Afghanistan, after one year of Taliban rule

Come August, it will be one year of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. During this period, the Taliban have held together as a regime despite a plethora of internal and external challenges, further compounded by US economic sanctions and the frozen $9.5 billion Afghan reserves. Thus far, no country has diplomatically recognized the Taliban regime, but the international community is pursuing limited engagement, accepting the Taliban administration as a fait accompli. Though the Taliban have managed to restore order and an uneasy peace prevails in Afghanistan, the security challenges persist. 

Broadly, the Taliban have remained intact as a movement and regime. However, the transition from an insurgent to a political entity has tested the Taliban’s organizational coherence. The issues the Taliban are finding challenging to surmount include disarming its foot soldiers, who only know one thing: fighting. Similarly, the discussion of showing some ideological flexibility to accommodate and engage the international community has been taxing for the Taliban’s political leadership. The majority in the Taliban still prefer ideological legitimacy over diplomatic recognition. Likewise, the notion of an inclusive ethnic and political government is alien to the Taliban rank-and-file. They have two counterarguments. The hardliners ask: why were they fighting rival political and ethnic factions if they had to share power with them? The more moderate Taliban elements maintain that after 20 years of conflict, it will take them some time to accept and accommodate their erstwhile adversaries into the power structure. 

Internal disagreements over power sharing and victory credit have become visible during one year of Taliban rule. For instance, the Kandhari Taliban are apprehensive of the Haqqani Network’s growing military strength, and they believe the power is titled in favour of the Haqqanis. On the other hand, the Haqqanis complain that the Kandharis have bagged most of the government jobs and top positions.

Another contention between the two factions is who deserves more credit for the victory. The Kandharis claim that the 2020 US-Taliban deal signed in Qatar, in which Mullah Baradar played the central role, paved the way for the US exit. The Haqqanis, on the other hand, maintain that fighting, for which they contributed the most, forced the US to negotiate a withdrawal in Qatar and made the Taliban victory possible.

Ethnic cracks have also emerged in the Taliban. For instance, their only Hazara Shia commander Maulawi Mahdi left the Taliban recently and returned to his native Balkhab district where he mobilized hundreds of his fighters against the Taliban. The Taliban chased him in Balkhab to crush the potential uprising. Similarly, the Taliban arrested a well-respected Uzbek Taliban commander Makhdoom Alam in January, resulting in immediate anti-Taliban protests in the northern Faryab province. Makhdoom was instrumental in the Taliban victories in northern Afghanistan. The non-Pashtun Taliban feel sidelined and discriminated against by the Pashtun Taliban. 

During this period, Afghanistan’s economic situation has gone from bad to worse. The devastating June earthquake in eastern Afghanistan compounded the Taliban’s financial challenges. In this regard, the workforce drain has been critical. Afghanistan’s educated middle-class working in different sectors left Afghanistan after the Taliban took over. Though some of them have returned, their numbers are quite low. The international community has exempted the humanitarian assistance work in Afghanistan from the sanction regime to avoid a humanitarian disaster and avert the collapse of Afghanistan’s banking system. However, this is just a drop in the bucket. In their first-ever meeting in Qatar in July, the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West and the Taliban Foreign Minister Ameer Khan Muttaqi agreed to find possible ways of giving restricted access to the Taliban to frozen bank reserves through independent third-party monitoring. However, for now, it remains a proposal. 

Daesh-Khorasan poses the most formidable threat to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Daesh-K remains resilient and agile, operating in cell formations with numbers ranging between 2,000 to 2,200 fighters. The group retains the capability of mounting high-profile attacks and has targeted religious minorities in Afghanistan to undermine the Taliban’s claims of restoring peace. From August 2021 to June 2022, around 700 people were killed in Afghanistan, and Daesh-K killed most of them. It has been targeting the Taliban in the propaganda domain for forging ties with China and India, which the former accuses of mistreating Muslims in Kashmir and Xinjiang. 

This summer, the National Resistance Front (NRF) has shown that it can attack the Taliban in northern Afghanistan. Though NRF lacks funding and resources to pose a significant threat to the Taliban, if ethnic discrimination continues, it will benefit the former. 

During the last year, Pakistan-Afghanistan ties have deteriorated over Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) growing attacks. Despite Pakistani requests, the Taliban refused to act against TTP, prompting retaliatory air strikes, which resulted in peace talks. The Taliban are mediating these talks, and currently, a ceasefire exists between Pakistan and TTP. But the talks are deadlocked as both sides are not ready to budge from their red lines.

The one-year Taliban rule is a mixed bag. Hell has not broken loose due to the US withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power. There has been a dramatic decrease in levels of violence. However, despite the apparent calm, public unrest is brewing due to worsening socio-economic conditions resulting in extreme poverty and hunger.

— The author is a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.

Twitter: @basitresearcher