Blogpost: Afghanistan and Taliban
It is hard to decipher yet if the ‘new Taliban’ are any different from the old Taliban but one fact is incontrovertible: a majority of Taliban today belong to a different generation as roughly more than half of the present day Taliban were born after the fall of the first Taliban government. The new lot is a product of different times and is far more tech savvy than their elders. Even the old guard is attempting to rebrand itself.
- This blogpost is related to the event Taking Stock of the 9/11 Era
- The blogpost is written by Hassan Abbas, Distinguished Professor of International Relations at the Near East South Asia Strategic Studies Centre (NESA), National Defense University in Washington DC.
It goes without saying that Taliban today are more resourceful, better equipped and are networked more broadly. They expanded their constituency as well by recruiting more non-Pashtuns as evident from the fact that many deputies of cabinet ministers are non-Pashtuns and most interestingly, the chief of Taliban military is a Tajik.
They have more regional allies as well. Qatar for instance is now an important supporter of Taliban. The question here is if any ideological transformation has also occurred among Taliban in terms of any flexibility? The answer to that is a resounding No. Taliban belong to the Deobandi school of thought within the Sunni-Hanafi jurisprudence and their leadership is a product of religious seminaries in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.
The Madrassa Haqqania in Pakistan’s Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Province trained many among them and gave the Haqqani group their name and identity. If anything, the old guard is as rigid as before. Nonetheless, some senior (and second tier) Taliban leaders, especially those who represented Taliban in Doha talks, showed signs of flexibility and had adopted a rational approach during the talks. But such leanings have cost them politically as evident from their demotion when it came to choice of top political appointments including cabinet positions.
These differences are likely to become more serious with time especially given the humanitarian crisis waiting to explode in Afghanistan. With serious economic decline and lack of skilled human resource to run banks, industry and even various ministries, chaos is likely to set in with increased tussles between different Taliban groups for power grab.
It is worth noting that varieties of Taliban already exist that include the old guard (that survived mostly in Pakistan), the field commanders, the young recruits across Afghanistan, the drug dealers and organized crime syndicates (that were always close allies) besides others.
Another critical aspect to monitor is the ravaging rivalry between Taliban and Salafist oriented Islamic State (Khorasan) or ISK. They are at each other’s neck and ISK has been involved in many recent terrorist attacks in Kabul and south (the Taliban primary base) attempting to disrupt Taliban’s rise to power and more prominence. Insightfully, Taliban and ISK fall into the same broad category in terms of their Islamic identity and are both strongly opposed to Muslim minority groups, especially Sufis and Shia.
It must be added that ISK is more severe and brutal in this sphere. The major challenge Taliban face is defections of its hardline elements to ISK (which has been happening for a while). Still ISK is highly unlikely to challenge Taliban control of Kabul but can be much more than a nuisance and can make things very difficult for Taliban by establishing sanctuaries for foreign fighters in their areas of control and influence. Many Pakistani Taliban, already working closely with ISK, can gain greatly from such sanctuaries. Taliban had given a commitment to US as part of Doha deal that they would not allow ISK or any other transnational terrorist outfit to operate in its territory and create a security threat for the US. Living up to that promise will be a hard test for Taliban.
