It's to the best of our knowledge. I'm Anne Strain Champs. Today, engaging the enemy.

U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan by 2016, but the Taliban is not only still on the ground.

In some ways, it's stronger than ever.

And the recent exchange of Sergeant Bo Bergdahl for five prisoners from

Guantanamo raises even more questions about America's relationship with this shadowy enemy.

In many ways, it felt like we were fighting ghosts. They could appear out of nowhere. The only

difference between this shepherd on the side of the road and the Taliban was whether he pulled an AK-47 from under his robe.

Today we'll talk with people who fought the Taliban and with people who've tried to understand them.

Like journalist Anand Gopal.

In 2008, he set out for Afghanistan with no translator, no fixer, and one simple

question, who are the Taliban? He talked his way into the insurgency, getting to know

militants, civilians, and warlords, and in his new book, No Good Men Among the Living,

he says one of the most difficult things about dealing with the Taliban is that the difference between friend and foe is not always clear.

He told Steve Paulson what it was like, talking with the Taliban.

Most of the people I had met had actually never met a foreigner before, especially had never met an American before.

So it was a very intriguing experience

for them. And very often, I was the first person ever to ask them their life story. Once they knew

that it was about finding out their stories, a lot of them opened up. What was it like during those

few weeks with the Taliban? One thing that struck me is the Taliban are remarkably unsophisticated

fighters. They wear sandals and they have rocket

launchers on their shoulders and that's about it. They had a lot of bungled attacks. They had

very poor intelligence. And it was astonishing to me that despite all of that, that the U.S.

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