As the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan continues in 2014, many are now concerned about the attitudes of local civilians towards the Taliban compared with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Jason Lyall, Graeme Blair and Kosuke Imai have conducted research on the ground in Afghanistan which aims to measure how civilian attitudes are effected by violence from both groups. They find that ISAF victimization is associated with a large increase in support for the Taliban, but that harm by the Taliban only leads to a modest drop in support.They also find however, that small, targeted assistance programs among those harmed by ISAF can help to reverse much of the outflow of support to the Taliban.
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