I can share it with you.

>> SMITH: September 5th, 2019, Taliban car bomb in Kabul kills ten Afghan civilians.

Another car bombing outside an Afghan military base in Puli Allem, Logar Province, kills four Afghans.

In the span of a week, 24 Americans are killed, 107 Afghan civilians.

(stammering) >> SMITH: Well if you go into a marketplace because there's a couple of soldiers, and you set off a car bomb, it's going to kill women, and children, and innocent civilians.

(helicopter whirring) >> SMITH: In Washington, as a new president took over, there was agreement that Bush's war was failing.

Obama ordered a review.

>> Today, I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

>> SMITH: Within the first few months of his inauguration, he sent in 21,000 more troops.

At meetings inside the White House, General David Petraeus was foremost among those pushing for a new approach.

>> The problem in Afghanistan had been that we'd never even had the right big ideas, the right overarching strategy.

You just can't drone strike and Delta Force your way out of the problem.

>> SMITH: Petraeus advocated a strategy known in military jargon as counterinsurgency-- or COIN.

(distant siren blaring) >> The overriding mission of counterinsurgency has to be to secure the people.

We must be partners there, good neighbors.

To do that you have to, in Iraq, live among the people and there you... >> SMITH: Petraeus had championed counterinsurgency in Iraq.

He explained it all at a major national security conference in Washington.

>> What we are doing is what we call full spectrum operations.

The only way to do this is to apply all of these tools, not just conventional forces, which are... >> When the United States achieved some stability in the Iraq War, it was through the application of counterinsurgency doctrine led by General Petraeus.

>> Very significant reduction in security incidents in Baghdad alone.

>> And there was a sense that this was the solution.

Suddenly we had found the magic formula, and the magic formula was counterinsurgency.

>> But you have to have a huge political component right here and this is forcing every agency to sit in a room without barriers.

(voiceover): Counterinsurgency is, arguably, the most challenging form of campaign.

(on TV): This turns into a whole of government approach.

(voiceover): Because it is not just the military operation of clearing bad guys from an area and then holding it.

It also includes helping the host nation forces to reestablish basic services, to get the economy going again, to rebuild the damage.

>> The central goal of counterinsurgency is to make the population feel secure enough to engage in peaceful politics.

>> Protect the population above all other considerations.

>> A dramatic shift.

>> A long-term commitment to the region... >> In my experience of Washington D.C., I've never seen an intellectual bubble like that one.

I mean, it was a conviction.

>> Because, again, they are the big ideas.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, has headed in the other direction.

>> General Petraeus argued that we had never really given counterinsurgency a chance in Afghanistan, and this was the time to do it.

>> SMITH: Over the coming months, Douglas Lute, who served both Presidents Bush and Obama, would become dubious.

>> I was a skeptic of the model, not because conceptually counterinsurgency made no sense to me, but I didn't think that the model applied well to the conditions in Afghanistan.

What conditions?

Poverty; 20-plus years of war already when we launched in in 2001; the ability to build a credible, sustainable, Afghan army and police; the role of Pakistan next door.

So there were a lot of factors here that caused me to believe... >> SMITH: Lute also became increasingly concerned about partnering with a weak Afghan government.

>> The Afghan government struggled for legitimacy across the Afghan people because of the endemic corruption of the... of the Afghan government.

>> SMITH: But the Pentagon carried the day.

General Stanley McChrystal was chosen to execute this course correction.

I interviewed him in 2009.

You had been in meetings with President Obama.

What was different?

>> Well, I think the decision to do a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy.

First, preventing Al Qaeda return to safe havens that had been here before 9/11, but then also to review the way we fought.

You are trying to win the support of the population.

And that can be either through coercion, or it can be through offering things that wins their popular support.

And at the end of the day, it's really not terrifically complex in theory.

The difficulty lies in the execution.

>> SMITH: Winning hearts and minds requires a large occupying force.

But by sending in just 21,000 troops, Obama was embracing counterinsurgency-lite.

(indistinct radio chatter) >> In order to apply the standard ratio of counterinsurgency forces to Afghanistan, you would've needed to send something like 300,000 or 400,000 American soldiers to calm the country down.

That was obviously implausible, and yet nobody wanted to abandon counterinsurgency as the solution.

So, they looked at the map of Afghanistan, and they identified places in the south and east where the Taliban seemed particularly strong, and they decided that they could apply counterinsurgency doctrine in those places, and then the math would work.

>> We're attacking to seize control of the population from the Taliban.

>> SMITH: In July of 2009, I followed a group of Marines sent to take Helmand province in Afghanistan's south.

>> It's time to change the game in Afghanistan.

>> SMITH: These men would be among the first to apply counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.

>> Make no mistake, we're experts in the application of violence.

>> SMITH: Their commander was Lieutenant Colonel Christian Cabaniss.

>> The world will remember what you do here this summer.

Forty or 50 years from now, when you're sitting around with your grandchildren, they're gonna ask you what you did in the Summer of Decision in Afghanistan.

>> SMITH: You gave a rousing speech to Echo Company.

>> Echo Company is gonna change history starting early tomorrow morning.

>> SMITH: "Echo Company is going to change history."

>> They did.

It just didn't turn out like we wanted.

(helicopter whirring) It's our time to take our place in the illustrious line of Marines who have gone before us.

>> SMITH: You had to have some chills when you heard that speech from Cabaniss.

>> Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I think that was the intent.

You know it was a tough... it was a tough mission, and we didn't know what was really gonna happen.

>> I want you to understand, I picked you specifically to be the company that goes the furthest south based off my confidence in your leaders, and my confidence in you.

>> We just weren't entirely sure how many Taliban there were gonna be there, and what kind of tactics they would use, what kind of weapons they were gonna have.

♪ ♪ >> SMITH: When did you come under fire?

>> We landed around 7:30.

It was probably around 9:30, 10:00, that the fighting started.

(distant explosion) (loud blast) >> Whoo!

>> SMITH: Eight years after 9/11, the U.S. war was now fully on.

(rapid gunfire) >> What are you doing?

(rapid gunfire) >> Yeah, fuck you!

(rapid gunfire) >> Hey, where's it coming from?

>> Look out to the trees, to the right of the compound.

>> SMITH: The mission was to take a village called Mian Poshteh.

>> Jesus!

Fuck!

(indistinct shouting) >> SMITH: The fighting was often heavy with almost no cover.

>> Stay down!

Stay down!

Stay down!

>> SMITH: The area was littered with I.E.D.s.

>> What the fuck was that?

MARINE: The fuck-- it's a fucking I.E.D.

I told you guys do not fucking cross right here.

What the fuck!?

>> Yo, he's bleeding the fuck out.

>> Get a doctor.

MARINE: I need a doctor and a litter team.

>> SMITH: On the first day, Echo Company suffered its first casualty.

>> Sharp.

>> Come on, Sharp.

>> Come on, Sharp.

>> SMITH: 20-year-old Corporal Seth Sharp of Adairsville, Georgia, shot in the neck.

>> Sharp!

>> Hurry up!

>> Goddammit.

>> Let's go.

>> Where am I carrying him?

>> Grab a leg, grab a leg.

>> Grab one, grab one.

Let's go.

>> Where's the litter?

Where's the fucking litter?

>> SMITH: Corporal Sharp didn't make it.

♪ ♪ (indistinct chatter) After some hard days of fighting, Echo Company seized and set up their headquarters in an abandoned schoolhouse.

Temperatures reached 120 degrees.

On patrols, conditions were hellish.

>> You could walk through a dried field, and it would feel just hot and you could sometimes then hit, just hit a wall of humidity.

I mean it will sap, just suck the energy out of you.

>> SMITH: What's the mission today?

>> The mission today, uh, is a couple things.

Right now we're trying to get eyes on a river crossing that we think the Taliban are using.

The other part is trying to see how aggressive they're gonna be.

Trying to bait 'em a little bit into being overly aggressive and see if we can catch them in a trap.

>> SMITH: Do you expect them to attack you today?

>> I do.

(dogs barking) >> SMITH: The Marines here were carrying out counterinsurgency's basic tenets-- clear, hold, and build.

>> Clear, hold, and build was a fundamental building block of the counterinsurgency strategy.

You have to clear the insurgency out of the area, and holding it means you stay there to maintain the security, and then you try and rebuild.

Whether it's trust with the population, or infrastructure that was damaged, or relationships between the people and the government, all that.

>> Sangay.

Good morning.

How are you?

>> This was a contest for Afghan hearts and minds in areas where the Taliban enjoyed their greatest strength.

(soldier speaking an Afghan language) The hypothesis was that bringing this counterinsurgency fight village by village, they would basically change the loyalties of the great majority of Afghan people and deprive the Taliban of social and political oxygen in these areas.

(dog barking) >> SMITH: It was ambitious.

And when we were there, counterinsurgency-- or COIN-- didn't appear to be working.

People had fled their homes, merchants had closed their shops in the nearby bazaar.

(tractor whirring) The Marines went out to reassure the locals that the Taliban had been cleared from the area and that it was safe to return home.

>> Why are people afraid to come back to their house?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> Okay, well, now they can come back.

They know that, right?

People can start farming again.

(villagers laughing) Hey, has anybody shopped at the market lately?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> TRANSLATOR (speaking Pashto): >> (speaking Pashto): >> TRANSLATOR (in English): Sir, they gone to Lakari.

>> Why are you going to Lakari?

The market right here is open.

>> TRANSLATOR: Taliban told, "If you go to bazaar, we will kill all of you."

>> Who told you the Taliban was gonna shoot you if you go to the market?

(overlapping chatter) >> SMITH: I spoke to Echo Company's commander and asked him how well he thought his Marines understood counterinsurgency doctrine.

>> You're not telling me where.

Where haven't they gone?

>> They understand how important it is to win the population.

They, they understand that.

It's sometimes difficult with Marines to rein them back.

>> Now I'm going to ask this question for the fifth time.

All right, ask him to stop.

>> What I try to tell the Marines all the time is the, the guy that you are nice to today is gonna be the guy that doesn't shoot at you, or another Marine two rotations from now that comes back.

>> Yeah, they didn't answer my question.

Listen to me for a second.

I need you all to answer my questions.

If not... >> SMITH: What was being asked of the young Marines that I saw on the ground was that they needed to do an enormous amount of social work.

And it wasn't clear they had the patience or the understanding of the complexity of COIN's rather intricate, head-spinning design.

>> Um, there's no question that we asked an enormous amount of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, those on the ground in particular.

My own son was out there as a rifle platoon leader.

I have a pretty good understanding of what we asked of our men and women in uniform.

>> You all are not cooperating.

All right, you need to understand that we are here to keep the Taliban out.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> (speaking Pashto): (laughs) >> (speaking Pashto): ♪ ♪ (indistinct chatter) >> SMITH: After 12 years, I decided to go back to southern Afghanistan to see how things have worked out under Taliban rule.

(prayer played over loudspeaker) We first stopped off in Kandahar, the spiritual capital of the Taliban, and longtime home to Taliban founder Mullah Omar.

Tuberculosis felled Omar in 2013.

Today's supreme leader is Mullah Hibutullah Akhundzada.

(prayer played over loudspeaker) We attended Eid al Fitr prayers at Kandahar's grand mosque, marking the end of Ramadan, the month-long Muslim fast.

♪ ♪ Mullah Akhundzada was ferried in by helicopter to preside over the service.

(Akhundzada speaking over loudspeakers) Like Omar, Akhundzada is extremely secretive.

He preached but remained out of sight.

>> (speaking Pashto): (horn honks, engines buzzing) >> SMITH: In Kandahar today, the Taliban rule much like they did in the '90s.

Barbers are not allowed to shave beards.

Women are banned from most workplaces.

And girls are not allowed to attend school beyond sixth grade or enroll in university.

So is this your office?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: In the center of town, we visited the local office of what used to be the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

W-was this for the protection of women's rights before the takeover by the Taliban?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: It's now the Taliban's Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: I asked the minister about the rationale for the Taliban's strict moral code.

We all remember in the 1990s, stonings of women for adultery.

There were people whose hands were cut off because of stealing.

>> (speaking Pashto): ♪ ♪ >> SMITH: We pushed on to Helmand Province, where we had embedded with the Marines back in 2009.

(car horn honking) The capital, Lashkar Gah, was one of the last cities-- before Kabul-- to fall to the Taliban in 2021.

♪ ♪ There was heavy fighting here and much of the city was scarred.

♪ ♪ (indistinct chatter) I made an appointment to meet with the governor of Helmand.

I needed permission to return to the areas we had visited years earlier.

(indistinct radio chatter) As-salamu alaykum.

Governor Maulvi Abdul Ahad Talib fought for many years in Helmand to expel, as he put it, "the foreigners."

I'd like to ask you what you believe are the reasons for your victory?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: Eventually I steered the conversation towards what I had come for: permission to head further south.

And we were in a town named Mian Poshteh.

I can show you this video.

I showed the governor the scene of the villagers we had filmed when we were following the Marines.

>> (on phone): You were told the Taliban's going to shoot you if you go to the market.

>> SMITH: So, our purpose in going down there is to meet the people that we met, understanding that history has to be told from two sides, not one.

>> You all are not cooperating.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: I really thank you.

A day later, our crew was granted permission to make the four-hour drive to Mian Poshteh.

♪ ♪ (honks horn) ♪ ♪ (horn honks, people talking in background) When we arrived, local Taliban were waiting for us.

This guy over there is saying over the bridge.

Yeah, I think it was right down here on this corner.

(indistinct chatter) This all looks familiar to me.

(on phone): All the shooting makes it harder for the Marines and the people... Yeah, that gate is behind us.

>> (on phone): Well, I know there's no problems, but you're still gonna see the Marines around here like every day, every other day.

>> SMITH: Yep.

>> Yeah?

>> SMITH: See this gate here?

Same gate.

Yep.

Let me show you.

(men speaking Pashto) It's this gate.

Same place.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> (on phone): So you were told the Taliban's going to shoot you if you go to the market?

Who told you the Taliban was going to shoot you if you go to the market?

>> SMITH: You're in here?

Yeah?

Oh, I recognize your face.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: So the Marines said they came here to make your lives better, they were gonna get rid of the Taliban, they were gonna keep them away, and did they do any of that?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: Is life better now?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: Are you just saying all these things because we are surrounded by Taliban with guns?

Or is this what most people feel?

>> (speaking Pashto): >> SMITH: It was clear to me, that for these Afghans, the war could not have ended soon enough.

♪ ♪ (rapid gunfire) The Marines stayed in Helmand for five years.

350 died here.

>> (on radio): Roger, we still have about 200 meters until we've reached that first compound.

>> SMITH: But after clearing and holding places like Mian Poshteh... (gunfire) ...the Taliban kept coming back.

(soldier shouting, rapid gunfire) In late 2009, the Pentagon requested even more troops.

Obama obliged.

>> I have determined that it is our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

>> SMITH: The U.S. troop level rose to 100,000.

>> Thank you.

God bless you.

(applause) And God bless the United States of America.

(applause) >> SMITH: But doubling down was a controversial decision.

Even Vice President Biden counseled against it.

In a memo sent to Obama at the time, Biden wrote, "I do not see how anyone who took part "in our discussions could emerge without profound questions about the viability of counterinsurgency."

Biden was worried about sustainable surge numbers, and the competency of the Afghan government and its security forces, all of which, he wrote, are "essential to the success of COIN."

>> I know we brought school supplies last time, we're still trying to get the, the concrete and the pipes, but they keep shooting at us on the roads and shooting everywhere, nobody wants to... >> It was unrealistic what the Americans were trying to do with young men in fatigues.

>> Hello.

Where are you going with your cows?

>> And it was a crazy sort of way to plan a war, because it was fitting the topography of the war with the Taliban to a theory, without stepping back and asking what is the big picture here?

Why is the Taliban comeback working?

Those were the questions that might have been asked.

They generally weren't.

There was this blind faith in counterinsurgency doctrine.

(soldier shouting, rapid gunfire) >> SMITH: Why do you think we lost?

>> I think we demonstrated a lot of willpower, being there for 20 years, and, and losing a lot of people and spending a lot of time and resources to try and make it a place that would be better and freer in the long run.

>> There's still guys milling about in that tree line we were taking fire from.

Hard copy.

>> But we weren't successful in it and I think it's a matter of willpower.

>> SMITH: We didn't have the will.

>> Correct.

We had a good amount of it, but they had more.

>> There are definitely guys in that tree line, there are definitely guys deep out there.

>> Yeah, the left hay bale, you come about one finger to the right and you go straight back, and he's hanging out right there in between the trees.

>> SMITH: In his 2009 interview, General McChrystal had this to say.

"The Washington Times" said the other day that you've cleared Helmand three times.

>> Yeah.

>> SMITH: Never hold it.

>> Yeah, and once you clear something and don't hold it, you probably didn't really clear it.

It has no staying power.

In fact, I would argue that it's worse, because you create an expectation and then you dash it.

And so, I think that you are almost better to have not gone there at all.

♪ ♪ >> Afghans will take full responsibility.

>> NARRATOR: Next time -- America looks to withdraw... >> The military was always saying we should wait till we are in a stronger position.

And I use to say, “Why do you think you’ll be in a stronger position if you wait?” >> NARRATOR: And the Taliban gain ground... >> There were large swaths of the country turning towards the Taliban.

>> They were not going to be denied.

They got a role, it’s just not the role we imagined.

>> NARRATOR: Part two of “America and the Taliban” next time on FRONTLINE.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more of Martin Smith’s coverage.

>> After 12 years I decided to go back to southern Afghanistan... >> Do you expect them to attack you today?

>> I do.

>> So why did the Americans tolerate their ally making these deals with the Taliban?

>> And see all of our reporting on Afghanistan over the years.

>> Connect with FRONTLINE on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

And stream anytime on the PBS App, YouTube or pbs.org/frontline.

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org.

>> For more on this and other Frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Frontline's "American and the Taliban" is available on Amazon Prime Video.