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How far will the Taliban go-that’s the question?

Date of publication: 12 July 2021
Security in Central Asia depends on the development of events in Afghanistan

Stanislav Ivanov, Leading Researcher at the Center for International Security of  

IMEMO RAS, Candidate of Historical Sciences

The process of withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan is accompanied by the strengthening of the positions of the Taliban movement in the country (banned in the Russian Federation). This was to be expected. The plan proposed by Washington for a peaceful settlement of the intra-Afghan conflict according to the same scheme as the agreement between the US administration and the Taliban leaders in the Qatari capital Doha, initially stalled and was sabotaged by the central authorities in Kabul. The corrupt government of President Ashraf Ghani, which is losing popularity among the broad masses of the people, still does not want to integrate the Taliban into power, continues to rely on law enforcement agencies, hopes for new billion-dollar injections of the West into the country’s economy and support for the army.

In this situation, the leaders of the Taliban movement have taken a number of decisive steps to expand the zone of rural areas and settlements controlled by them, and have reached the borders with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Government troops, militias and border guards avoided clashes with the Taliban and preferred to find temporary shelter in neighboring countries. It seems that the Afghans do not want to fight with the Taliban.

The intensification of the actions of the DT can be regarded as a lever of pressure on the resumed negotiations of their representatives with the government delegation in Iran and at the same time as a readiness to take power in Kabul with the help of military force. Pseudo-politicians and pseudo-experts in Russia and a number of CIS countries hastened to “ring the bells” and rattled about the threat of a Taliban invasion of Central Asian countries and an increase in the volume of Afghan drugs.

I would like to “land” these ardent “experts of the East” a little, to clarify what the Taliban movement is and what can be expected in the region with its coming to power in Afghanistan.

The Taliban (meaning students in Arabic and Pashto) is an Islamist movement that originated in 1994 in the camps of Afghan refugees in the areas bordering Afghanistan in Pakistan among students and teachers of primary religious schools – madrassas. According to the estimates of the Afghan authorities, there were up to 17 thousand such schools among several million refugees at that time. From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban (“Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”) was in power in Afghanistan, and since 2004 it controlled the province of Waziristan in northern Pakistan (“Islamic State of Waziristan”). The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was recognized by three States: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The UN Security Council recognized the DT as a terrorist organization in 2003. The Supreme Court of Russia also recognized the Taliban as a terrorist organization on February 14, 2003.

Over the past 20 years of the presence of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, serious changes have taken place in the ideology and structure of the DT. The Doha agreement with the United States was signed by representatives of the so-called “moderate wing” of the Taliban, who have stopped all ties and contacts with Al-Qaeda and do not cooperate with the Islamic State (both organizations are banned in the Russian Federation). Of course, the mentioned terrorist organizations are trying to operate on the territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the overwhelming number of leaders of the DT and other Afghan military-political groups do not support them.

It should be noted that one of the important points of the Doha Agreement is the obligation of the American side to exclude DT from the list of banned (terrorist) organizations and to petition the UN and other countries for such decisions. Moscow is also trying to take a realistic look at the situation in Afghanistan, and does not refuse to contact representatives of the DT and mediate a role in the peaceful settlement of the intra-Afghan conflict. These days, another delegation of the political wing of the DT is in Moscow, which confirms its peaceful intentions towards neighboring states and readiness to cooperate with them.

Ignoring the obvious is becoming more and more futile. If the DT enjoys broad support from the population of Afghanistan, the governments of neighboring countries (Pakistan and Turkey), then it is necessary to give the Afghans themselves the opportunity to decide on the central government. Any external intervention provokes new conflicts and drives the Afghan problem deeper. The Soviet leadership was convinced of this by the spring of 1988 and the US administration, starting with the Obama presidency. Trump and Biden were able to implement the plan previously outlined by Obama for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from this “hot” country.

It should be borne in mind that the Taliban movement is mainly an Islamist movement of Pashtun tribes that live in the south of Afghanistan and in the north of Pakistan. They do not set themselves the goal of expansion into neighboring countries, but are limited to the struggle for power in their historical homeland. Government troops and border guards who have retreated to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are only asking for temporary asylum. And, if the ruling circles of the Central Asian states are really concerned about the events in neighboring Afghanistan, then instead of strengthening their military groups and demands for the help of CSTO troops in the border areas, they could organize civilized camps there for temporary accommodation of Afghan refugees (tents, water supply, food, medicines, etc.). That is, focus on the humanitarian aspects of the Afghan crisis and involve regional and international organizations, primarily the SCO and the UN structures, as far as possible in this process.

It is possible that the Afghans will still be able to peacefully agree on the future state structure, and in the case of a violent seizure of power in Kabul by the Taliban, there is no direct threat to regional or international security yet.



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