The US policy mistakes that led to the chaotic exit from Afghanistan were only surpassed by Pakistan’s blunder in defending the Taliban and the far more dangerous Haqqani group. The Haqqanis are now holding Afghanistan hostage. So far, regional powers are still trying to engage with the Taliban, but for how much longer?
Memories of August 2021 are still raw. Refugees falling from a C-17 transport plane and queuing waist-deep in the sewers will remain lasting images with the drone strike on an innocent family and the billions of dollars worth of military equipment left behind. But what does the local situation look like now?
Almost a year later, a CIA operation killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, who is believed to have been staying in a house linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani in Kabul’s Sherpur district. This unique event indicates three important points.
- Terrorists hiding in Waziristan on the Afghan-Pakistan border have returned to Afghanistan for the first time since late 2001. This is exactly what Western leaders announced when they justified NATO’s presence during 20 years. The United Nations recently reported that the Afghan branch of the Islamic State (IS) is one of the “strongest and most established regional networks”.
- The Haqqanis, long close to the leadership of Al-Qaeda, have not changed places. They run a terrorist organization that is both separate from and part of the Taliban. They are (or should be) the biggest obstacle for countries considering discussing recognition with the traditional Taliban in Kandahari, led by the more moderate Mullah Baradar.
- Although CIA drones were able to mount an operation in Kabul, the fact remains that Western counter-terrorist capabilities in Afghanistan are insufficient given the magnitude of the threat. Zawahiri was an iconic target rather than a major risk and the US operation had to operate at the limit of its capabilities.
The withdrawal of the Haqqanis from Afghanistan is an ambition that would bring together most of the regional powers as well as the Kandaharis. However, it is difficult to see how this could happen even if Pakistani support could be assured. The Haqqanis control Kabul, are heavily armed and intend to stay.
Indeed, the events of the past year have been a disaster for Pakistan. A few weeks after the Taliban took power, Islamabad had good reason to recognize the extent of its error in defending them. Pakistan had three goals it wanted the Taliban to achieve.
- To prevent the Indians from entering Afghanistan. But India, instead of sponsoring opponents of the Taliban, decided to engage with Kabul. New Delhi provided vital resources food aid to a country that really needs it. It also subtly played on the Kandahari Taliban’s traditional aversion to Pakistan. Mullah Yaqub, the Taliban defense minister, even suggested military training in India.
- The Taliban and Haqqani were to facilitate the destruction of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and hand over wanted terrorists to the Pakistani military. The Haqqanis quickly made it clear that they would not be able to comply. They argued that Kandaharis often hailed from the same villages as the TTP and blocked cooperation. Instead, the Pakistani military had to engage in complex operations ceasefire talks with the TPT.
- The new Afghan government was supposed to recognize the 1897 Durand Line as an international boundary. Pakistan had erected a wire fence at great expense in recent years, but within weeks the Taliban and TTP were cutting the wire and renewal of requests in the Pashtun regions of Pakistan.
It appears that the Pakistani army chief of staff, General Qamar Bajwa, had previously harbored concerns about a Taliban takeover, but he was opposed by his intelligence chief Faiz Hamid and by the powerful corps commanders. China had also expressed concerns about Islamabad’s advocacy of a Taliban-only government (rather than a broader-based government), but Beijing has not pushed its case.
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Today, a year later, China is worried. The Taliban and Haqqani show no interest in handing over Uyghur militants to Chinese authorities. There are fears in Beijing that Uyghur extremists have begun collaborating with Baloch groups and the TTP to undermine the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). There have been a number of attacks inside Pakistan in which Chinese have been targeted, including a bomb blast in Quetta in April 2021, which the Chinese ambassador has narrowly escaped. A year later, a Baloch suicide bomber killed three Chinese citizens near the Confucius Institute in Karachi. This led to renewed Chinese pressure to deploy their own Security in Pakistan; a request that Pakistan has repeatedly refused.
Iran is another country that has sought to engage with the Taliban. Its embassy in Kabul has remained open and it is closely monitoring how the Taliban treats the country’s large Shia minority. Like China, it is relieved to see NATO’s back and, like India, it seems to have decided, for the moment, not to support the armed opposition group of Ahmed Massoud, which operates near from the Tajik border. No country yet wants to renew the civil war in Afghanistan.
This includes Russia and the Central Asian Republics (CAR) which still look to Moscow for Afghan policy as part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Alliance. Russia established direct contact with the Taliban in 2017, but remains deeply skeptical of Taliban intentions and concerned about the northward spread of weapons, religious extremism, terrorism and opium and their ability to destabilize the CAR. Meanwhile, all pipeline projects and railway lines across Afghanistan depend on international recognition of the Taliban and peace.
And therein lies the central enigma. The West should not recognize Afghanistan as long as the Haqqanis control Kabul and will not do so as long as the Taliban refuses to allow female secondary education. Until recognition, nothing can advance except humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the international community (which now has more pressing concerns) can try to prevent the export of terrorism and drugs from Afghanistan. This same policy failed between 1989 and 2001 and will undoubtedly fail again.
This article was first published by our friends at RUSI.
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