PAKISTAN
UN report finds ‘strong and symbiotic’ links between Afghan Taliban, TTP

Tahir Khan Published June 11, 2023 

The link between the Afghan Taliban and proscribed militant outfits Al-Qaeda and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains “strong and symbiotic”, a report published by the United Nations (UN) said.

The fourteenth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the UN Security Council’s 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee — released on Friday — noted that a “range of terrorist groups has greater freedom of manoeuvre under the Taliban de facto authorities”.

“They are making good use of this, and the threat of terrorism is rising in both Afghanistan and the region,” the report read, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com.

“While they have sought to reduce the profile of these groups and conducted maintaining links to numerous terrorist entities, the Taliban have lobbied member states for counter-terrorism assistance in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISIL-K), which it perceives as its principal rival.”

The report said that the Taliban forces have conducted operations against ISIL-K, in general, but they have not delivered on the counter-terrorism provisions under the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the United States of America and the Taliban.

“There are indications that Al-Qaeda is rebuilding operational capability, that TTP is launching attacks into Pakistan with support from the Taliban, that groups of foreign terrorist fighters are projecting threat across Afghanistan’s borders and that the operations of ISIL-K are becoming more sophisticated and lethal (if not more numerous),” it added.

However, the Afghan Taliban dismissed the report and called it “full of prejudice”.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers the continuation of UN Security Council sanctions and such reports as full of prejudice and in conflict with the principles of independence and non-interference, and calls for an end to it,” Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement today.



Mujahid called the accusations “baseless” and a result of “obvious hostility” with the people of Afghanistan as well as repetition of the “baseless propaganda” of the past 20 years.

“We strongly reject the assessment of this report that the Islamic Emirate is helping the opponents of neighbouring and regional countries or using the territory of Afghanistan against other countries, from the content of this report”.

The Taliban spokesman said it seemed that either the UNSC’s authors did not have access to the information or they “deliberately distorted” the facts or the source of their information was the Islamic Emirate’s fugitive opponents.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan insists on its commitments and assures that there is no threat from the territory of Afghanistan to the region, neighbours and countries of the world and it does not allow anyone to use its territory against others,” Mujahid added.
Pakistan’s stance

Pakistani security officials have long been saying that the TTP and other anti-Pakistan armed groups operate from Afghan soil.

The Taliban government hosted peace talks between the TTP and Pakistani security officials to put an end to the violence in Pakistan. However, the talks collapsed last year over tough conditions from both sides.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif led a high-powered delegation in talks with senior Taliban leaders in Kabul in February with a single-point agenda to take action against the TTP.

There have been no cross-border attacks from the Afghan side for months, however, there has been a spike in the TTP attacks since the group ended a ceasefire in November.

The government has also stopped talks with the TTP and launched intelligence-based operations against the group, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Explained | Taliban have put Afghan clock back to 1990s’ autocracy: UN report

New Delhi

Edited By: Mukul Sharma

Updated: Jun 11, 2023


An armed Talib guarding a security checkpoint in Kabul | Representative Photograph:(Reuters)

The United Nation Security Council's Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted its 14th annual report about the Taliban’s impact on the security situation in Afghanistan this month, in which it accused the regime of reverting to its "autocratic" policies of the late 1990s.

The connection between the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) remains strong and mutually beneficial for all the parties involved with the Taliban as current rulers of Afghanistan acting as the nucleus of the entire set-up harbouring terror activities, a latest UN report has indicated.

The report highlights that terrorist groups are now able to freely operate under the Taliban's authority in Afghanistan, posing a significant threat of terrorism in the country and the wider region.

The report further describes that the Taliban's relationship with Al-Qaeda and TTP remains robust and symbiotic, enabling other terrorist groups to operate more freely under the Taliban's rule except for the ones that it sees as its rival.

The UNSC’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted its 14th annual report about the Taliban’s impact on the security situation in Afghanistan this month, in which it accused the regime of reverting to its "autocratic" policies of the late 1990s.

Taliban is allowing Afghanistan to be used for attack against other nations

Contrary to the Taliban's promises and subsequent claims of not allowing Afghan soil to be used for attacks against other countries, the report reveals that they have been harboring and actively supporting the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

In another contradiction, while the Taliban maintains ties with various terrorist entities, it has sought counter-terrorism assistance from member states in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province (ISIL-K), which it considers its primary rival.

“The Taliban leadership shows no signs of bending to pressure for reform or compromise, in the hope of earning international political recognition,” the report said, adding that Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada has been “proudly resistant” to external pressure to moderate his policies.
Taliban is not honoring Doha agreement: UN report

The Taliban has failed to fulfill its counter-terrorism obligations as outlined in the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the United States and the Taliban, the UN report said.

What does the Taliban in Afghanistan mean for Pakistan?

Unlike the popular optics of August 201 showing Pakistani establishment mingling with Taliban as an apparent mark of US’ departure from the region, the snakes Islamabad has fed for decades have come to bite Pakistan itself.

The report underscores that the tight bond between the Afghan Taliban and TTP, similar to their relationship with Al-Qaeda, is unlikely to dissipate. This situation puts Pakistan to the test and raises the risk of heightened violence on both sides of the border.
Taliban shows no signs of reform

The report, the first to cover the entirety of the Taliban's period in power, indicates that the Taliban leadership shows no intention of reform or compromise to gain international political recognition. With no significant political opposition, the Taliban's unchecked authority has allowed foreign terrorist fighters sheltered by the group to become an increasingly significant security threat to neighboring countries.

Taliban, Al-Qaeda ties: Afghanistan a safe haven for terror

While the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Aiman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul house connected to Taliban's acting Interior Minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, did lead to a sense of distrust among its members, according to the latest UN report, Afghanistan continues to be a safe haven for Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda aims to strengthen its position in Afghanistan and has been collaborating with the Taliban, supporting the regime, and safeguarding senior Taliban figures.

Al-Qaeda maintains a low profile, utilising the country as an ideological and logistical hub for mobilisation, recruitment, and covertly rebuilding external operational capabilities. Al-Qaeda finances its activities through core funding and donations, including the use of hawala services and cryptocurrencies.

ISIL-K 'most serious terrorist threat'

ISIL-K has been identified as the most serious current terrorist threat in Afghanistan, neighboring countries, and Central Asia, according to member states.

Also read | Exclusive: 'Why is the world neglecting Afghan women?'

The group has enhanced its operational capabilities and freedom of movement within Afghanistan, aiming to sustain a high pace of mostly low-impact attacks while sporadically executing high-impact actions to incite sectarian conflicts and destabilise the region in the medium to long term.

Over the past year, ISIL-K has claimed responsibility for more than 190 suicide bomb attacks targeting major cities, resulting in the death or injury of approximately 1,300 people.
Taliban rule in Afghanistan so far

Barely a month after coming to power, the Taliban banned girls from secondary education in September 2021.

On December 21, 2022, the Taliban banned women from attending universities.

WION first reported in January 2023 when the Taliban-ruled in Balkh province that male doctors can no longer treat female patients.

The Taliban stormed to power virtually unchallenged after the withdrawal of US-led forces from the country in the first week of August 2021. The regime has not received international recognition especially due to its imposition of anti-women decrees.

Pakistan: Why liberal Pashtuns are supporting the Afghan government

The Afghan Taliban enjoy significant support in Pakistan's northwestern region, but progressive Pashtuns are wary of their potential return to power in Afghanistan. They are now rooting for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Pakistani authorities accuse liberal Pashtun groups of destabilizing the country at Afghanistan's behest

It is generally believed that most people in Pakistan's northwestern areas support the Taliban because of their own inclination toward Islamism, but the reality is somewhat different. It is true that the Islamist group is liked by many in the region, but the number of people who oppose the Taliban and the Pakistani state's alleged support to the outfit has also increased manifold in the past two decades.

Most of these ethnic Pashtuns are wary of a never-ending war in their region and blame both the Taliban and Islamabad for the devastation in their areas.

As the Taliban are gaining strength in Afghanistan, liberal Pashtuns fear it is just a matter of time before Islamists make a comeback in Pakistan's northwestern areas, too.

There are already reports of Pakistani citizens holding Taliban flags and chanting Islamist slogans at rallies in areas close to the Afghan border. Islamic clerics in various parts of the country are also soliciting support for the Afghan Taliban and calling for donations.

This comes amid rapid Taliban advances in Afghanistan ahead of the complete withdrawal of NATO troops by September.

 

Opposition to the Taliban

Progressive Pashtuns recently held a convention in Charsadda, a town in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

They denounced the Taliban's assaults on Afghan forces.

They also condemned the United States' Doha deal with the Taliban , saying it practically legitimized the militant group.

The convention, which was composed of leading Pashtun nationalist parties, intellectuals, academics and left-leaning political workers, called for an immediate cease-fire across Afghanistan to pave the way for peace talks.

The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), an anti-war group, has also held massive rallies in several parts of the province in the past few weeks. The PTM has condemned the Taliban and expressed its support for the Afghan government.
Support for Ashraf Ghani

Said Alam Mehsud, a PTM leader, believes that the Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan would suffer immensely if the Taliban managed to take over Kabul. "We support President Ashraf Ghani's government because it is legitimate. The Taliban are Pakistani mercenaries who want to topple an internationally recognized government," he told DW.

"The Taliban destroy schools, stop women from working, hand down inhuman punishments and kill innocent civilians. How can we support them?" he said.

On the contrary, Ghani's government, according to Mehsud, carried out several development projects in Afghanistan. The human rights situation has also improved under his administration, he added.

Bushra Gohar, a Pashtun politician and former lawmaker, agrees with Mehsud. "The PTM and other Pashtun groups are supporting Ghani because our people don't want to see the return of the Taliban's barbaric rule," she told DW.

PAKISTAN: HOW ISLAMIST MILITANCY WRECKED A TRIBAL WOMAN'S LIFE

A hard life

Life is hard for Pakistan's tribal women. For Baswaliha, a 55-year-old widow, life became even more painful after she lost her son in 2009, and her husband in 2010 — both in terrorist attacks. Baswaliha lives in Galanai, a town in the tribal Mohmand district that shares a border with Afghanistan. The area was hit hard by the Taliban insurgency following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.   1234567

She said that, despite Taliban advances, Afghans are revolting against Islamists. "We see an uprising against the Taliban in Afghanistan. People are taking to the streets to show support to their government and the security forces."

Samina Afridi, a Peshawar-based political analyst, says Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border want education, human rights and democracy, but the Taliban are against that.

The 'Taliban project'

Pakistani authorities have long accused liberal Pashtun groups, including the PTM, of destabilizing the country at Afghanistan's behest.

The PTM has gained considerable strength in the past four years, drawing tens of thousands of people to its protest rallies. Its supporters are critical of the war on terror, which they say has ravaged Pashtun areas in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sarfraz Khan, the former head of the Area Study Center at the University of Peshawar, believes that if Ghani's government is toppled in Afghanistan, the PTM leadership in Pakistan will be targeted by both Islamists and Pakistani authorities.

Experts say the consequences of targeting progressive Pashtuns could be catastrophic for the northwestern region. Khan says these groups, which have so far been nonviolent, could take up arms.

Former lawmaker and activist Gohar says Islamabad needs to change its policy toward the Afghan conflict by ending its "proxy war" and the "Taliban project."

"The UN must make sure that the Taliban's Doha office and their sanctuaries in Pakistan and elsewhere be immediately closed and that it imposes sanctions on the Taliban leaders. They should also be tried for war crimes. Sanctions should also be imposed on countries that are aiding and abetting the Taliban," she said, adding that the "Afghan genocide" must stop now.

TTP’s mentors

Ali Muhammad Siddiqi 

Published December 29, 2022 

WITH the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan back in the killing business with renewed ferocity, it is time we took a look at its ideological moorings. 

In a nutshell, like the communist parties of yore, the TTP’s aim is the destruction of the existing order (run by infidels, as defined by it) — an idea instilled into the TTP brains by mentors opposed to the very concept of a nation state.

Osama bin Laden never headed the TTP formally. He couldn’t, because the name Pakistan was there. But the Al Qaeda chief and the man who succeeded him, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had a lasting impression on TTP philosophy.

Both were indifferent to the interests of non-Arab states, regarded such Muslim countries as Iran and Turkey their enemies, and never cared about Central Asian states, except as a recruitment ground.

While opposition to the nation state idea doesn’t necessarily zoom in on Pakistan, the tragedy was that both OBL and al-Zawahiri had little love for Pakistan even though this country was their operational base. This selfishness betrayed a harsh reality: their political philosophy evolved in statelessness.

OBL was a pariah in Saudi Arabia, and al-Zawahiri an Egyptian fugitive who faced execution in his country. Both chose to work in Pakistan because of the respect they enjoyed from the people simply because they were Arab. Their base was the Af-Pak region, and they didn’t know and didn’t care to know what and where the Durand Line was.

They moved freely on both sides and found the 2,400-kilometre long mountainous sanctuary and the tribal people’s hospitality ideal for pursuing their international ‘Islamic’ agenda, though this ‘Islamic’ fervour had an Arab bias. More regretfully, al-Zawahiri had an anti-Pakistan tilt from the very beginning, and OBL did nothing to discourage it.

OBL and al-Zawahiri had a lasting impression on TTP philosophy.

OBL’s own speeches on Pakistani soil reflected a worldview that didn’t take into consideration Pakistan’s concerns. In many speeches, he spoke passionately about Palestine and talked also about Chechnya and the Rohingya, but hardly made any reference to Kashmir. I would be happy if some reader were to correct me.

Al-Zawahiri, on the contrary, actively pursued his anti-Pakistan agenda. His specialty was organising anti-government coups, working on potential collaborators in the armed forces of Egypt and other Arab countries, and having several nationalities. On one of his fake passports, he even visited the US on a fund-raising campaign.

In Pakistan, his most criminal act was the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in 1995, even though Osama didn’t believe Al Qaeda should annoy Pakistan.

Al-Zawahiri was also involved in the Lal Masjid uprising in Islamabad, and was in contact with Abdul Rashid and Abdul Aziz, the men who had turned the mosque into an arsenal and brainwashed and trained ‘commandos’ who often raided Islamabad’s shops and confiscated ‘obscene’ magazines.

It is also alleged al-Zawahiri had a role in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He became Al Qaeda chief after Osama bin Laden was killed in an American raid.

In his monumental book, Descent into Chaos, Ahmed Rashid gives a chilling account of Afghan Taliban’s inroads into Pakistan when Hamid Karzai was the ruler, and says things which Pakistan must know could be replicated if the now defunct Fata were to be handed over to the TTP.

Afghan Taliban and fighters from other Muslim countries, writes Rashid, “worked in Pakistan’s Fata region, helping train a new generation of Tali­ban and Pakistani extremists in the arts of bomb-making and fund-raising. […] In 2007 many of these militants were to fight alongside the Pakistani Taliban as they ext­ended their writ across the North-West Frontier Province”.

With Al Qaeda’s help, the Taliban established a “lethal cottage industry”, manufacturing imp­rovised explosive devices in tribal hou­seholds. Soon, says Rashid, “the Taliban would be using the same IEDs against Pakistani forces”.

More gruesome, by 2006, they had executed 120 tribal leaders who had disagreed with them; by 2008 more than 4,000 Uzbek fighters were active in what then was Fata and were pushing for the Talibanisation of the entire NWFP.

The renewal of TTP activity is marked by brutality, as seen by the recent beheading of two people for their purported spying for the security forces. Clearly, the most unfortunate phenomenon at present is the mysterious if not duplicitous behaviour of the Kabul regime.

Ignoring the recent exchange of artillery fire across the border, the Kabul regime has not come clean on its policy towards terrorist groups operating from its soil. In fact, it is obvious that the TTP’s logistics base in the former Fata cannot sustain its current level of militancy and that it has no choice but to have safe havens in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s greatest asset is the tribal people’s abhorrence of TTP killers. Islamabad thus has to build on the people’s sentiments rather than expect meaningful cooperation from the ungrateful Kabul regime.

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2022

‘Made-in-Pakistan Jihad’ 

and the TTP

The TTP threatens the Pakistani state

ByAgha Iqrar Haroon

A Letter from Prometheus

What happened in Bannu CTD Centre has reaffirmed the skills and firepower of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that kept engaging Pakistani security forces for over 48 hours fighting inside the building. This incident reminds us of what happened in GHQ Rawalpindi on 10–11 October 2009. Operation Janbaz cleared the building but left a sense that nothing is secure in Pakistan. Since then the Pakistan Army had been trying to establish a sense of security among citizens and the TTP has been engaging Pakistan in an unending fight that is still going on.

Operation Zarb e Azb and Operation Raddul Fasad tried to defeat terrorism but it has never been defeated and the multi-headed serpent of terrorism is still alive. I fear that it will remain alive till Pakistan will keep engaging itself in Afghan issues and keep feeding Afghans.

I served in Afghanistan as a journalist during 1995-97 and then covered the so-called War On Terror from 2001 to  2006. This field assignment helped me to understand the currents and undercurrents of the Afghan war and the Afghan mindset. I believe the TTP could not be formed and could not be in the swing if it did not have support from the Afghan Taliban but the majority of writers had been claiming and blaming TTP as just an Indian product. Yes, it got financial as well as technical support from Indian intelligence agencies but its survival within Afghanistan was within the active support and cordial relations with the Afghan Taliban. TTP foot soldiers had been helping the Afghan Taliban to defeat the Afghan Army in the past.

The Afghan problem is exceptionally complex; having multiple dimensions since 1979 and having been compromising the security of Pakistan. Some people claim the Afghan war is a big business for many in Pakistan and they cite allegations of selling Stinger missiles and the Ojhri Camp blast of April 1988,the  known involvement of powerful groups in the drug and weapon business, the benefits of the Afghan Transit Trade and the Commissionerate of Afghan Refugees for those who had always been in power in Pakistan. These above-mentioned factors since 1979 are diamond mines for those who understand why Afghanistan is important for Pakistan.

The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul in a US strike was enough to learn that the Afghan Taliban are still supporting terrorist outfits directly or indirectly or they are so weak that they cannot stop or purge terrorists using Afghan soil. We know the TTP leadership, including Mullah Fazlullah, had been living in Kunar province of Afghanistan with the perceivable support of the Afghan Taliban even before they captured Kabul. Everybody knows that Mullah Fazlullah was one of the biggest enemies of the Pakistan Army in the region but he had been living a comfortable life in the Kunar province and had been using Afghanistan as a launching pad for attacking Pakistan. There is no doubt and circumstantial evidence that the Indian intelligence agency RAW invested in forming TTP that had safe havens under Afghan Taliban-controlled areas. This situation could be considered as a linkage between the Afghan Taliban and the Indian network, but it had never come under discussion in Pakistan.

In one of my articles, “A year after the fall of Kabul” published in this newspaper on August 7, I categorically mentioned that the TTP problem had not been solved and negotiations with TTP would ultimately enhance the confidence of terrorists who were virtually destroyed by the Pakistan Army when Ashraf Ghani was in power in Kabul. Afghan Taliban are cutting the iron fence Pakistan installed during Ashraf Ghani’s tenure at the Pak-Afghan border and which was intact till the Afghan Taliban did not come into power. I believe soon we will find parts of this iron fence in some iron melting plants in Pakistan.

Do we remember that today’s Afghan Taliban are the second and third generations of the “Mujahedeen” who were crafted to destroy the regular army of Soviet Afghanistan? Mujahedeen smashed the Afghan government under “Operation Cyclone” and their second and third generations won the war against US-led 55-plus countries.

All stakeholders, particularly those who had been crying and protesting that “TTP is back” should be taken into confidence by the state and the political leadership must debate in the Parliament who started negotiations with TTP and on what conditions this new phase of dialogue was initiated.

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The USA launched the Afghan Jihad in the late 1970s against the former USSR.  This Jihad, having the code name of “Operation Cyclone”, was directly or indirectly manned by the military establishment of Pakistan. Pakistan effectively worked along with the CIA in changing the region as well as changing the mindset of the moderate Afghan and Pakistani societies. Whatever we are facing today is the bitter fruit of this tree we planted in the 1970s. TTP is nothing but a form of the Mujahedeen of the 1970s and the Afghan Taliban of the 1990s, having the same philosophy and quest of destroying an established state and its army; the only difference is that the target is Pakistan and the Pakistan Army instead of Afghanistan and its former Soviet state.

We were told by the state institutions that the Red Army of the former USSR ran away from Afghanistan by leaving a huge cache of arms worth billions of dollars behind the Amu Darya. However, things were otherwise. Background talks with former military men of the former USSR suggest that the decaying Communist era decided in principle to leave almost all weapons within Afghanistan and ordered its soldiers just to carry one gun and vehicles to take them out from the land of blood and destruction— Afghanistan.

Therefore, the Red Army by design left thousands of T-52 tanks, Mi-22 light helicopters, BM-21 Grad (moveable rocket launching pads), assault rifles like the AK-47, and millions of live bullets and RPGs behind in Afghanistan. Some former Soviet military officers claim that the decision was taken in the Politburo to leave weapons in Afghanistan so Afghans would have toys (weapons) to play with for the next three to four decades and keep destroying not only their own country, but Pakistan also,  which had  played a pivotal role in defeating the Red Army.

Former generals of the Red Soviet Army claim that the Soviet Union had a firm belief that radical extremists equipped with Soviet-made AK-47s would change the social fabric of Pakistan right after the departure of the Red Army because Afghans would start selling their weapons to private hands in Pakistan. However, the Soviet Army thought that the Pakistan Army could buy rocket launchers, BM-21 Grad, MI22, and tanks from Afghan Mujahideen, but this never happened and Pakistan Army never thought about this.

What has happened, has happened and we must move forward because there is no reverse gear in history. What we can do to safeguard our interests is the most important concern for people like me who have been covering Afghan issues for half of their lives.

I believe that all stakeholders, particularly those who had been crying and protesting that “TTP is back” should be taken into confidence by the state and the political leadership must debate in the Parliament who started negotiations with TTP and on what conditions this new phase of dialogue was initiated.

The state has never taken the public into confidence over the Afghan issue in the last 43 years but I believe we must do it now.

Afghan opposition ‘very weak’ despite mounting public anger against Taliban

One year after the fall of Kabul, many of the opposition commanders famous for their stand in Panjshir Valley remain exiled in Tajikistan. Analysts paint a picture of a weakened armed resistance against the Taliban and an Afghan population that increasingly abhors the Islamic fundamentalist group – but is too exhausted to oppose it.

© Ali Khara, Reuters

Tom WHEELDON - 13h ago

When Afghanistan captured the world’s attention shortly after the Taliban’s precipitous takeover on August 15, 2021, the media focused on the Panjshir Valley – where late Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud held off both the Soviets in the 1980s and the Taliban in the 1990s. As the Taliban closed in, the lionised commander’s son, Ahmad Massoud, vowed to fight the Taliban from Panjshir once again.

But by September, Massoud had fled to neighbouring Tajikistan along with other resistance commanders after the Taliban claimed victory in Panjshir. The apparent plan was to use Tajikistan as a staging ground to take on the Taliban. At the time, analysts lamented that it was a “non-viable prospect”.

Since then, the few journalists with access to Panjshir have reported on resistance attacks on Taliban positions. Washington Post journalists who visited Panjshir wrote in June that “residents say assaults on Taliban positions are a regular occurrence and dozens of civilians have been killed, with some civilians imprisoned in sweeping arrests”.
Resistance in the mountains

This situation makes a stark contrast to the state of play in Panjshir under Ahmad Shad Massoud – when the valley was the one holdout against the Taliban during its first reign over Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

“It’s substantially different this time around,” said Omar Sadr, formerly an assistant professor of politics at the American University of Afghanistan, now a senior research scholar at the University of Pittsburgh.

“Panjshir is occupied,” Sadr went on. “At least Ahmad Shah Massoud could maintain a stronghold from which to resist the Taliban. Now the resistance is in the mountains; they don’t control the villages or the highways. That makes the task much more difficult in terms of the supply chains needed for fighting; it impacts upon the quality of the resistance.”

Looking at Afghanistan as a whole, the opposition is “very weak”, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Security, Strategy and Technology. “In fact, it has turned out to be more feeble than many analysts expected.”

The opposition has struggled to mobilise tribal support as well as to mount any significant operations,” Felbab-Brown continued. “There was quite a bit of expectation that this spring they would engage in attacks – but the Taliban has been able to effectively neuter them.”

In this already difficult context, it was a strategic error for Ahmad Massoud and other resistance commanders to base themselves across the border, Sadr suggested. “The high-level leadership is in Tajikistan while the mid-level fighters are in Panjshir. Ahmad Massoud is a political leader, not much of a military leader – and it would have been much better if he and other senior figures could have joined the troops on the ground. It would have increased their legitimacy and boosted morale.”
‘More radical and more repressive’

When the Taliban seized Kabul last year they tried to present themselves as a reformed, more moderate successor to the outfit that brutally ruled Afghanistan two decades ago.

But the Islamic fundamentalists soon revealed that the “Taliban 2.0” they promised was nothing but a propaganda tool. In doing so, they alienated swaths of Afghan society and ensured that vehement anti-Taliban sentiment is by no means confined to the Panjshir Valley, according to Sadr.

“You can see this Taliban 2.0 business is not true – look at the way they’ve put in place political and economic discrimination of non-Pashtuns. They’ve banned girls’ education. They carry out extrajudicial killings,” Sadr said.

“Everybody wanted to finally end the conflict, so the Taliban had the chance to adopt a pathway to a political settlement that could have persuaded communities to accept them,” he continued.

“But the Taliban are fundamentalists – they’ve never believed in peace settlements. They’ve only become more radical and more repressive. So people feel misled.”
‘The Afghan people are very, very tired’

Nevertheless, there is a difference between feeling antipathy towards the Taliban regime and taking up arms against it.

An uprising against the Taliban would renew a chain of wars lasting two generations. Conflict has wracked Afghanistan since the USSR invaded in 1979 to prop up their puppet communist government. At least 1.8 million Afghans were killed before the Soviets pulled out in 1989.

Civil war broke out in Afghanistan upon the USSR’s withdrawal, leading to the downfall of Soviet-backed president Mohammad Najibullah in 1992. Four years of renewed civil war followed as mujahideen factions battled for power. The Taliban’s ascent to power, starting in 1996, sparked five years of resistance from Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance. Following Massoud’s death on September 9, 2001, and the September 11 attacks two days later, Afghanistan subsequently became the locus of the longest war in US history.

“Although they’re suffering under intensifying Taliban repression and the terrible economic situation, the Afghan people are just tired of war,” Felbab-Brown said. “Very, very tired.”

Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces provided the backbone of its army between 2004 and 2021. The Northern Alliance also drew on these regions in its fight against the Taliban in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

But after that recent history of gruelling campaigns against the Taliban, renewed fighting is an unattractive prospect for many people in northeastern Afghanistan, Sadr said. “Look at Baghlan province, Badakhshan province – they contributed the highest number of soldiers to the republic’s army and they suffered the highest casualties. Every day there were corpses going back."

“It’s been more than forty years of war,” he went on. “This could be the third generation constantly giving sacrifices. So there are plenty of people saying, 'Irrespective of the type of government, maybe we should just accept it'.”
Pakistan will ‘never’ topple the Taliban

Throughout four decades of conflict, outside actors have used Afghanistan as a venue to project power by supporting proxies. Most significantly, Afghanistan’s neighbour Pakistan was the Taliban’s longstanding patron – keen to ensure the defeat of the US-backed republic in Kabul, which Islamabad deemed too close to its arch-nemesis India.

Yet the Taliban has long been close to the jihadi group Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP or simply the Pakistani Taliban), which wants to overthrow the Pakistani state.

Sections of the Pakistani security apparatus are aware that backing the Taliban risked blowback. The Taliban and the TTP are “two faces of the same coin”, Pakistani Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI boss Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed acknowledged at an off-the-record briefing in July 2021.

That admission was vindicated in February 2022 when the TTP claimed an attack from across the Afghan border that left five Pakistani soldiers dead. In this context, Islamabad entered into peace talks with the TTP over recent months – held in Kabul, mediated by the Taliban. So far, little progress appears to have been made.

“Pakistan expected the Taliban to help it strike a political deal with the TTP so that the TTP wouldn’t threaten the Pakistani government, and that plan has already failed,” noted Weeda Mehran, co-director of Exeter University’s Centre for Advanced International Studies. A huge concern for the Pakistani authorities is that the Taliban have been giving Afghan passports to TTP members.

Clearly, some elements of the Taliban are “acting more and more independently of Pakistan”, Mehran continued. In light of these factors, she said, Pakistan is “revising its approach to the Taliban”.

However, Pakistan’s disappointment with the Taliban does not mean support for the opposition. So Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban resistance cannot look to Islamabad for the foreign support it needs for any chance of success, many analysts say.

“Pakistan’s end goal is never going to be to topple the Taliban government,” Sadr said. “At the very most, Pakistan will make it more difficult for the Taliban to rule. Like other countries in the region such as China, Pakistan sees the Taliban as anti-US – and, of course, it doesn’t see the Taliban as an Indian ally like it did the republic. So even if Pakistan turns against the Taliban, it’s not going to support the insurgency.”

 

Afghanistan: Over half the population lives in poverty

The hardline Islamist Taliban marked a year in power on August 15 with small scale celebrations as the country struggles with rising poverty, drought and malnutrition that has left over half its population of about 40 million dependent on humanitarian aid to survive. France 24 journalist Hafiz Miakhel tells us more.

PAKISTAN

Presence of militants

Muhammad Amir Rana 

Published September 10, 2023 




THE recent cross-border infiltrations and operational strikes by terrorist networks operating from Afghanistan have raised concerns about the Afghan Taliban’s direct involvement in these attacks. A terrorist group cannot launch massive cross-border attacks involving a significant number of terrorists inside Pakistan without the support and approval of the Taliban regime. If these doubts have any substance, this is tantamount to declaring war against a state.


Social media and online media reports are also circulating about the Haqqanis’ direct involvement in these intrusions, citing security officials. This may surprise those who believed that close ties existed between the Haqqanis and the Pakistani security establishment, as the relationship between the two has now apparently become strained. The extent of this perceived bitterness in relations is not known, and neither the Haqqanis nor the Pakistani establishment have officially indicated the nature of any dispute between them. However, Pakistan has officially registered its protest concerning the involvement of Afghan fighters in the attack on the military cantonment in the Zhob district of Balochistan.

Only if there is official confirmation from one of the parties about the dispute, can we speculate about its nature based on several factors.

It is a fact that the TTP has a close relationship with the Haqqanis that has overseen the negotiation process between the government and the TTP. This process failed, causing some initial dents in the confidence of Pakistan’s security institutions. Religious, ideological, tribal, and political factors are also important from various perspectives. The organisational relationship between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani militant groups has evolved over time, especially after the resurgence of the former in their country. The Afghan Taliban developed a nexus with the Pakistani establishment and militant groups, which, while not mutually exclusive, involves complex relationships among the three actors.

Militant groups in Pakistan have provided human resource to the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan has strategic interests in Afghanistan and has often been accused of paying no heed to the presence of the Taliban on its soil. The Taliban, in turn, have relied on safe havens, financial support, and fighters primarily from Pakistan and other neighbouring states like Iran. Militant groups in Pakistan have provided human resource to the Taliban; many of these fighters became disillusioned due to shifts in the state’s policies on jihad. While the ‘Quetta shura’ hesitated to recruit Pakistani fighters, the Haqqanis and ‘Peshawar shura’ actively incorporated them, creating both combat units and financial and logistical supply chains. Al Qaeda has also influenced these Pakistani militants, further radicalising them against the state.

Historical accounts may reveal more surprising details, but so far, the most comprehensive research on the Taliban movement has been conducted by Antonio Giustozzi. In his book The Taliban at War, Giustozzi notes that a unique aspect of the Haqqani Network is its direct recruitment of Pakistani fighters. As of 2015, around 10 per cent of the ‘Miranshah shura’s’ forces were Pakistani, primarily drawn from other jihadist groups such as TTP, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

According to reports, the significant presence of volunteers from Pakistan as well as other countries has contributed to the Haqqanis’ image as being more aligned with global jihadist movements like Al Qaeda, as opposed to the Quetta shura. The Peshawar shura is also believed to have been heavily reliant on Pakistani militants, expanding its reach to other cities in the country, where it’ssaid to have recruited hundreds of Pakistanis.

In summary, Pakistan has underestimated the potential problems posed by fighters who have been part of the Afghan Taliban, especially compared to the TTP and its affiliate groups with whom it initiated talks under the Haqqanis’ supervision. Reports are that thousands of these fighters may have returned to Pakistan, many of them apparently joining the TTP and its factions, and the rest remaining under the patronage of various Taliban commanders, including the Haqqanis. News has appeared about the TTP and its allied social media accounts about faction mergers or small militant groups joining the TTP, usually involving militants who were once directly engaged with the Taliban.

The Haqqanis have accommodated many in their government and security forces, including Adnan Rasheed, a former Pakistani Air Force employee, who joined Al Qaeda and specialised in jailbreaks. Adnan Rasheed was released from Bannu jail in April 2012 by militants. However, the Taliban cannot accommodate all these fighters, and with their return to Pakistan increasingly likely, they are supporting their cause for fighting within Pakistan.

Interestingly, just as the Haqqanis and the Peshawar shura had recruited thousands of Pakistanis, the TTP is said to be doing the same with Afghan Taliban fighters eager to continue their ‘jihad’ in Pakistan. The security department has sufficient evidence to support this claim. DIG CTD of KP, Sohail Khalid, recently revealed in a press conference that investigations into facilitators of the Ali Masjid suicide blast showed that the attacker came from Afghanistan. Afghan Sim cards, jihadist pamphlets, and other documents were also recovered.

Pakistan had concerns that these returning militants would continue their terrorist activities. During talks with the TTP, it became clear that the TTP and other terrorist groups had no intention of ceasing their activities. If these individuals were to be integrated into the general population, they would pose a greater risk, not just through terrorist activities but also by spreading the ideological influence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

These terrorists, now led by the TTP, are exploiting Pakistan’s vulnerabilities with regard to territory, resources, and support base. The recent terrorist attacks in the Zhob and Sherani districts of Balochistan, along with the intrusion into Chitral, are all components of a broader strategy. Al Qaeda apparently had an eye on the region which borders Chitral since long for establishing a new base for supporting terrorist movements in the region, including China. This situation is precarious for Pakistan and the Taliban regime, and they must find a solution before it worsens.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2023

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN 

Targeting militant sanctuaries

Zahid Hussain 

DAWN

Published March 20, 2024 


THE long-simmering tension between the two countries now threatens to escalate into a full-blown conflict after Pakistan’s latest air strike on militant sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban regime claims to have retaliated by firing with heavy weapons at Pakistani border security posts. It has now gone beyond a war of words. The latest military actions mark a new low in Pakistan’s relations with the interim Taliban regime.

The current crisis has come after yet another terrorist attack at a security post last week in North Waziristan by a militant group operating from across the border, claiming the lives of seven Pakistani soldiers. Islamabad seems to have lost its patience after this attack. The air strike came a day after Pakistani leaders vowed to take the war to the terrorist sanctuaries across the border. Pakistan has lost more than 300 security personnel to terrorist attacks in the last two years, mainly carried out by the TTP (whose leadership is based in Afghanistan) and its affiliates.

There have been conflicting reports about the casualties. While Pakistan claims to have targeted militants in the air strikes, Kabul says those killed were women and children. A Pakistan Foreign Office statement said the intelligence-based action targeted militants belonging to the Gul Bahadur group believed to have been involved in most of the terrorist attacks, which have escalated in the past two years. One of the most powerful militant commanders, Gul Bahadur has also been closely associated with Al Qaeda.

As per reports, this would not have been the first time that Pakistan conducted air strikes inside Afghanistan. But it has always maintained a degree of plausible deniability. Pakistan last year reportedly bombed targets in the Salala neighbourhood in Nangarhar province, but the Foreign Office rejected the reports. There had also been some reports of Pakistan having carried out cross-border operations to take out militant leaders based in Afghanistan. But there has never been official confirmation of those attacks.

Curiously, Pakistan has now gone public, claiming it conducted the air strikes in the Afghan provinces of Paktika and Khost, which host thousands of militants belonging to various factions of the TTP. It reflects Islamabad’s rising ire over the escalation in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, which have targeted mainly the security forces. Belligerent statements from some Afghan Taliban leaders seem to have also pushed Pakistan into issuing a public warning.


A wider conflagration’s spill-over effects will be disastrous for our internal and external security.

In a statement, Afghanistan’s defence ministry, headed by Mullah Yaqoob, warned Pakistan of serious consequences: “The country’s defence and security forces are ready to respond to any kind of aggression and will defend the country’s territorial integrity in any situation.” The statement also called the Durand Line, which divides the two countries, “artificial”. The Afghan Taliban leaders have repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the Durand Line. The war of words highlights the worsening tensions between Islamabad and the Kabul regime.

According to Pakistani officials, 5,000 to 6,000 TTP militants have taken shelter in Afghanistan. If their family members are included, the number is in the tens of thousands. Most had fled the army operation in the former tribal regions in 2014. Many of them have also been fighting alongside the Afghan Taliban against foreign forces. The TTP has virtually become an extension of its Afghan counterpart, and it is not surprising that there has been a massive surge in militant activities in Pakistan after the end of America’s war and the return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has directly held the Afghan Taliban regime responsible for the terrorist attacks. “The Afghan interim government is not only arming the terrorists but also providing a safe haven for other terrorist organisations as well as being involved in incidents of terrorism in Pakistan,” an ISPR said in a statement after the latest terrorist attack in North Waziristan.

Pakistan has also accused some of the Afghan Taliban commanders of using the TTP as a proxy. It is certainly a grave situation. There has also been strong evidence of the Afghan Taliban being involved with the TTP in conducting cross-border terrorist attacks. Last year, hundreds of militants crossed the border and overran Pakistan’s security posts in Chitral. For the security forces in Pakistan, another primary concern is that of the militants laying their hands on the modern weaponry left behind by Nato troops and the former Afghan army.

Given their long connection and ideological proximity, the Afghan Taliban will not take action against their fellow jihadists. Instead, they insist that Islamabad make peace with the group, which has been responsible for the killing of thousands of people in Pakistan. Indeed, Pakistan has few options after the failure of diplomatic efforts to persuade the Islamic regime to expel the TTP.

Nevertheless, military options have severe repercussions for regional peace. A wider conflagration’s spill-over effects will be disastrous for the country’s internal and external security. Indeed, we must keep up pressure on the Afghan Taliban but should not close doors on diplomatic efforts. Instead of knee-jerk reactions, we must think more rationally.

There is no doubt that the Afghan Taliban’s return to power has been a major contributory factor in the revival of terrorist violence in Pakistan. However, the absence of a coherent strategy on Pakistan’s part has also allowed the TTP to claw back some lost space in the former tribal districts, as has the prevailing law and order situation. Indeed, the policy of appeasement has come back to haunt us.

According to some reports, the TTP fighters are back in many border districts and have set up security check-posts. It is almost a return to the pre-military operation situation — perhaps even worse, as the militants seem to be better organised this time and possess sophisticated weapons.

The attacks against Pakistan’s security forces are being carried out with impunity, raising questions about our strategy to deal with the situation. The growing political and economic instability has also vitalised the militant group. We have to put our own house in order. Unfortunately, we have not learnt any lesson.

The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2024

Pakistan: Balochistan Suicide Blast Targeting Police Kills 3, Injures Over 20

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The attack comes two days after TTP ended the ceasefire with Pakistani government.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) blew up a police truck

 in Balochistan's Quetta's Baleli area 

AP Photo/Arshad Butt

UPDATED: 30 NOV 2022

A suicide bombing in Pakistan's Balochistan province on Wednesday killed three people and injured 23 others, including 20 policemen.

A suicide bomber on Wednesday blew himself near a police truck in Balochistan's Quetta's Baleli area. The truck was carrying security personnel to protect polio workers at an ongoing vaccination drive.

The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack came just two days after the group announced the end of its ceasefire with Pakistan government and declared the launching of nationwide attacks. The TTP said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of Abdul Wali, also known as Omar Khalid Khurrassni. He was killed in Afghanistan in August.

Pakistan, along with neighbouring Afghanistan, is the only country in the world where polio is still prevalent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Polio vaccination in Pakistan is often often opposed by religious hardliners. There have been earlier disruptions and attacks on polio workers in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Quetta Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIGP) Ghulam Azfar Mahesar confirmed the attack and said that 20 policemen were injured in the attack.

"Looking at the crime scene and given that the truck toppled, it is estimated that 25 kilograms of explosives were used," said Mahesar, adding that a total of three vehicles were hit in the blast.

Mahesar said that the explosion was a suicide attack as they have found the remains of a suicide bomber near the crime scene.

Preliminary police investigations showed that a rickshaw hit the police truck. Authorities have declared an emergency in the hospitals of Quetta to treat the victims.

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Pakistan's Military Brass Discusses Ongoing Peace Talks With Tehreek-I-Taliban Pakistan


Tehreek-e-Taliban A Persistent Threat To Pakistan's Security, Chances Of Peace Bleak: UN Report

What's TTP, what are its goals?

The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a banned Islamist militant group in Pakistan. It's an umbrella organisation formed in 2007. It's often also called Pakistan Taliban.

The TTP's stated objectives are to take control of Pakistan's tribal areas from the Pakistani state and implement its strict interpretation of Islamic law there.

"TTP’s stated objectives are the expulsion of Islamabad’s influence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan, the implementation of a strict interpretation of sharia throughout Pakistan...TTP leaders also publicly say that the group seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate in Pakistan that would require the overthrow of the Pakistani Government," says US Office of Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) National Counterterrorism Center on TTP.

Praise of polio workers, polio eradication pledge

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the incident and directed the authorities to initiate an investigation into the attack. He expressed grief and sorrow over the loss of life, according to the state-run Radio Pakistan.

Sharif also said that polio workers across the country were fulfilling their responsibilities without caring for their lives.

"Eliminating polio virus from the country is amongst the top priorities of the government and we will not rest until polio is completely eradicated," said Sharif, asserting that "evil elements" would always fail to harm the anti-polio campaign in the country.

President Dr Arif Alvi also condemned the attack and prayed for the forgiveness of the deceased and the recovery of the injured. He said that children were Pakistan’s most valuable asset and the government was determined to protect them from diseases such as polio.

"The State will not allow anti-social elements to interfere in the mission of complete eradication of polio," he said.

Former Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan also expressed deep grief on the attack and prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured people.

Rising attacks on polio workers

Attacks on workers of the anti-polio vaccination drives in Pakistan have increased in recent times.

In March this year, gunmen in northwestern Pakistan shot and killed a female polio worker as she was returning home after taking part in the country’s latest anti-polio campaign.

In January last year, armed gunmen shot dead a police officer guarding a team of polio vaccine handlers in northwestern Pakistan.

(With PTI inputs)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCH 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCHISTAN 

Is Pakistan incapable of fighting Tehreek-E-Taliban Pakistan? 

Know how TTP has backed Army into a corner

The Pakistani Army has been deemed somewhat incapable of fighting against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) ever since it has been launching large-scale attacks in the country.


| Edited By: Major Amit Bansal |Source: DNA Web Desk |Updated: Feb 19, 2023,

Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a matter of worry for the Pakistan government as the rebel group which was limited to the bordering areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan till a few years back is launching large-scale attacks in other parts of Pakistan at their own will. For a country whose common public is already suffering from the deeds of its Establishment (a term used for its Military and its support groups), the future is going to be extremely dark.

Understanding TTP is not difficult. Like other terrorist groups of the region and beyond (Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Taliban & others), TTP is also a creation of the Pakistan Army and its ISI who recruited the tribals from the Pashtun belt to fight in Afghanistan. As long as they were fighting USSR & then the northern alliance alongside Afghan Taliban, things were fine but the tables turned when post 9/11, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ASAF) started targeting their own homes.

There were dozens of cases where American Jets and drones bombed Seminaries, marriage possessions, funeral possessions, public vehicles, and religious gatherings killing scores of innocent people. Pakistan Army instead of helping its own citizen was supporting NATO forces with all its might. This treachery on part of the Pakistan Army compelled the local warlords and tribal leaders to point their guns toward the Pakistani establishment itself.

In 2007, when TTP was formed, Pakistan could have handled the issue by diplomatic means but it resorted to killing its leadership which further infuriated them. By 2008-09, TTP joined hands with Afghan Taliban to fight along with the latter against American Forces In Afghanistan and the bond between the two groups formed in those times is still going strong.

The biggest question arises here that is whether can Pakistan handle the TTP. The answer is a clear no. There are multiple reasons and let's discuss the top ten of them.

Firstly, the TTP is not a short or medium-term but a long-term challenge for Pakistan which is going to haunt it for decades. Today, due to this economic turmoil, Pakistan Army is in no position to sustain a prolonged offensive against TTP.

Secondly, post 2020 and under the leadership of Charismatic Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, TTP has united and there are no more factional turbulences. Earlier there were several factions that lacked unity which was beneficial for Pakistan Army to target them. Today, almost all the factions are united and fighting Pakistan Army under a common banner. This enhanced the challenge to counter them multiple times.

Thirdly, TTP is gaining expertise in urban attacks, training its fighters, equipping them, preparing suicide bombers & gaining its political cohesion at an alarming rate which will not be possible or Pakistan to handle. Post-September 2021, they also acquired huge quantities of warlike stores from the caches abandoned by American forces.

Fourthly, TTP enjoys unprecedented support from Afghan Taliban and that has two reasons. First is the name of Pashtun unity and the second is Islamic State in Khorasan (ISKP). ISKP is the top most enemy of the Afghan Taliban which not only enjoys the support of Pakistan ISI but also have its safe heavens in Pakistan. Many of the ISKP leaders are frequent guests in the Pakistan Army GHQ at Rawalpindi which does not need any corroboration. Afghan Taliban needs a strong ally in Pakistan and thus they are supporting TTP and its entire leadership. Today its cadres, training centers & logistics support are primarily based in Afghanistan and thus, they will remain safe from Pakistani attacks because any such attack will be considered as a breach of territorial integrity by the Afghan Taliban.

Fifthly, TTP has considerable support from the local public, chieftains & warlords not only in border areas of Pakistan but in the cities too which will be a major pain point for the Pakistan Army. In the name of Pashtun nationalism & Pashtunwali, a civil code followed in the entire Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, TTP has been successful in uniting people for its cause.

Sixthly, instead of an insurgency, TTP is projecting their movement as an aggressive Afghan approach against the atrocities of Pakistan which is well accepted on both sides of the Durand line. This gives them sympathy for local chieftains too.

Seventhly, unlike earlier times when they used to attack civilian targets, post-2018 when Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud is appointed as its emir, TTP made a significant change in its manifesto and that is to target Pakistani security establishment only and avoid targeting civilians and religious minorities. This is not only strengthening their roots but enhancing their support in Pashtun-dominated areas of Pakistan.

Eighthly, TTP knows who its enemy is and it generally does not target officials of any other country now unlike earlier times when they used to attack US officials. In 2020, it clarified that it does not have any regional or global agenda beyond Pakistan and thus limited itself to a local problem of Pakistani establishment without inviting the wrath of International powers including the UN. These tactics will resist any other country to meddle in the affairs & keep TTP safe.

Ninthly, since the US has moved out of Afghanistan and unlike Operation Zarb-e-Azb, Pakistan Army no longer enjoys its intelligence, Air support, drone support, and advanced weaponry. This has placed Pakistan Army militarily several steps behind TTP.
Tenthly and lastly, the Pakistani establishment has an even bigger challenge today than TTP and that is to resolve the political instability. By the time they succeed in this, it will be too late.

The future of Pakistan seems to be dark under the multiple threats of a collapsing economy, political instability, monopoly of the Pakistani establishment, Extremist groups like TTP and Baloch rebels attacking anywhere in the country at their own will, and rising religious groups like Tehreek e Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) as well as Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).

Iron brother China to has pulled back its active support knowing that there is no return on its investments and that Islamic Ummah is too reluctant to help Pakistan in these tough times. TTP will only become stronger under these circumstances and will launch more fierce attacks with an increased frequency.

They will attack the Pakistan Army & its forces in major cities of Pakistan and carry out targeted assassinations for which they are very well capable. In this critical time when the common public has lost its faith in political leadership, there is no immediate solution visible to the TTP problem.

READ | ‘We are bankrupt’: Pakistan’s Defence Minister blames govt for economic crisis, says IMF has no solution

Full Text: Rana Banerji on How Pakistan Propped Up, Funded and Sustained the Taliban

The retired special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat incharge of RAW, covers the Taliban's history and the people who run it.

File photo of Taliban militants. Photo: Reuters

Karan Thapar
28/AUG/2021

On August 27, The Wire carried a video interview of Rana Banerji, retired special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat incharge of RAW, by Karan Thapar. In this comprehensive interview of 45 minutes, Banerji sheds light on how Taliban came to be what it is today from its formative years, and how Pakistan has aided its rise for its own strategic purposes.

Banerji, based on his nuanced reading and observation, covers a broad sweep of the Taliban’s history and the people who run it. His insights offer a useful framework to strategically predict how the Taliban would operate in the days to come, now that they have seized power in Afghanistan.

Below is the full transcript of the interview. It has been edited lightly in places. Watch the full interview 



Karan Thapar: Hello and welcome to a special interview for The Wire. The speed and the drama with which Kabul collapsed on the fifteenth of August has raised two fundamental questions that as yet have not been answered: What exactly was Pakistan’s role, and what do we know about the personalities and factions that make up the Taliban. My guest today is perhaps one of the few people in the country who has answers to these critical questions. The retired special secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat incharge of RAW. He’s Rana Banerji.


Mr. Banerji, let me start with a simple question, and then we’ll build from there. Everyone knows that Pakistan’s ISI has played a critical role in funding and also in militarily assisting the Taliban. Most people believe that Pakistan also played a role in creating the Taliban. The problem is no one has precise details. So can you begin by giving people an idea of the sort of concrete help the ISI gave the Taliban in these three critical respects?

Rana Banerji: Thank you, first of all, Karan for having me on your show. The Taliban actually came into existence in the autumn of 1994 in a mosque known as the White Mosque. It’s about 50 kilometres from Kandahar. And it was a set of religious devotees who decided to stop certain criminal extortionist gangs which were operating on the highways and harassing a lot of innocent people. There were cases of kidnapping, rape, extortion of goods. So this was effectively stopped by Mullah Omar’s gang. Mullah Omar was authorised as the commander of Maulana Abdul Samad who was technically the first emir of what later became the Taliban. So they started operating and were fairly successful.


KT: So at this stage, the Taliban was the creation of Afghan people themselves in Kandahar. There was Pakistani involvement in the creation of the Taliban.

RB: That’s right. In fact, when Pakistanis heard about it, there was an official convoy of the Pakistani government, consignment of trucks, which had been halted by a similar gang. And General Naseerullah Babar, who was interior minister of the Benazir government then, he decided to take their help and was able to succeed in getting this help. Out of gratitude then, they decided to give Mullah Omar a further bigger role, to expand his influence northwards towards Kabul and also eastwards, which was encouraged also by the then Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

KT: So the Pakistan connection with Taliban began as a result of a fortuitous event. Pakistani trucks were held up, they wanted to be cleared, they used Mullah Omar and his people to clear it, and in gratitude, they began the relationship.

RB: Yes. They made available a cache of arms which were hidden in tunnels near Kandahar, which had been intended for use against the Russian invaders. So this was given to Mullah Omar. And also he got money from President Rabbani according to a well-known Pakistani author.

KT: Why did he get money from Rabbani?

RB: To discipline Hekmatyar, who was nettling Rabbani too much. And Rabbani was dependent for survival on Ahmad Shah Massoud who was his defence minister. So the whole thing was cracking up already in Kabul.

KT: So in its early days, the Taliban was getting support from Pakistan through Naseerullah Babar (Pakistan’s interior minister) but it also was getting funding from the Afghan government of the day, which is Rabbani’s government, or Rabbani himself.

RB: There was a report that there was initial funding of three million dollars, of which the Taliban, Mullah Omar’s group, got only two million. One million was kept away by an intermediary.

KT: But the interesting thing is that in the beginning days, the early days of the Taliban, it was funded both by Pakistan and by Rabbani. And Rabbani was by the way the head of the old Northern Alliance. And Massoud was his defence minister.

RB: That’s right. So thereafter the ISI help can be seen in three or four phases. The Taliban, or Mullah Omar had come across Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar, who was a former army officer, trained by the Americans and also a member of the Pakistani special services group. After retirement, he had become the Consul General of Herat. He was roped in to guide and train the Taliban…

KT: By the Pakistanis?

RB: By the Pakistanis. And the entire military training was given by Colonel Sultan Amir Tarar who got the mystical name of ‘Imam’.


KT: So Colonel Tarar actually did give military training of a pretty formal sort?

RB: Yes. Absolutely. And then there was funding continuously by the ISI because they felt in the first phase that they would be able to install the Taliban with some popular support in governance in Kabul. And this is the phase ‘94 to ‘96.

Also read: Watch | ‘Taliban the New Ghani, ISIS the New Taliban’: TOLO TV Head Speaks for Engaging New Regime

KT: When did the Pakistanis move from simply being grateful to the Taliban and militarily training them, and then beginning to think that maybe they could create a government out of Taliban. How long did that take?

RB: A few months only. 1994 to 1995 I would think. And then 1996, the Taliban were ready to move into Kabul. And they were funded and they were assisted militarily with convoys, with actual special services men in commoner garb accompanying their motorcycles and jeeps when they moved into Kabul.

KT: So when the Taliban actually first in 1996 began their campaign to go straight to Kabul, they were funded by the Pakistanis, they were given equipment by the Pakistanis, they were given, I presume, weapons as well.

RB: Yes. And by that time the ISI had lost faith in Hekmatyar who was their earlier protégé. Because Hekmatyar was not able to fight sufficiently well.

KT: And the Taliban now got the Pakistan backing instead.

RB: Yes, yes.

KT: And Pakistan, therefore, in a sense could have, you could say, funded, militarily trained the Taliban conquest in the 1996 period of Kabul.

RB: Yes. And then we come to the second phase, where the actual governance of Taliban was also assisted by Pakistanis in a very big way. Officers, plain clothes assistants, bureaucrats, they all went there and helped the Taliban to consolidate normal bureaucratic governance.

KT: So there were Pakistani officers and bureaucrats actually sitting in Kabul from 1996 to 2001 during the five years that the Taliban was ruling.

RB: Yes. Not only in Kabul but in the outlying provinces. And when 9/11 happened and the Americans decided to bomb the hell out of Taliban and the governance system there, there was the infamous Kunduz airlift, where almost thousand to two thousand – the number varies – Pakistani officials, both serving army officers as well as civilian bureaucrats, had to be airlifted out in sorties by the Pakistani air force, in the knowledge of the American move.

KT: Absolutely. I remember that period very clearly. We saw pictures on television of Pakistani soldiers now dressed in civilian clothes actually being airlifted out of Kunduz.

RB: That’s right.

KT: In other words, for the five years of Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, much of the military spine, much of the administrative spine were supplied by Pakistan.


RB: That’s right.

KT: So you could say that not only did Pakistan finance the first “conquest” of Kabul by the Taliban in ‘96, but then they in a sense provided the backbone for the government.

RB: Certainly.

KT: So the Taliban could not have ruled for that five year period without all the help and support they got from Pakistan.

RB: That’s right. And of course there were figurehead leaders, religious leaders, who were put in positions as defence minister or any other minister. So there was a shura which actually was seen to be governing the country.

KT: But the real governance was Pakistani officials?

RB: Well they also learned their ropes, the Taliban leaders.

KT: But the Pakistanis were there behind closed doors.

RB: Yes. To guide them, yes.

KT: Tell me, what sort of support did the Pakistanis give the Taliban from 2001, when they were thrown out by the Americans from Kabul, right up till 2021.

RB: Again, this has to be seen in three phases, if I may put it. The first phase was the withdrawal phase, when they were determined to save as many assets of theirs and ask them to lie low and settle down in various places in Pakistan. And these were the places which were not so much in the limelight, the federally administered tribal areas, from where the Miran Shah Shura took shape. And then there were the Peshawar refugee camps, where the Peshawar Shura of the Taliban was set up. And then there were outskirts of Quetta, there was another refugee camp there were the Quetta Shura was set up.

KT: So in each of these three instances the Pakistan government found sanctuaries and helped the Taliban settle there and create a second life for themselves now that they’ve been thrown out of Kabul.

RB: In this work, also they helped the escape of Osama bin Laden, first from Kandahar to Tora Bora caves, and from Tora Bora into Pakistan. And in this transition, Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Haqqani network head or tribal chief, came to their assistance in a major way. And Jalaluddin Haqqani, many people forget, was also an American asset, acknowledged to be a CIA asset earlier.

KT: And he just changed sides?

RB: No he remained with the Americans.

KT: So he was a double agent in a sense.


RB: Yes.

KT: Fascinating. Tell me something, in the first phase after 2001, the Pakistani found sanctuaries and helped the Taliban settle in Miran Shah, in Quetta, in Peshawar. What did they do in the second stage and the third stage?

RB: In the second stage you see Musharraf had come to power and the double dealing with the Americans started in real earnest. There were also a lot of Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechen rebels, Tajik islamic rebel outfits which had come along with Osama bin Laden. And Ayman al-Zawahiri. And Jalaluddin Haqqani himself had an Arab wife apart from his Afghan wife. One of his sons, Nasir, who was later killed, was in charge of handling all the funds, the hawala funds which used to come from…

KT: So you’re saying in the second stage the Pakistanis provided protection not just to the Taliban but to this collection of Uzbek, Arab, Tajik militants and jihadis who had come across with Taliban.

RB: Yes. That’s right. And that is when also the phenomenon of the Tehrik-i-Taliban developed particularly in the FATA, the tribal areas which were ruled at the time by the frontier crimes…

KT: But this should have worried the Pakistanis.

RB: Sorry?

KT: This should have worried the Pakistanis, that the Taliban from Afghanistan were now, under their protection, creating a Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan.

RB: It didn’t worry them initially because they felt they had everything under their control…

KT: Which they didn’t eventually.

RB: Which they didn’t eventually because in the process of what happened, the Maliki system — which stood from the British time, where there used to a tribal elder as the Malik in the area and he was assisted by a civil servant who was designated a political agent in these areas — their reich stopped running. And it was the Maulanas and the well-funded clerics in these areas who became more power brokers. They had guns and they started to—

KT: Now the first stage you’ve established is when Pakistan found sanctuaries and settled the Taliban in Quetta, in Miran Shah, and in Peshawar. What sort of financing did they give them thereafter? What sort of facilities or military training did they give them? What sort of protection? Can you tell me about that quickly?

RB: Well there aren’t too many details about the funding, how it went, but one thing is for certain, the drug smuggling from these areas, both by the land route through Karachi and also by the land route into Iran and then into Western Europe, was manipulated by the Taliban to collect funds on their own.

KT: But protected by the Pakistanis?

RB: To a certain extent. In terms of, you know, custom and excise, etc. There is documentation of this in a BBC documentary called Traffic.

KT: So, in other words, the Pakistanis did not stop it from happening.


RB: Did not stop it happening.

KT: What sort of other financial facilities did they give Taliban from 2001 to 2021?

RB: Well again, you see, mainly these were hawala transactions to which they turned a blind eye. But 2004 onwards the Taliban started resurging in a major way because of malgovernance in Afghanistan by the Karzai regime.

KT: And what did the Pakistanis do then?

RB: They assisted them to go into these areas which were ungoverned, particularly in the…

KT: So the Pakistanis were then pushing the Taliban across the border, back into Afghanistan.

RB: Yes. They had them to control these areas. And there were local field commanders who were fighting the Afghan National Security Forces.

KT: Did the Pakistanis supply food, equipment, weapons?

RB: Everything. And also rest and recreation facilities. If the commander used to get injured they would take them to hospitals in Pakistan, in Karachi or Balochistan.

KT: So, in other words, the Pakistani government or the Pakistani authorities allowed the Taliban to use Pakistan as their deep base.

RB: Safe haven.

KT: As their safe haven, from which they could go back, get supplies, get treatment if they were injured, and then with Pakistani assistance, go back to carry on fighting.

RB: New towns, boom towns, developed outside Peshawar known as the university town in Peshawar and similarly I think Jafarabad or Pashtunabad in Quetta. There was another township developed almost in Quetta, just outside Quetta, where they bought up properties, new houses, etc. The leaders…

KT: Now tell me Mr. Banerji, did this sort of assistance continue from 2004 all the way to 2021, or were there stages when it got stepped up, when Pakistani involvement, ISI involvement, funding and training became more and more.

RB: It’s difficult to say that happened. But what is of relevance is that the Americans were all too aware that this was happening. And the Americans were trying basically to attain their own objective, to find where Osama bin Laden is hidden. Or has disappeared into. And the Americans tried to interact with the Taliban, to cause defections from within the senior Taliban leadership, in collaboration with, or in the knowledge of the Pakistan ISI.

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KT: So the Americans were well aware that the Pakistanis were funding, supporting, equipping and giving weapons to the Taliban, pushing them across the border, allowing the Taliban to use Pakistan as a safe haven when they get injured but did nothing. They just winked at it right through the period.

RB: Well there was supposed to be intelligence cooperation to find out high-value assets and the understanding was that the Pakistanis would tell the Americans about the movement of high-value assets, Arabs, Syrians and so on and then they would be eliminated by…

KT: Which Pakistan occasionally did, but nowhere near sufficiently since Osama remained protected right until…

RB: The Americans found out that the information that was being given to them was being leaked, a few days in advance, to the terrorists themselves.


Taliban fighters march in uniforms on the street in Qalat, Zabul Province, Afghanistan, in this still image taken from social media video uploaded August 19, 2021 and obtained by Reuters

KT: I don’t want to get lost in the detail of this section, but I think this section is very important because it explains the 20-25 year background of Pakistani support and involvement with the Taliban. However, let me now get to the present time. When the Taliban on the fifteenth of August literally dramatically swept into Kabul and took over, there are some people who say that that was the culmination of a second Pakistani invasion or conquest of Kabul. Once again fronted by the Taliban. You agreed that when the Taliban took power in 1996 this description applied. Does it apply again in 2021?

RB: This time everybody was a little surprised at the manner in which the Afghan National Security Forces collapsed. Nobody expected it to happen with the speed that it did.

KT: But could the Taliban have done it and certainly at the speed at which they did it without the support, assistance, training from Pakistan?

RB: They may not have, but what contributed more was the morale loss of the Afghan National Security Forces. The announcement of the American ground forces withdrawal.

KT: So that description, a Pakistani invasion fronted by the Taliban applied in 1996. You don’t think it applies equally in 2021.

RB: Perhaps not equally, yes.

KT: Okay. Let me put this to you. On the very day that the Taliban entered and swept through Kabul, the fifteenth of August 2021, some of the most important leaders of the Northern Alliance, who were opponents of Pakistan, flew to Islamabad to seek safety, security and assurances from the Pakistan government. And these included Ahmad Shah Massoud’s brothers and important Hazara leaders like Khalili and Mohaqiq. If opponents of Pakistan are going to Pakistan to seek its support, sanctuary and safety, isn’t that a sure sign that Pakistan has become very important and very powerful in this part of the world?

RB: Well yes, that’s a way of looking at it. And it included also Yunus Qanuni, a former speaker of the parliament. Now all these players were very relevant actors of the Northern Alliance in 1997. But this time they could see the writing on the wall, in the manner in which they had no other option.

KT: And they sought support and succour from someone who was their “enemy”.

RB: Basically survival and safety of their lives. And there was the fig leaf of wanting to have Pakistani intercession for having inclusive governance.

KT: But this is what I’m making: At the end of the day, opponents of Pakistan, the Northern Alliance, were seeking safety and security for their own lives from Pakistan. This is why I say to you, isn’t this a sign of how influential and powerful Pakistan has become, once the Taliban took over for the second time.

RB: Yes. That is why there is so much of triumphalism. Because both the Pakistan army and the Pakistan, due to strategic terms, Pakistan civilian leadership believe that they have achieved the primary objective of their entire policy of supporting the Taliban, that is to keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.


KT: And proof of that is that their opponents, Ahmad Shah Massoud’s brothers, the Hazara leaders Khalili and Mohaqiq are now knocking on Pakistan’s doors to say help us, support us, save us.

RB: Yes, that could be one way of looking at it.

KT: Let me at this point come to the second big issue I want to talk with you about. Until now we’ve talked about Pakistan’s role in funding, in training, in militarily supporting the Taliban right through the 25 years from 1995-96 to 2021. Let me now talk to you about the personalities and factions that make up the Taliban. Its present emir is a man called Hibatullah Akhundzada. What do we know about him, and why is he never seen?

RB: Well he’s a Nurzai from Panjpai, which is a district in Kandahar. His father was a religious cleric, head of a mosque in Kandahar. He himself was a middle low-level official in the judicial qazi court system of the first Taliban dispensation. Known to be a fairly religious, modest low-profile person. He was selected as a sort of patchwork unity among various factions and to be kept firmly under the control of the ISI. Because the previous emir Mullah Mansoor had become too high-profile.

KT: So this is very interesting. Akhundzada was chosen as a patchwork choice, both by different factions— in other words, I presume he was everyone’s number two and no one’s number one choice — but he was also chosen because he was acceptable to the ISI. His predecessor had stood up to the ISI and the ISI didn’t want someone like that again.

RB: That’s right. Though it’s not been clearly established, Iran had meddled with the Taliban and former emir had become friendly with the Iranians, which was not to the liking of the…

KT: Akhundzada’s predecessor. That was another reason why the ISI didn’t like him. So in other words, this was the lowest common denominator choice. Is that right?

RB: That’s right.

KT: Why is he never seen?

RB: He is by temperament like that. And he adopted a very consensual style of leadership among various factions, so nobody really complained much. And also there was an incident two years into his tenure, when his brother, who was also a preacher in a mosque in Kuchlak near Quetta, was killed in a bomb explosion. And the story goes that maybe there were some of his rivals who were trying to get at Akhundzada himself, because he used to go there to pray also.

KT: But tell me. He was the, as you say, the lowest common denominator. He was everyone’s number two and no one’s number one choice. But now he’s been there 5-6 years. Is he accepted and acknowledged as the head, as the emir, or are there still people who question his position.

RB: No, he’s more or less not questioned as an emir because he’s kept to a very proper and religious profile, which is similar to that of Mullah Omar himself. Though Mullah Omar had a different stature.

KT: So his religiosity has helped secure his position.

RB: Possibly.

KT: What role will he play when the Taliban form a government in Kabul. Will he head the government or do you believe he will seek a role above the government as supreme leader, something similar to Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran?

RB: Well the parallel doesn’t quite apply, but the parallel of Mullah Omar himself might be used.


KT: Which is?

RB: Mullah Omar never took power himself. He preferred to remain in Kandahar. He left the governance to a leadership council. Now similar type of thing may happen, with three deputies parcelling out actual real political power among themselves.

KT: If this happens, in whose hands will be, to use that Indian phrase, the remote control? Who will actually have power?

RB: Well the ISI will. And the major exponent of implementing that power would be Sirajuddin Haqqani.

KT: So regardless of who is president and regardless of who is the supreme leader (if they create that post), the ISI will have real power, and they will operate through Sirajuddin Haqqani, their favourite faction of the Taliban.

RB: That’s right. But this could change, you see. These calculations could change because of the ambitions of both Mullah Baradar himself and Mullah Yaqoob, the son of Mullah Omar.

KT: Let’s come to Mullah Baradar first, we’ll come to Mullah Yaqoob after that. Now he’s one of the three deputy commanders. He has spent eight years in detention in Pakistan, but he was also the critical key interlocutor for the talks with the Americans in Doha. Tell me more about him.

RB: That’s right. He’s a Popalzai which is one of the blue-blooded tribes of the Afghan dynasty, the Durrani society. So in the caste system that they have in their tribal society—

KT: He’s at the top

RB: He’s among the people at the top. Whereas Mullah Omar himself was a Hotak, a slightly lower in the pecking order of Ghilzai. But there is a story, not confirmed, of Mullah Omar’s wife and Mullah Baradar’s wife being co-brothers-in-law. And that why he called him ‘Baradar’ and that is where he got his name of ‘Mullah Baradar’.

KT: So the name ‘Baradar’ which is Farsi for ‘brother’ is actually a name given by Mullah Omar to someone who you think might have been a brother-in-law.

RB: Yes. That’s right. It’s never been proved because—

KT: Tell me more about Mullah Baradar.

RB: Yes. Now in 2008, he tried to establish links with President Karzai and also was amenable to the idea of talking to the Americans. And this was not to the liking of the ISI.

KT: Is that why he was detained?

RB: That’s right.


KT: And he spent roughly eight years in detention?

RB: Almost 10 years. Well, 2010 to 2018.

KT: Khalilzad apparently pressed on the Pakistanis to release him and he then became the head of the talks at Doha.

RB: Not immediately. Initially, he was in a drugged stupor state and he seemed to have been allowed to recover from that, because while in detention he was supposed to have been very much in a depressed and drugged state. He couldn’t make out his bearings and things like that.

KT: Drugs because he was being given drugs by the Pakistanis—

RB: Maybe

KT: Or because he had become a druggie himself

RB: No, no. Maybe because he was being given drugs to keep him in good humour or whatever.

KT: Now the Western press often speculates that Mullah Baradar could be the president whenever the government is set up. Do you think that is likely?

RB: That is possible yes. Because now he has been fairly savvy in the diplomatic dialogue that has gone on in Doha, where there are very many others, both hardliners and retainers of the ISI who are closely under their supervision but who are also in the dialogue team

KT: But he’s handled this well

RB: He’s handled it very well

KT: So he’s shown the ability to keep together different factions of hardliners and softer people who exist within the Taliban framework.

RB: Possibly.

KT: What about Mullah Yaqoob, who is the other deputy commander and is in fact Mullah Omar’s son?

RB: Yes. He’s much younger, and he has been in touch with some other field commanders who have actually been involved in the fighting. People like Ibrahim Sadr who has now been made Interior Minister and Mullah Zakir who has now been made the Defence Minister.


KT: Is he a rival of Baradar or do they get along with each other?

RB: That’s not known. Ultimately because he’s younger to Baradar, and he has the lineage of Omar, he would like to be anointed heir eventually, but he also has to contend with Sirajuddin Haqqani’s ambition.

KT: You’re also suggesting that Mullah Yaqoob has better links with the fighting branches of the Taliban. Baradar has better links with the political, negotiating branches.

RB: Well, yes. You can say that in a way.

KT: Where into all of this does Zahyabuddin Masjid fit in?

RB: Zabiullah Mujahid

KT: Yeah. Where does he fit in? He’s clearly the television face of the Taliban as a result of his press conferences and it’s his comments that have led people to talk about the possibility of Taliban 2.0. But is he critical and important, or is he just a spokesman?

RB: He’s just a spokesman. One of three, in fact, who have been used by the Taliban in the past.

KT: The other being Suhail Shaheen?

RB: Suhail Shaheen and one other person. They had been parcelled different areas to which they would deal. But Zabiullah possibly has the most photogenic face and he seems to have become more politically savvy of late. So that is why now he has been entrusted with the initial forays.

KT: But he’s not one of the critical top leaders?

RB: No. He was a middle-level or junior-level official in the culture ministry of the first Taliban dispensation.

KT: So he’s a middle-level Taliban person who’s acquired a lot of prominence because he’s fronting the press conferences and because he has a manner and perhaps, as you put it, a photogenic face that attracts attention and gets remembered.

RB: And an example of this is when he was asked the ticklish question in the press conference about visit of CIA chief William Burns. He stepped aside and asked the foreign office official of the Taliban to answer the question, which was of course replied to in a very non-committal manner.

KT: Now the faction that is perhaps of great interest to India is what’s called the Haqqani faction. Tell me about them. The Haqqanis are often considered the brutal, tough fighting wing of the Taliban. Mike Mullen, the former American chairman of the joint chiefs of staff calls them the veritable arm of the ISI…

RB: Yes


KT: And as you said, not only do they have connections with the ISI, but Jalaluddin Haqqani was once upon a time, your words were, almost an agent of America.

RB: That’s right.

KT: So they play the game of both sides?

RB: Perhaps not anymore, because they have designated Sirajuddin as a terrorist in their own 2012 order.

KT: Sirajuddin is also the third of the three deputy commanders of the Taliban, along with Mullah Yaqoob and Mullah Baradar.

RB: That’s right. The other two are not designated so far.

KT: So tell me more about the Haqqani group.

RB: Yes. Now, Jalaluddin’s sons—they have many sons, seven sons. Three or four of them got killed in the US reprisals, drone attacks or in actual fighting. But Nasir and Siraj and Badruddin, these were the most important sons. Now Badruddin got killed. Siraj also got killed in an ordinary crime in 2013 in Islamabad. But the Islamabad police was not allowed to make any investigations about the murder. His body was carried in a VIP convoy to the tribal areas and given a decent burial.

KT: This is further proof of the link between Pakistan ISI and the Haqqani

RB: Yes. So he’s touch-me-not. And there is of course the fictional serial, the Homeland 4 serial where you have the Haqqani group attacking the US embassy in Islamabad and going into their cipher room and all that.

KT: And as you said in the beginning, the Haqqani group is the favoured, preferred faction of the Taliban for the ISI

RB: For the ISI. And we have suffered at their hands, for example, the attack on our embassy in Kabul, where we lost one diplomat and one defence personnel, was directly planned and executed by them.

KT: So does most of ISI funding, most of ISI military equipment that goes to the Taliban go to the Haqqani group within the Taliban.

RB: There is no definite evidence of that

KT: But you suspect so?

RB: I would think so yes.


KT: But the interesting thing is that the Haqqani group only merged with the Taliban in the mid-1990s, after the Taliban had come to power the first time around. And there are also stories that although Jalaluddin Haqqani was a minister in the first Taliban government, Karzai is reported to have tried to reach out to him and involve him in Karzai’s government. Karzai didn’t succeed but it’s reported that the attempts were made. How close are the bonds that bind the Haqqani group to the rest of the Taliban? Or are there differences and cracks there?

RB: Well there are individual ambitions and differences but everybody’s afraid of the Haqqani faction. Even the Taliban leaders themselves may be afraid of them. Because of the patronage they enjoy from the ISI and because of the use of suicide bombs with great facility by them which is well known to exterminate their opponents instead Afghanistan. So most of these bombings etc were being done by the Haqqani faction.

KT: So the Haqqani faction has in a sense intimidated other leaders in the Taliban.

RB: That could be. In time, you see, the families and children of the other leaders come out of Pakistan and they no longer require rest and recreation, this relationship could change.

KT: That could change. That would be in the future, because up till now the relationship has been one in which Haqqanis, because of the support, funding from Pakistan, has somewhat intimidated the rest of the Taliban.

RB: That’s true. One other reason is that they are Zadrach. They are from an area called Zadran which is lower eastern Paktia, Khost. In the tribal, again, caste systems, the Zadran are the lowest among the…

KT: Why would that help them intimidate others?

RB: No, not intimidate. But to be looked down upon by other blue-blooded Afghans.

KT: But now you’re contradicting yourself—if they’re looked down upon they won’t intimidate and frighten people.

RB: At a later date I said. It could happen.

KT: Let me put this to you. It is reported that two Haqqani brothers, Khalil and Anis, are now responsible for security in Kabul today. If that’s true, then what does it suggest?

RB: Khalil is said to be an uncle. Also not perhaps direct uncle. A cousin of Jalaluddin. Much younger, of course, than Jalaluddin. Anis of course is one of his younger sons. And he was under detention for a while.

KT: But if security is in their hands what does it suggest?

RB: This could have been a temporary measure. Now they have appointed a new acting governor, mayor, and also an intelligence chief.

KT: So this story that security was in the hands of the Haqqanis, Anis and Khalil, is not a worrying factor. It was built up by the press as a moment of concern, but you’re saying it’s not necessarily so.

RB: Possibly. I mean, you have now an appointee, unless he has aligned now with the Haqqanis—Najibullah who has been appointed Intelligence Chief of this new government. And he was known to be closer to the Dadullah faction, which was not close to the Haqqanis in the old days.


KT: You’re confusing us with details, what is the point you’re making?

RB: We don’t know whether the intelligence chief appointee is definitely a Haqqani man.

KT: Okay. So in other words, the regime that is forming, to the extent that we can see, is not necessarily under Haqqani control—

RB: It could be an eclectic regime.

KT: It could be an eclectic regime. And the point you’re therefore reinforcing is that the initial belief that because Anis Haqqani was in Kabul, Khalil Haqqani was in Kabul, it was reported that the Haqqanis controlled Kabul’s security. That initial belief is questionable.

RB: Yeah. It could change.

KT: Let’s come very briefly to the situation in Afghanistan as it’s begun to emerge during the last 10-11 days. I believe the director general of the ISI flew to Kandahar when Mullah Baradar was there and they were seen together praying at a Mosque. There are also reports that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spent a day or two in Kabul, but he himself has denied it. What does all of this suggest about the role Pakistan is playing in helping put together a Taliban government?

RB: Well they would definitely like to remain very close to whatever leadership emerges among the Taliban.

KT: And are they pulling the strings?

RB: They would definitely be pulling the strings. They’re trying to make it a pleasant phenomenon. Particularly Mullah Baradar having had this experience of detention in a Pakistani jail, he would be very sensitive to such, you know, behaviour.

KT: But then that…

RB: They’re going the extra mile.

KT: But then therefore there would be problems. Pakistanis want to pull the strings and ensure that their chosen people have critical posts. But Mullah Baradar, who has been in detention for eight years, will want to ensure that Pakistan’s role is limited. There are tensions here now.

RB: They could develop later. In the sense that Pakistan…The Taliban leadership will not immediately put a red rag to the Pakistani bull.

KT: They have already appointed Acting Minister of Defence, Acting Minister of Interior, as well as, I believe, an Acting Foreign Minister. They’ve also appointed a Finance Minister. They’ve also appointed an Acting Governor and an Acting Mayor. Now are these people, you suspect, the Pakistanis have put in place, or are they independent credible people who have support within Taliban? Which of the two?

RB: I think it is the latter because they have already played a reasonably well-known role in the actual fighting on the ground. And earlier they had not been accommodated to the extent that they had committed in the actual fighting.


KT: So they’re getting their rewards now?

RB: Possibly. But this is something one cannot assert for certain.

KT: But you’re also saying something else. Your sense, your hunch is that these are not Pakistani puppets being put in place. These are people with credible track records of their own.

RB: Yes. And the Taliban must have convinced the ISI that they have to accommodate them or the unity of whatever leadership—

KT: Not so long ago you were talking about how the remote control will be in ISI hands.

RB: It will still be.

KT: But now what you’re saying suggests that that remote control isn’t working because the Taliban is convincing the ISI that the people who they’re placing in acting positions are not necessarily all chosen ones. They’re people they’re rewarding because they’ve done good work.

RB: Well you see ISI would know much more about the inner factions and pressures and pulls that the Taliban are faced with. So they would concur only with those things they are comfortable with. So they would know more than us what is happening within the Taliban.

KT: So what you see may not necessarily be the truth. The surface—

RB: This is an analysis from a distance from a person who has retired from intelligence analysis ten years down the line.

KT: Let me put this to you. We’ve seen last week. Images of Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah talking to Anis Haqqani, talking to the Pakistani Ambassador in Kabul, and there were reports in the Western press that Abdullah and Karzai could play some sort of role in shaping a government, perhaps smoothening the way for the Taliban. Is that your understanding as well?

RB: They may have tried to give that impression but the Taliban went through the motions of engaging with them and these impressions have since been dispelled despite efforts still being made by Karzai, maybe not so much by Abdullah Abdullah, to give this impression. Because Karzai at one stage, if you recall, had been the Deputy Foreign Minister for the Mujahudeen. He fell out because his father was murdered in a Kandahar Mosque, in a plot which he believed had been hatched by the ISI.

KT: So in other words, this initial impression of last week, that Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah were playing a role in trying to shape or help the Taliban is actually one that Abdullah and Karzai were fostering. The Taliban were simply going through the polite motions of meeting former leaders as a courtesy, nothing more.

RB: Yes. Trying to give an impression to the West that maybe they are serious about having an inclusive set up. And they wouldn’t mind that if your recognition was on the way. But after that we’ve had the visit of the American CIA chief who had a direct one-to-one meeting with Mullah Baradar.

KT: And Karzai and Abdullah were not there?

RB: They were definitely not there. His guards were disarmed in the palace where he was staying, in the Presidential palace. So he had to move with his family to Abdullah’s house.


KT: What does that suggest? That move from his own house to Abdullah’s house?

RB: Insecurity. That maybe, why my guards have been disarmed…


FILE PHOTO: Civilians prepare to board a plane during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan August 18, 2021. Photo: Reuters.

KT: So that entire picture that was presented both in the Western press and the Indian press that Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah were playing a critical role was actually done more by Karzai and Abdullah to build their own image. The Taliban were simply being respectful, they were getting in touch out of politeness, because they don’t treat these people as serious.

RB: I don’t think they are going to share power easily with them.

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KT: Now it’s roughly 11-12 since the Taliban came to power and they still haven’t formed a government. I know they’ve set up acting ministers—Finance, Defence, Interior—they’ve got an Acting Governor and Mayor of Kabul. They say they will only form a proper government after the 31st when foreign soldiers have left. Do you believe that? Or are there problems in forming a government and is this just an excuse?

RB: No, I think they are playing for time, for international recognition. Once they get that then they will actually declare the emirate and then the leadership council

KT: But can they get international recognition if there isn’t a government to recognise?

RB: They want to have an emirat and they’re still toying with the idea of what sort of constitution they’re going to accept. The 1964 Constitution is being held out to them as a possible compromise document.

KT: But that is a Zahir Shah Constitution.

RB: Yes. But it’s a work in progress. If they add some Islamic clauses into that—

KT: But the Zahir Shah Constitution had a kingship. Do you see the emirate becoming a kingship?

RB: No. The emirate will have to be given some recognition in whatever form, sharia law in the emirate. So that is what they are working at.

KT: So this delay in forming a government is playing for time. It’s not an indication that they are having problems.

RB: Initially that seemed to be so, but now with the announcement of these designations I would tend to agree.

KT: My last question: How seriously do you take the resistance in the Panjshir? Can Amrullah Saleh, Ahmad Shah Massoud’s son actually threaten the Taliban. Or is it only a matter of time before the Taliban vanquishes them?


RB: Yes. They cannot really threaten but surrender may not happen immediately.

KT: What about defeat?

RB: Defeat also may not happen immediately because Panjshir has always been well defended. Their capability to attack and take on more areas from where they are, that’s in dispute. That’s why the Taliban feel it’s not a serious problem.

KT: So Panjshir because of its geographical location surrounded by these mountains can defend itself, but it’s very unlikely that the resistance in Panjshir will be able to spread beyond the borders of Panjshir.

RB: There could be some political accommodation also with Ahmad Massoud because he has the sort of charisma which the Taliban may not want to totally ignore. But his deputy, the former vice-president, the acting President, Amrullah Saleh is never going to make his peace with the Taliban.

KT: We end now with me repeating to you one question: You do believe, no matter what government is formed, at the end of the day, the hand of the ISI will be there behind? Even if the Taliban find credible faces of their own, the strings will be in ISI hands?

RB: For a considerable while, yes.

KT: How long is a considerable while?

RB: Anything between six months to a year at least.

KT: But after a year, the government could begin to break free?

RB: It would depend on the safe havens, where their children are, where their families are. What they do with their properties in Pakistan. If they can have better sanctions or options available to them inside Afghanistan then—

KT: So in other words, if the world wants the Taliban to loosen the strings that attach them to the ISI, we need to find ways of helping them with their sons and their properties so they can establish independence and separation.

RB: Yes.

KT: Thank you very much indeed. This has been a comprehensive interview, you’ve given us incredible detail. I’m not sure everyone will be able to follow all of it, but for those who care, both about the history and the details of the Pakistani involvement and the ISI in particular with the Taliban, and those who also want to know who are the factions and who are the personalities within the Taliban, you’ve been like an encyclopedia.

RB: Thank you.


KT: Thank you very much indeed, Banerji. Take care, stay safe.