Afghan President Afghan Ghani Taliban Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada
Dr. Kalam Shahed 28 December 2020
For the second time in its history, the US-led invasion of 2001 saw Afghanistan occupied by a foreign power. The first invasion by the Soviet forces in 1979 proved particularly destructive and destabilizing — over a million Afghans were killed and nearly five million crossed over to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran as refugees. The Taliban emerged as the strongest faction the internecine Afghan civil war after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. In a hindsight, even some Western scholars now tend to agree that despite the enormous human costs, the Soviet occupation could, eventually, prove salutary for the conservative, ethnically diverse, and fractious Afghan society. The Soviets, reeling from a collapsing economy, withdrew rather hurriedly under the reformist leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Unlike many Central Asian Soviet Republics, an educated, egalitarian civil society did not take root, and women remained hidden behind traditional strictures of veils and domestic chores. Close Afghan observers believed that overall socio-economic indicators of the masses would have rapidly increased under the people-oriented Soviet development plans. The ideologically- motivated Western powers and their conservative Wahabi allies in the Middle East, put an end to the Soviet occupation, and in doing so also, somewhat inadvertently, inducted Al Qaeda fighters into the ranks of the Afghan mujahideen which were armed and trained by U.S. government.
Under the leadership of Mollah Mohammad Omar, who was schooled in a conservative Pakistani madrasa, the Taliban movement spread rapidly, sequestering power from the other Mujahideen leaders such as Hizb-e Islami head, Professor Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Jamaat-e-Islami leader, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. Once in power, the Taliban moved its capital from Kabul to the Pashtun heartland, Kandahar. Although the reclusive Mohammad Omar did not participate in day-to-day administration, his majlis-e-shura rejected electoral democracy and enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law, which became the legal foundation of the Taliban governance. Given its ultra-conservative Islamic outlook, only three countries namely, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and U.A.E. recognized the Islamic Emirate. India, a close ally of the Soviet Union, did not recognize the Taliban emirate. In 1999, an Indian passenger airline was hijacked by Kashmiri militants to Kabul, which resulted in the release of some top militant fighters held in Indian prisons.
The second Afghan occupation started in December 2001, when Emir Omar refused to hand over Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin-Laden, for his role in attacking the U.S. in September 2001. The country has since remained under direct and indirect external occupation for the longest time in its history. Under intense U.S. bombing, the Taliban government collapsed, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), comprising predominantly the U.S. and other Western forces, occupied Afghanistan. Driven from the main centres of power, the Taliban regrouped as an insurgency force to fight the occupation forces. The U.S.-led invasion has faltered and although it was able to degrade Al Qaeda thriving in the area, it also created new and more radical ones such as the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), a franchise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant in the Middle East. The invasion has also left deep and enduring physical and emotional wounds on the Afghan people with hostile memory of the ongoing Western occupation.
Today’s Afghanistan has a façade democracy, where elections are either boycotted or rigged. The politicians thrive on siphoning off generous international aids and boosting their bank deposits in Dubai and in several Western capitals. Taliban insurgents control over 70 percent of Afghan territory where the government remains either unabashedly absent or has only a token presence. The rural Afghans prefer to go to the conservative Taliban judges, rather than seeking the help of corrupt police and judiciary. The Taliban is now making bold inroads into urban areas. While in power, the Taliban regime had cracked down on opium production as drug consumption was deemed un-Islamic. The prolonged insurgency needed sustained funding, and the puritan Taliban, along with criminal and corrupt government officials, has helped Afghanistan evolve into a narco-economy. Alongside the Afghan military, the international forces, and the Taliban who orchestrate violence, the ISKP added a new fearful communal dimension, targeting the minority Shite population in the country.
The National Unity Government of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah is riven with internal disputes over power-sharing and factional access to resources. Peoples’ access to state resources and building a national consensus is not a priority for the Afghan political elites. The Doha talks between the U.S. and the Taliban aimed at reducing international presence, and power-sharing with broad-based and comprehensive political settlement in Afghanistan now make fresh prospects for the Taliban to gain formal political control and return to the helms of power. The U.S. wants to extricate itself from the military and financial quagmire that it helped to create in Afghanistan over the past decade and a half. Several rounds of talks between the U.S. and Taliban leaders appear to move gradually towards a negotiated settlement aimed at ending the Western occupation and seething fratricidal insurgency. The newly created elites and the nova riche in Afghanistan, however, shudder at the prospects of conservative and puritan Taliban returning to the helms of power.
The breadth and spread of Taliban insurgency and other radical groups are extensive with a complex overlay of tribal and ideological networks. International jihadist entities will possibly attempt to proliferate in a Taliban-friendly or Taliban-led government with potential cross-pollination of radical ideologies. The Taliban insurgent forces are aided and abetted by regional volunteers, including hundreds of fighters from Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan. Some volunteers from Bangladesh and India could also be in the Taliban ranks. The ISKP attracts a medley of fighters from the Middle East and South Asia. International observers remain unsure of the future relations between the Taliban leaders and its affiliated group, the Haqqani Network, with a constellation of other entities such as the Al Qaeda, ISKP, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan including the Uighur militants, the Pakistani Tehrik-e-Taliban, and pro-Kashmiri militants active in Afghanistan.
Parallel with widespread corruption and mal-governance, thanks to the internationally funded NGOs, the Afghan society has also seen perceptible changes during the U.S.-led occupation. The press and media in Afghanistan are relatively free compared to most developing countries. Even some rural areas have had exposure to Western aid and assistance. The agricultural sector in northern and northwestern Afghanistan and schooling, women’s education, and healthcare in several provincial towns saw marked improvements. More than ever before, today’s Afghan city-based middle class is more informed and conscious about domestic, regional, and international issues. Afghanistan also boasts of well- trained military force, funded by the international community.
With compelling post-pandemic domestic economic pressures in the Western capitals and war-weary Afghans yearning for lasting peace, the gains of prolonged Western engagement in Afghanistan could dissipate with a rapid Western departure. The Taliban remains relatively popular in conservative Afghan society. With an overlay of powerful Taliban in the power-sharing process, the internal security environment could see precipitous changes. Jihadists from all over the world could flock to a victorious Afghan Taliban emirate. A thriving conservative and puritan Islamic polity could also be a bad omen for regional counties such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives, which are predominantly Islamic, but offer façade democracies steeped in widespread corruption and social inequity and have, so far failed, to forge national democratic consensus, free of overarching praetorian, authoritarian and communal influences. A Taliban-led government could also encourage its surplus fighters in Afghanistan to move to a perceived jihad in Kashmir, creating a new flashpoint for regional ideological and communal contestation.
All may not be doom and gloom. Given societal changes in Afghanistan during the prolonged foreign occupation, a reformed, pragmatic Taliban could adhere to an accommodative policy of power-sharing, abide by the rules of electoral democracy, coopt more liberal sections of the society, while enforcing social justice and creating a more accountable, inclusive, Islamic democratic polity. External jihadists, such as Al Qaeda, will have a vastly reduced maneuvering space in such an Afghan state. The regional countries — Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, and India — all have a stake in stable Afghanistan. With the rising, strident calls for peace, international disengagement, and a negotiated settlement, the Afghan socio-political trajectory remains hazy and unpredictable with an eerie mixture of new hopes and traditional fears for the entire South Asia.