Pakistan military’s 2018 gamble to install the former Pakistan cricketer-turned politician, Imran Khan, flopped with the ousting of the former prime minister and his government in 2022. Along with the arrests of Imran Khan, his wife and several of his party workers, many serving military officers of various cadres were also interrogated and arrested on numerous charges.

Recently, on 12 August 2024, the former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed was arrested by the Pakistan military. The Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the former chief. He was charged with misconduct, corruption and for abetting in political interference. Since then, court martial proceedings have been launched against him.

“Complying with the orders of Supreme Court of Pakistan . . . the process of Field General Court Martial has been initiated and Lt Gen Faiz Hameed (Retd) has been taken into military custody,” the Pakistan army stated. Since the conception of Pakistan, its military has been infamous for having influence over the country’s politics.

According to various reports presented against Hameed, there were allegations against him for allegedly harassing the owner of Islamabad’s ‘Top City’ housing scheme and society. Besides him, three other retired officers have been detained by the military in relation to Hameed’s case. But an important element to factor in, amidst all the said charges, is the undeniable close affiliation the former spy master has shared with the ousted prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan.

Khan has dismissed the charges against him as “frivolous and politically motivated,” even though he was forced to serve time in a jail for a year.

However, the appellate courts have since reversed, invalidated or suspended the charged convictions due to the lack of substantial evidence. But, the authorities in Islamabad seemed determine to file new cases against Khan in order to keep him in jail. Hence, the determination of the Pakistan Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), Gen Asim Munir to contain the political turbulence and to nail Imran Khan’s cronies should be no surprise with the arrest of his “top dog” spy master, Faiz Hameed.

The Former ISI Spy Chief, PMLN and the State

Lt Gen Faiz Hameed served as the 24th Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DG ISI) from 2019 to 2021. He is known as the “India baiter” and Imran Khan’s affiliate.

It was reported that post-Taliban’s take over of Afghanistan in 2021, the chief had paid a visit to Kabul. The visits of the DG ISI had been clandestine in the past. However, it was not the case with his trip to Kabul. Several images of Lt Gen Faiz and Pakistan’s Ambassador Mansoor Ali Khan, having tea at Kabul’s Serena Hotel, surfaced on the social media. The purpose of Hameed’s visit was to seek “peace and stability” in Afghanistan and to get the first-hand account of the ground situation in Afghanistan. Despite the statements made by the former DG ISI, it was confirmed that the objective of his visit was to meet with the top Afghan leadership and certain foreign envoys in Kabul. Even though no official details were divulged at the time, it later came to light that the chief had brokered peace between the Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Baradar network.

The main promoter of Taliban had been Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, who was also in favour of the Haqqani Network when the fight to take over Kabul erupted between the warring factions. The ISI has been reported in the past to have utilized the Haqqani Network to orchestrate attacks on the Indian Embassy in Kabul as well as to sway the Sunni Pashtun force in a direction inclined to Pakistan. Additionally, under Hameed’s command’s, reports of the induction of Pakistan Army regulars in the anti-resistance operations against the Resistance Force, led by Commander Amrullah Saleh in Panjshir Valley, were conducted.

It was inferred, that Pakistan’s consistent aid to Taliban rose from their desire for a strategic depth in Afghanistan, while nurturing an outfit such as Taliban to act as ISI’s puppet to curb the possible terror threats, which it incurs from Tehreek-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). However, the tables have turned since then. The disillusionment of the Pakistani government of controlling the Afghan Taliban shattered with Taliban’s lackadaisical and undetermined effort in fostering a peace deal with TTP and Pakistan. The TTP later called off the ceasefire with Pakistan in 2022. The negotiations were carried out between a delegation led by Faiz Hameed and TTP leaders in Khost, Afghanistan. Under the negotiations, corps commanders of TTP, Muhammed Khan and Muslim Khan were released. Since then, TTP has ravaged Pakistan with their persistent attacks.

Besides the TTP threat, Pakistan was also hopeful with regards to the Pakistan-Afghan border areas, which even though are demarcated by the Durand Line, still remain as areas of dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Afghans view the border as an artificial entity and do not recognize the Durand line agreement, which Pakistan inherited post-1947. Afghanistan has claimed certain areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as a part of their territory and views Pakistan as the illegal occupiers of their land. Hence, there have been several border skirmishes between the security forces of both nations. Pakistan’s relations with China and the presence of Chinese immigrants in the area have also served as reason for mistrust amongst the local habitants in these regions, who view the Chinese presence as a form of planned displacement of their communities to accommodate the Chinese, with exploitation of their land. Several attacks were orchestrated on Chinese citizens, who were assigned to Sino-Pakistan projects by various insurgents and militant outfits. Later on, at the behest of China, Pakistan decided to carry out a large scale military operation – Azm-i-Istehkam – to neutralize the threats especially around the Durand Line. This has resulted in rallies and ‘jirgas’ (tribal councils) being held in many cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) due to the fear of mass displacement.

Additionally, the refoulement of Afghans back to their homeland from Pakistan has also sparked further tensions between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan government is of the view that many Afghan refugees may be sleeper cells or individuals involved in organized crimes. The inhibitions arising from the growing TTP threat and other offshoots remain to be a strong reason for Pakistan’s preventive course of action. Pakistan has blamed Kabul for being lenient in their approach towards the TTP and has blatantly made accusations of Taliban allowing the anti-Pakistan elements to carry out operations from Afghanistan, while also providing safe havens to them.

Furthermore, with Pakistan struggling economically, the decision for refoulement of undocumented Afghans has been considered prudent and imperative by Islamabad.

With the evolving political developments, dotted with several security and political threats erupting from Imran Khan’s PTI party opposing and clashing with the newly installed prime minister Shehbaaz Shariff’s PML-N, it was expected of the COAS Gen Aseem Munir to employ pre-emptive measures to wrest control over the state of affairs with the favoured political government installed by the military in power.

As a handpicked candidate of Imran Khan, Fiaz Hameed has been acknowledged for his involvement in Khan’s PTI party rioting across Pakistan on 9 May 9, 2023. This move was enough to upset Islamabad, given that PTI workers barged into and torched the official residence of the IV Corps commander in Lahore and also attempted to force themselves into the army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Further reports of Hameed providing counsel to Khan after taking premature retirement from the army, also suggested of his abetment in the May 9 riots in 2023, which has been regarded as an anarchy against the military institution.

Additionally, Nawaz Sharif also asserted that Gen Hameed had colluded with few generals and individuals from higher judiciary to impeach him from power in 2017.

In 2017, Hameed became infamous for orchestrating anti-blasphemy protests against the PML-N government by the far-Right group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.

“The arrest of former ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed sends a clear signal to those still on the fence – there will be no compromise, no exceptions. Fall in line or face the consequences. The writing is on the wall,” stated Baqir Sajjad Syed, the national security correspondent of the influential Dawn newspaper.

Apart from various charges against Hameed, his personal swipe at the COAS Gen Munir for being a Shia in hopes of dismantling the Saudi-Pakistan relations and expecting the response to remove Munir or halt his appointment also, may have fanned the growing conflagration.

The Military Institution Always Wins in Pakistan After years of impunity, the reign of the former chief ended with the military usurping back its socio-economic and political control. The COAS, Gen Munir seems to have solidified his position with the removal of the puppet government set by the former COAS Gen Javed Qamar Bajwa. He has also carried out a witch hunt against the associates and close affiliates of Imran Khan. The arrest of Gen Bajwa’s former ISI spymaster also has been made into an example for those who would conspire against the current military regime. It would be no surprise if the security of the former COAS may also be under threat.

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The Taliban, on 7 September, named Mullah Hasan Akhund, an associate of the movement’s late founder, Mullah Omar, as the new head of the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. No less crucial was the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani as interior minister. His organisation happens to be on the terrorism list of the United States of America. He is one of the FBI’s most wanted men because of his involvement in suicide attacks and ties with Al Qaida.

The US asserted in the immediate aftermath of the appointments that there would be no recognition of the Taliban government anytime soon.

The appointment of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban’s political office and one of the prominent negotiators at the serial conferences in Doha, as Prime Minister Akhund’s deputy, rather than to the top job, was more than a little surprising. Ever since 15 August, when the Taliban brought Kabul under its belt, he had been widely expected to be the next prime minister.

Baradar, once a close friend of Mullah Omar, was a senior Taliban commander in charge of attacks on US forces. He was arrested and imprisoned in Pakistan in 2010, and helmed the Taliban’s political office in Doha after his release in 2018. On the face of it, his claim to the PM’s office was strong, but as it has turned out it was Mullah Hasan Akhund who was eventually given the nod.

Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of Mullah Omar, was named as defence minister in a series of ministerial appointments that were said to be in an “acting” capacity. To be tentative is the dominant strain.

The exclusion of women from the seat of authority was the other and unsurprising striking feature of the new dispensation. This rendered rather uncertain the support of a critical section in a profoundly theocratic country. The putative moderate face of the new regime was at a discount.

It is not clear what role in the government would be played by Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban supreme leader. There was no indication that he would play the omnipotent role of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei. Islamabad’s fingerprints were visible in the new arrangement.

Haqqani Network

The Haqqani Network has emerged as the most powerful group in the new Taliban government, with four of the clan nominated as cabinet members.

The Haqqani Network takes its name from the leader of the group, Jalaluddin Haqqani, who first fought the Soviet Army in Afghanistan as a loyal ally of the CIA and the ISI, and then fought the US and NATO forces, while he led a protected existence in North Waziristan, where Pakistan gave him and the entire group safe haven.

Jalauddin’s death, in September 2018, was announced as having occurred of natural causes, although it was rumoured that he had died years before. The mantle passed to his son Sirajuddin.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, 48, is the new Interior Minister — an appointment that is a finger in the eye of the international community. He has been a UN-designated global terrorist since 2007, and the FBI has a reward of $10 million for information leading to his arrest. No recent photographs exist of him.

It describes him as “one of the most prominent, influential, charismatic and experienced leaders within the Haqqani Network… and has been one of the major operational commanders of the network since 2004. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Sirajuddin Haqqani took control of the Haqqani Network and has since then led the group into the forefront of insurgent activities in Afghanistan”.

According to the listing, he derived much of his power and authority from his father, Jalaluddin Haqqani — who was also listed, and described as “a go-between for al-Qaeda and the Taliban on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border”. Sirajuddin Haqqani was involved in the suicide bombing attack against a Police Academy bus in Kabul on June 18, 2007, which killed 35 police officers.

Haqqanis in Cabinet

Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani, the uncle of Sirajuddin, who has been appointed the Minister for Refugees, was listed as a terrorist in 2011. The listing says he travelled to Gulf countries, as well as in South and South-east Asia to raise funds on behalf of the Taliban and the Haqqani Network.

He is said to have been one of several people responsible for the detention of prisoners captured by the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. The listing links him to al-Qaeda as well.

Najibullah Haqqani, Minister for Communication, was listed in 2001. He had been a minister in the previous Taliban regime as well — first the deputy minister for public works, and later, deputy minister for finance. He was militarily active until 2010.

Sheikh Abdul Baqi Haqqani, an associate of Jalaluddin Haqqani and the new Minister for Higher Education, is the only leader of the Haqqani Network in the government who not designated by the UN Security Council. However, he has been sanctioned by the European Union.

On being appointed the shadow minister for education last month, he was reported as saying that while girls could study, “All educational activities will take place according to Shariah.”

Deep Roots in Af-Pak

Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Zadran tribesman from the Loya Paktia (Paktia, Paktika and Khost) area in eastern Afghanistan close to the border with Pakistan, was a member of the anti-communist, anti-Soviet Hizb-e-Islami, and became active as a mujahideen in the 1970s.

He is an alumnus of the Dar-ul-ulum Madrassa, also nown as the jihad factory, in Akhora Khattak in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

As the frontier of the Cold War came to Pakistan’s doors, he and several others were trained in Pakistan for jihad. When the Soviet Army arrived, he was among the CIA’s trusted mujahideen. Charlie Wilson, the US Senator who mustered money and weapons for the war, is said to have described him as “goodness personified”. During this time he forged deep ties with the ISI.

From a base in North Waziristan, Jalaluddin ran guns and fighters for the jihad all through the 1980s. This is also the time when he met Osama bin Laden in Miramshah, the headquarters town of North Waziristan. While he received largesse from the CIA and ISI, Haqqani is said to have also raised his own funds from wealthy sheikhs in Gulf countries, and during his annual Haj pilgrimage.

Haqqani joined hands with the Taliban in 1995, and he and his men fought alongside the Islamist movement against the various warring factions of the mujahideen.

When the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, he became the Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs. The relationship between him and Mullah Omar was one of common interests, but it was hardly smooth, with Haqqani resentful of the prominence Mullah Omar gave to his inner circle from Kandahar.

After the ouster of the Taliban regime by the US and allied forces in 2001, the Haqqani family fled to Pakistan, where they are believed to have taken refuge in their old stronghold of Miramshah in North Waziristan.

They were said to be running a parallel administration there, taxing people and making money off construction contracts and investments in real estate in the area. Another source of income was from fund-raising in the Gulf.

Kidnapping for ransom was a major source of income, as was smuggling timber from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

In 2003, when the Taliban began regrouping, the Haqqani clan was central to their efforts. By then, Sirajuddin had taken over most of the operational aspects of the Haqqani Network from his father Jalaluddin.

Military observers credit much of the success of the Taliban to the Haqqani Network. The United States often urged Pakistan to “do more” to eliminate the Haqqani Network, but these efforts remained cosmetic.

The Institute for the Study of War report mentioned earlier says the Pakistani Army consistently refused to launch a military operation in North Waziristan despite the presence of the al-Qaeda’s senior leadership there.

Even while reporting directly to the Taliban Supreme Council, the Haqqani Network retained its own distinct identity.

Links with al-Qaeda, ISIS

As recently as May this year, a UN report described the Haqqani Network as “Taliban’s most combat-ready forces [with] a highly skilled core of members who specialize in complex attacks and provide technical skills, such as improvised explosive device and rocket construction….The Haqqani Network remains a hub for outreach and cooperation with regional foreign terrorist groups and is the primary liaison between the Taliban and Al-Qaida”.

The report, by the Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Committee, also noted that one member state had pointed to a link between the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-KP) and the Haqqani Network, but the Committee itself was unable to confirm this. The link centred on the leader of the ISIS-KP, Shahab al-Muhajir, who “may also have been previously a mid-level commander in the Haqqani Network”.

An earlier report of the Committee had stated that “one Member State has suggested that certain attacks can be denied by the Taliban and claimed by ISIL-K, (same as the ISIS-KP) with it being unclear whether these attacks were purely orchestrated by the Haqqani Network, or were joint ventures making use of ISIL-K operatives”.

The 2008 Indian Embassy bombing in which a senior diplomat and a military official posted at the Embassy were killed among dozens others, mostly Afghan civilians, was blamed by US and Afghan intelligence on the Haqqani Network.

The National Directorate of Security, the intelligence agency of the erstwhile Afghan government, had provided communication intercepts to Indian authorities that pointed to Haqqani involvement, allegedly with ISI support. A similar claim was made by the CIA. Other reports pointed to a Lashkar-e-Taiba involvement, with support from the Haqqani Network.

The Haqqani Network is also said to have been behind the attacks on Indian construction workers in Afghanistan in the years 2009-2012. The group’s long relationship with and loyalty to the ISI make it an invaluable asset for Pakistan, according to security officials. There is considerable disquiet in the Indian security establishment that Sirajuddin Haqqani is a member of the new government of Afghanistan.

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Pakistan has solicited funding for the Taliban, bankrolled Taliban operations, provided diplomatic support as the Taliban’s virtual emissaries abroad, arranged training for Taliban fighters, recruited skilled and unskilled manpower to serve in Taliban armies, planned and directed offensives, provided and facilitated shipments of ammunition and fuel, and on several occasions apparently directly providing combat support.

The Pakistan government has repeatedly denied that it provides any military support to the Taliban in its diplomacy regarding its extensive operations in Afghanistan.

In direct violation of U.N. sanctions Pakistan’s army and intelligence services, principally the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), contributed to making the Taliban a highly effective military force. Pakistan’s notoriously porous border with Afghanistan facilitated the transshipment of men and materiel.

History of Military Support

Pakistan has a history of military support for different factions within Afghanistan, extending at least as far back as the early 1970s. During the 1980s, Pakistan, which was host to more than two million Afghan refugees, was the most significant front-line state serving as a secure base for the mujahidin fighting against the Soviet intervention.

Pakistan also served, in the 1980s, as a U.S. stalking horse: the U.S., through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), granted Pakistan wide discretion in channelling some $2-3 billion worth of covert assistance to the mujahidin, training over 80,000 of them.

Even after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, serving and former Pakistani military officers continued to provide training and advisory services in training camps within Afghanistan and eventually to Taliban forces in combat.

In addition, Pakistan promoted the emergence of a government in Afghanistan that would reduce Pakistan’s own vulnerability to internal unrest by helping to contain the nationalist aspirations of tribes whose territories straddle the Pakistani-Afghan border.

Pakistan also sought to quell local support for Afghanistan’s ambitions of redrawing the Durand line. Thus, Pakistan came to throw its support behind the Hizb-i Islami of Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, a Pashtun-dominated group that espoused an Islamist rather than nationalist agenda. Because the U.S. granted Pakistan wide discretion in channelling its covert assistance to the mujahidin based in Pakistan, Pakistan was able to give Hikmatyar the lion’s share.

Strategic Depth

Throughout the war against the communist government and Soviet forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan asserted a mix of internal and external concerns. The ISI and Pakistan army sought leverage against the hostile neighbour on its eastern border, India, by giving Pakistan “strategic depth.”

Pakistan has always wanted Afghanistan as strategic depth against India. An Afghanistan that facilitated those connections and provided Pakistan with a base to pursue its objectives in Kashmir would give it greater security against India. It has also been part of the ‘Great Game’ against India. Pakistan believes that a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will eliminate Indian threat through Afghanistan.

With strategic depth, Pakistan can retreat into Afghanistan if India attacks. Second, they can rain their missiles on India from Afghanistan. And third, they can utilize jihadis from Afghanistan to launch a new jihad in Kashmir.

The New Taliban

Islamabad believes that it has the Taliban by the scruff of the neck, a term once used by Pakistan’s Chief of General Staff, Lt Gen Mohammed Aziz, during the time of the Kargil operations.

But the Taliban of today are not the naïve Talibs that the Pakistanis created under the leadership of Mullah Omar. This generation are seasoned militants who have sometimes experienced jail and ill-treatment at the hands of the Pakistanis. Islamabad hopes that its control over the Taliban logistics will continue to provide it leverage, as will the presence of its powerful proxy—the Haqqani Network which has been absorbed into the Taliban over the past two decades. But the rapid consolidation of authority over Afghanistan by the Taliban and their outreach to Iran is likely to have upset those calculations.

Pakistan has an uphill task in converting its tactical advantages in Afghanistan into strategic gains. The Pakistan army is now in the driver’s seat in Kabul. But can it drive the Afghan state and society anywhere, let alone in a sensible direction?

It did not come as a surprise that Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), dashed to Kabul after Taliban’s victory to secure his government’s interests. Hamid’s role was also to mediate between different Taliban factions on power-sharing and launch a sustainable new Afghan government.

With Pakistan supported Haqqani group occupying cabinet berths in the new Afghan dispensation, terrorist groups are likely to continue to flourish, rather than be controlled, as globally demanded. The Haqqanis are suspected to be close to the Islamic State (ISIS-K) which launched the suicide attack on Kabul airport. They are also closely associated with Pak-backed terrorist groups, JeM and LeT, which operate in Kashmir. The new Afghan army chief, Qari Fasihuddin, has ties with the ETIM (East Turkestan Islamic Movement). Russian security agencies believe that thousands of ISIS-K cadres are concentrated along Afghanistan’s borders with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Hence, the world rejected the Afghan government and tended to ignore its populace, pushing this responsibility on to Pakistan. Pakistan is itself in financial doldrums and facing food shortages. It cannot afford to fund and feed an additional 40 million without global support. Pakistan, which should have enforced a globally desired government in Kabul, at least initially, pushed one which it could control, ignoring global demands.

It is possible that Pakistan would have promised to support and fund Afghanistan in return for creating a government which it desires. Now it is saddled with a nation which, though possessing billions of dollars’ worth of US military equipment, lacks basic food stocks and funds to administer the country. Afghanistan may be compelled to export drugs or sell US equipment for immediate financial needs.

The Problem With Durand Line

What the Pakistanis do not realize is that they have a soft underbelly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pakistan is strong enough to destabilise Afghanistan, but not powerful enough to construct a stable political order across the Durand Line.

While the Taliban were beholden to Pakistan for evicting the Soviets from their land, they never recognized the Durand Line as their official border with Pakistan. The Taliban consider the Durand Line as a figment of the British imagination. Afghanistan dearly wants to merge Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with itself. Needless to say the Pakistanis are not happy with this ambition. They want the Durand Line to be recognized as the international border with Afghanistan as soon as possible.

The Durand Line is a legacy of the 19th century Great Game between the Russian and British empires in which Afghanistan was used as a buffer by the British against a feared Russian expansionism to its east.

The agreement demarcating what became known as the Durand Line was signed on November 12, 1893 between the British civil servant Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman, then the Afghan ruler, essentially a British puppet. His agreement with Durand demarcated the limits of his and British India’s “spheres of influence” on the Afghan “frontier” with India.

In reality, the line cut through Pashtun tribal areas, leaving villages, families, and land divided between the two “spheres of influence”. It has been described as a “line of hatred”, arbitrary, illogical, cruel and a trickery on the Pashtuns. Some historians believe it was a ploy to divide the Pashtuns so that the British could keep control over them easily. It also put on the British side the strategic Khyber Pass.

With Independence in 1947, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line, and with it also the Pashtun rejection of the line, and Afghanistan’s refusal to recognise it. Afghanistan was the only country to vote against Pakistan joining the United Nations in 1947.

‘Pashtunistan’ — an independent country of the Pashtuns — was a demand made by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan at the time of Partition, although he later resigned himself to the reality of Partition. The proximity of the ‘Frontier Gandhi’ to India was a point of tension between the two countries almost immediately. The fear of Indian support to Pashtun nationalism haunts Pakistan to date, and is embedded in its Afghan policy.

Pakistan’s creation and support for the Taliban is seen by some as a move to obliterate ethnic Pashtun nationalism with an Islamic identity. But it did not work out the way Pakistan had planned. When the Taliban seized power in Kabul the first time, they rejected the Durand Line. They also strengthened Pashtun identity with an Islamic radicalism to produce the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, whose terrorist attacks since 2007 left the country shaken.

As cross-border tensions peaked in 2017 with several attacks on Pakistani border posts by militants that Pakistan accused Afghanistan of sheltering – while the Afghan government accused Pakistan of giving safe haven to Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network – Pakistan began erecting a fence on the Durand Line. While it may have reduced the movement of militants from Afghanistan into Pakistan, it did little to stop the movement of Afghan Taliban across and back.

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A “decent interval” between US withdrawal and Taliban’s return, which the US had hoped for, did not happen leading to a messy withdrawal. Yet, Biden maintained that his decision was the right one.

The Taliban captured Kabul on 15 August almost 20 years after the U.S. launched its global war on terror. The city of roughly 5 million people fell to the Islamist insurgents without even a fight while Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and the Americans abandoned their Embassy and rushed to Kabul airport.

The Afghan Army soldiers did not fight. Police abandoned their stations. Former Northern Alliance warlords left the country. And the government crumbled like the proverbial house of cards.

The reversal is an embarrassing consequence of misjudging the viability of Afghan government forces — by the US military as well as intelligence agencies — which in some cases chose to surrender their vehicles and weapons rather than fight.

President Biden owned up to no mistake in his decision to end the longest war in the history of the United States. But he rued, with a patronising contemplation, that even two decades of support failed to turn the Afghan military into a force capable of securing its own country. “We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries. Provided for the maintenance of their airplanes,” Biden said.

“We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide was the will to fight for that future,” he said. “One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country”, Biden said, justifying his stand seeking to put an end to “an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict”.

It was a war against one of the most resilient fighter forces of the world to secure indemnity from future terrorist attacks and, perhaps, to teach them a hard lesson. A stock-taking in May 2018, however, revealed that not only have the Taliban, the Haqqani network and Al Qaeda made a successful comeback, but also that ISIS has gained a foothold in the country.

Disorderly Evacuation

The incompetence was staggering. Bagram was closed, thus eliminating every possibility of an orderly evacuation. Intelligence assessments were delusional. The evacuation was left to the last day. Visas were not processed or the right people identified. The airport was not prepared.

The whole strategy was an exercise in virtual politics. First, the creation of a virtual Afghan government. It is not surprising that the Taliban moved with such confidence and speed when they were the ones best placed to understand they were not fighting a real army or a real state, but rather a fiction or a ghost projected from Washington on to the screen of Afghanistan.

Even days before the fall of Kabul, the understanding among European ambassadors in the city was that Washington would honour its commitment to provide security for the embassies in the green zone with a residual military force. That commitment had been formally made and people took it seriously. But it too was dropped, and just as suddenly.

America’s Failure

The myth of American impermeability was demolished. For generations, the United States rested on the illusion that it could, when it wanted to, isolate itself from the troublesome world beyond its frontiers.

Unarguably the most powerful military and economic power in history suffered a body blow by a group of individuals attached to a non-state actor, the al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden.

The largest military industrial complex on Earth, with the most powerful intelligence system synergised with real-time information from allies across the world, had failed to recognise the potency of the threat posed by al-Qaeda, and to neutralise it in time.

America’s response was not just swift but ferocious and almost overwhelming in its design, to the point that the use of force seemed to be intended to demonstrate the almost unlimited might of American hegemonic power.

The swift attack on Afghanistan, the dispatching of the Taliban, the building of an almost unprecedented global coalition (“you are with us or you are against us”), a consensus within the UN, the neutralisation of the core of al-Qaeda and ultimately, the killing of Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, demonstrated that America was willing to be unforgiving in dealing with those responsible for 9/11.

There was no terrorist attack of consequence on the US since 9/11. But a wasted war in Iraq (in the futile search for weapons of mass destruction) — and enlarging the mission in Afghanistan, from defeating al-Qaeda to building democracy and civil society to finally handing over power to the Taliban was supremely ironical.

Billions Spent on the Afghan Army

Of the approximately $145 billion the US government spent trying to rebuild Afghanistan, about $83 billion went to developing and sustaining its army and police forces, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a congressionally created watchdog that has tracked the war since 2008. The $145 billion is in addition to $837 billion the United States spent fighting the war, which began with an invasion in October 2001.

But the Afghan security forces collapsed so quickly and completely — in some cases without a shot fired — that the ultimate beneficiary of the American investment turned out to be the Taliban. They grabbed not only political power but also US-supplied firepower — guns, ammunition, helicopters and more.

The Taliban captured an array of modern military equipment when they overran Afghan forces who failed to defend district centers. Bigger gains followed, including combat aircraft, when the Taliban rolled up provincial capitals and military bases with stunning speed, topped by capturing the biggest prize, Kabul.

The US failure to produce a sustainable Afghan army and police force, and the reasons for their collapse, will be studied for years by military analysts. The forces turned out to be hollow, equipped with superior arms but largely missing the crucial ingredient of combat motivation.

What the Afghans received in tangible resources they lacked in the more important intangibles. Morale, discipline, leadership, unit cohesion are more decisive than numbers of forces and equipment.

By contrast, Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, with smaller numbers, less sophisticated weaponry and no air power, proved a superior force. US intelligence agencies largely underestimated the scope of that superiority, and even after President Joe Biden announced in April he was withdrawing all US troops, the intelligence agencies did not foresee a Taliban final offensive that would succeed so spectacularly.

Before April, the Afghan government troops were slowly but steadily losing the war. When they learned that their American partners were going home, an impulse to give up without a fight “spread like wildfire.”

The United States tried to develop a credible Afghan defense establishment on the fly, even as it was fighting the Taliban, attempting to widen the political foundations of the government in Kabul and seeking to establish democracy in a country rife with corruption and cronyism. Year after year, US military leaders downplayed the problems and insisted success was coming. Others saw the handwriting on the wall.

Some elements of the Afghan army did fight hard, including commandos whose heroic efforts are yet to be fully documented. But as a whole the security forces created by the United States and its NATO allies amounted to a “house of cards” whose collapse was driven as much by failures of US civilian leaders as their military partners.

The Afghan force-building exercise was so completely dependent on American largesse that the Pentagon even paid the Afghan troops’ salaries. Too often that money, and untold amounts of fuel, were siphoned off by corrupt officers and government overseers.

President Ashraf Ghani lacked the political dexterity required to navigate political complexities, the political skill and temperament to cohere and glue the mosaic of Afghanistan, including varied Pashtun tribes. In the end, he could not inspire his well-equipped army which was no match to the Taliban, whose ideological inspiration comes from a potent mix of Pashtun nationalism and extremist version of Deobandi Islam.

Failure to Understand Complexities

America failed because of its deep cultural misunderstanding of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has suffered deeply from decades of civil war, religious extremism, drug mafia, neighbouring interference (Pakistani shares 2,500 miles of porous border), poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and the presence of different ethnic, linguistic, sectarian, tribal, and political groups antagonistic to each other for centuries. It was compounded by the fact that the Taliban insurgency was indigenous and from the largest ethnic group (Pashtun) while the Kabul Government was largely being ‘made up of minorities’.

Many Pashtun leaders and intellectuals regret how their lands have been transformed into a staging ground for a global conflict. Pashtun nationalism is a potent force and Pashtuns are not only the predominant ethnic group in much of Afghanistan’s south and east, but are also a major ethnic group in Pakistan’s north and west. The reason for Afghanistan being often monikered as the “land of the Pashtuns” is because Afghan identity has historically been synonymous with “Pashtun” however much the outside world labels its people regardless of ethnic origin and tends to conflate an Afghan national identity with the Pashtun identity.

Phases of the War

Four presidents share responsibility for the missteps in Afghanistan that accumulated over two decades. But only President Joe Biden will be the face of the war’s chaotic, violent conclusion.

Under the command of President George W. Bush, American forces stormed into Afghanistan soon after the terror attacks on a hunt for bin Laden while trying to disrupt al-Qaida’s ability to conduct further assaults on the West. There was immediate success: The Taliban were routed, the terror group disrupted.

But after that came the grinding second phase of the war and a surge of troops from President Barack Obama in 2009. Though Obama later moved to reduce the number of troops, the volume of insurgent attacks and civilian causalities prevented a full drawdown.

Trump mulled meeting the Taliban at Camp David on an earlier Sept. 11 anniversary, only to back away from the idea amid an uproar. But he announced that the U.S. would pull all its forces out by May 2021, an agreement Biden honoured and delayed only slightly.

Biden has argued for more than a decade that Afghanistan was a kind of purgatory for the United States. He found it to be corrupt, addicted to America’s largesse and an unreliable partner that should be made to fend for itself. His goal was to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, not building a country. A majority of Americans favoured bringing troops home.

Casualties and Costs

Over 20 years, the Afghanistan War cost over $2.26 trillion or $ 300 mn per day. 2,500 US soldiers, 4,000 civilians (serving US forces) and 1,145 NATO and coalition troops died. Moere than 20,000 were injured. The medical cost in the long run was $ 300-500 billion.

Since 2001, an estimated 160,000 people had been killed in the war in Afghanistan, of which some 65,000 were Afghan security forces, 44,000 Afghan civilians, 42,500 Taliban fighters and other insurgents, 424 humanitarian aid workers, 67 journalists and media workers are a part.

Comments

An Islamist group with a medieval mindset and modern weapons defeated the world’s most powerful country. The U.S. can say in its defence that its mission was to fight al-Qaeda and that it met its strategic objectives. But in reality, after spending 20 years in Afghanistan to fight terrorism and rebuild the Afghan state, the U.S. ran away from the battlefield, embarrassing itself and leaving its allies helpless.

US President Joe Biden has accused the Afghan government and military of allowing the Taliban to overrun the war-torn country. This unconvincing self-justification cannot conceal the all-pervading sense of betrayal: America simply left Afghanistan in the lurch. By his own admission, the US spent more than $1 trillion in two decades, ostensibly to train and equip the 300,000-strong Afghan military force. So, why did this ‘incredibly well-equipped’ force capitulate so tamely to the Taliban?

Biden’s contention that the US had ‘planned for every contingency’ does not hold water in the light of the chaotic and messy pullout, even as he has deigned to concede that the Taliban takeover happened ‘more quickly’ than anticipated.

America’s unwillingness to take Pakistan to task for helping the Taliban run riot has been plainly visible all along.

Measured by its stated objectives and international consequences, the global war on terror has failed strikingly. Bin Laden’s elimination might have provided a trophy to display, but Islamist terrorism and religious extremism got a tremendous boost with the rise of the Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria, and after its elimination, the pronounced spread in Africa of extremist movements affiliated with the al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Islamist terrorism has viciously struck Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and has targeted Southeast Asia. Europe has suffered dramatic terrorist attacks and an influx of refugees, with political and social consequences marked by the rise of anti-Islamic sentiment and right-wing nationalist forces.

The gap between the objectives of America’s war on terror and actual achievement is clear in our region. The terrorists have neither been defeated nor their organisations destroyed, either in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Despite Pakistan’s state sponsorship of terrorism, not only against India but also against US forces in Afghanistan, the US has looked to Pakistan to facilitate its withdrawal from Afghanistan through its Taliban links, allowing it in the process to obtain its longed for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan against India. The US has failed to “abolish terrorist sanctuaries and havens” in Pakistan, or to compel an unwilling Pakistan to act against the Haqqani group, which now controls Afghanistan’s interior ministry. Ironically, whereas the US acted to destroy the Islamic State in West Asia, it has handed over a state to the Taliban, with the new Afghanistan government liberally composed of UN-designated terrorists. Ironically, Islamist extremists and terrorists have taken over a country without any democratic process with the consent of an America committed to democratic values.

The US war on terror has been selective, marred by double standards, equivocations and geopolitical motives. The stated goal was not to make only America safe, but eliminate the terrorist threat globally as part of America’s leadership role. The way it has withdrawn from Afghanistan has created doubts on whether it will honour its commitments elsewhere, leading countries to hedge. Europe sees the withdrawal as a foreign policy disaster for the western alliance. India is less safe with the Taliban-Pakistan takeover of Afghanistan under the accommodating umbrella of the US.

The US must reflect on its inability to successfully see through wars, despite its enormous military capability. This has implications for its west European and East Asian allies, as well as the Arabs, who depend on the US military to protect themselves.

The Kabul fiasco will undoubtedly affect the US ability to mobilise coalitions against a common cause. With a hostile Iran and Afghanistan, the newly proposed US quadrilateral in Central Asia is a non-starter.

The Americans are unlikely to forgo the ability to intervene in such a key region at some future date. But for that you need an America that can learn the right lessons, overcome domestic divisions and avoid the perils of group-think that afflict large parts of Washington.

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1980s and Early 90s: The Genesis

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was facing resistance from the country’s hardline Islamists. Pakistan, then a firm US ally, was apprehensive of the Soviets stretching their influence further south, or even invading Balochistan.

Pakistan, US and Saudi Arabia, with covert financial and arms support to the hardliner militias, ensured a Soviet withdrawal in 1992.

A power sharing deal between various Afghan parties and warlords was ineffective, and four years of Afghan civil war followed.

In the melee and power vacuum, a group of fighters, predominantly Pashto tribesmen in the south coalesced into the Taliban. It also drew Pashto students from seminaries across the border in Pakistan. Under the leadership of its founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban spread rapidly throughout Afghanistan.

It promised to liberate Afghanistan from corrupt leadership of warlords, and establish a pure Islamic society.

1999: An ‘Unholy Nexus’

The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1267 linking the Taliban and al-Qaida as terrorist entities and imposing sanctions on their funding.

The move followed a period of ascendancy for al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

The Taliban, which rose from the ashes of Afghanistan’s post-Soviet civil war, provided sanctuary to the Osama-led group for its operations.

2001: War on Terror

The Al-Qaida launched the deadliest terror attacks on US soil by crashing passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Close to three thousand people died in the attacks.

Following the terror strikes, US President George W Bush declared a “war against terrorism” and zeroed in on al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Days after the attack, Bush signed into law a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against those responsible for attacking the United States on 9/11. This resolution was later cited by the Bush administration as legal rationale for its decision to take sweeping measures to combat terrorism, including its invasion of Afghanistan.

A US-led offensive over the next couple of months forced Taliban to cede its key strongholds. However, bin Laden escaped to Pakistan during this period.

After the fall of Kabul in November, Hamid Karzai was installed as interim administration head of Afghanistan. Days later, the Taliban regime surrendered Kandahar with its leader Mullah Omar fleeing the city.

2002-2004: A Move Towards Peace

The US-led forces launched attacks against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan, including Operation Anaconda.

In April 2002, Bush called for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and announced “Marshall Plan” for the country. Although, the US never came close to Marshall Plan-like reconstruction spending for Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, the US military created a civil affairs framework to coordinate redevelopment with UN and non-governmental organizations and to expand the authority of the Kabul government.

Separately, Pentagon also began shifting military and intelligence resources away from Afghanistan in the direction of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Later that year, Karzai was picked to head the country’s transitional government.

In 2003, the Bush administration announced an end to “major combat” in the country. At this time, there were only 8,000 US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

Karzai became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan in 2014 after voters turned out to cast ballots in large numbers. He won with 55% of the vote. While his election victory was marred by accusations of fraud by his opponents, the democratic process augured well for a nation which had not gone to the polls since 1969.

2006: Bloody Resurgence

Violence increased across the country during the summer months, with intense fighting erupting in the south in July.

The number of suicide attacks quintupled from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006, while remotely detonated bombings more than doubled to 1,677. Despite a string of recent election successes, some experts blamed a faltering central government for the spike in attacks.

In 2007, notorious Taliban military commander, Mullah Dadullah, was killed in a joint operation by Afghan, US and Nato forces in the south of Afghanistan.

By 2008, investigations found that errant fire from a US gunship killed dozens of Afghan civilians in Herat, drawing condemnation from President Hamid Karzai and bolstering Taliban claims that coalition forces are unable to protect the population.

2009: Obama’s New Strategy

Months after assuming the Oval Office, President Barack Obama announced a new strategy for the US war effort, linking success in Afghanistan to a stable Pakistan. The core goal of the strategy: disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida and its safe havens in Pakistan and prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan.

He also sanctioned the deployment of additional US forces to the country. President Karzai welcomed the strategy.

In July, nearly four thousand US Marines launched a major offensive in southern Afghanistan in response to a growing Taliban insurgency. The operation focused on restoring government services, bolstering local police forces, and protecting civilians from Taliban incursion. By August 2009, there were about 60,000-68,000 US forces in Afghanistan.

A couple of months later, President Hamid Karzai won another term. However, as concerns over Karzai’s administration grew, the US and other international partners called for improved governance.

In December, President Obama announced a major escalation of the US mission and committed an additional thirty thousand forces to the fight. For the first time in the eight-year war effort, a time frame was put on the US military presence with Obama eyeing troop drawdown by July 2011.

2011: Osama bin Laden Eliminated

Almost 10 years after the deadly 9/11 attacks, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in Pakistan in May, 2011.

The death of America’s primary target for a war that started ten years ago fueled the long-simmering debate about continuing the Afghanistan war. As President Obama prepared to announce the withdrawal of some or all of the thirty thousand surge troops in July, Congressional lawmakers increasingly called for a hastened drawdown.

2014: US Announces Troop Withdrawal

President Barack Obama announced a timetable for withdrawing most US forces by the end of 2016. He said the drawdown will free resources for counterterrorism priorities elsewhere.

In September, newly-elected president Ashraf Ghani signed a power-sharing agreement with his chief opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, who had mobilized thousands of protestors as he challenged the voting results. The agreement was brokered after intensive diplomacy by US.

Despite the truce, the power struggle between Ghani and Abdullah gave the Taliban strategic heft as it started making gains in the countryside.

In 2015, the Afghanistan government publicly announced that Mullah Omar had died in 2013. Taliban said he died of tuberculosis and his last days were spent in a hideout in Afghanistan.

2017-2018: Trump Hints at Prolonged War

In a policy shift, President Donald Trump said that decisions about US withdrawal will be based on “conditions on the ground” rather than arbitrary timelines.

He also invited India to play a greater role in rebuilding Afghanistan while castigating Pakistan for harboring insurgents.

In the following year, Taliban launched major attacks in Kabul that kill more than 115 people amid a broader upsurge in violence.

The attacks came after the Trump administration stepped up offensive against Taliban with air strikes and troop deployment across rural areas. Simultaneously, the Trump administration cut off security assistance worth billions of dollars to Pakistan for what President Trump called its “lies and deceit” in harboring Taliban terrorists.

2019: Peace Talks Progress

By the end of 2018, the Taliban and US peace talks made major progress with special US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and top Taliban official Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar leading the negotiations.

In 2019, the Taliban sought withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for a pledge to block international terrorist groups from operating on Afghan soil.

In September, Trump abruptly broke off peace talks a week after Khalilzad announced that an agreement had been reached “in principle” with Taliban leaders. In a tweet, Trump said he canceled a secret meeting with the Taliban and Afghan President Ghani at Camp David after a US soldier was killed in a Taliban attack. Taliban warned that the cancellation will cause an increase in the number of deaths.

2020: Road to Peace

In 2020, US envoy Khalilzad and the Taliban’s Baradar finally signed an agreement to pave the way for a significant drawdown of US troops. It included guarantees from the Taliban that the country will not be used for terrorist activities.

The US-Taliban deal did not call for an immediate ceasefire, and in the days after its signing, Taliban fighters carried out dozens of attacks against Afghan security forces. The US responded with an air strike against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand.

In September, the Taliban representatives and Afghan government officials met face-to-face for the first time in Doha, Qatar, after nearly twenty years of war. Both sides expressed eagerness to bring peace to Afghanistan and establish a framework for Afghan society after US troop withdrawal.

While the Afghan government pushed for a ceasefire, the Taliban reiterated its call for the country to be governed through an Islamic system.

2021: US Troop Withdrawal and Taliban Takeover

President Biden announced that US will not meet the deadline set under the US-Taliban agreement to withdraw all troops by May 1 and instead released a plan for a full withdrawal by September 11, 2021. “It’s time to end America’s longest war,” he said.

Biden said that Washington will continue to assist Afghan security forces and support the peace process. The Taliban said it will not participate in “any conference” on Afghanistan’s future until all foreign troops leave.

Taliban started capturing territories after Biden’s announcement, beginning with the take over of Nerkh district just outside Kabul.

By August, nearly the entire country, except Kabul, came under Taliban control as its fighters took city after city.

On August 15, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani left the country for Tajikistan amid an imminent Taliban takeover.

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While no one knows if Taliban have changed, it will find that Afghanistan has changed in the last 20 years. It is a young nation with a median age of 18-and-a-half years. More than two-thirds of the population is below 30, and this cohort has grown up in a conservative but open society; 60% of the population enjoys internet access. They, along with women and minorities, will resist a return to the Islamic Emirate of the 1990s.

Their first attempt at projecting themselves as urbane has not given them the desired results. The world saw through their statement that women would be allowed to work but within the framework of Islamic law. Still, they continue to balance their belief in strict, even regressive, religious laws and their desire for global legitimacy. The problem with the Taliban is that despite the acquired sophistication of the visible leadership, the ground-level fighters are the ones who will decide how the country will be run. Would the Taliban’s international leadership be willing to offer more concessions to the international community — like distancing from terror groups based in Afghanistan, amnesty to Afghans who supported the US, protection to working women, freedom of movement for foreign embassy officials — than the grassroots Taliban fighters are willing to tolerate?

Would the Taliban be willing to hold regular elections in the country as evidence of its belief in democracy? Will they allow ordinary Afghans to continue to shed conservatism and practice social freedoms they have come to enjoy in the last two decades? The Taliban is yet to give proof of the kind of governance it prefers — one that is, like in the past, known for its notorious cruelty or an authoritarian religious regime with a moderate face.

The Taliban are yet to present themselves as a cohesive group that can be given a second chance to retain power they have acquired so easily and by force.

Promises Broken

The dispensation in Kabul includes 30 Pashtuns, two Tajiks and one Uzbek, of whom 17 are UNSC proscribed terrorists. Its powerful interior minister is the pro-Pakistan Sirajuddin Haqqani, who carries a $10 million bounty on his head.

Moderates, involved in negotiations in Doha and those who were pro-Iran, were sidelined. Women were excluded. The Afghan government has made no effort to convince the global community of its intention to adhere to promises made in Doha.

Treatment of Women

Despite an attempt to show a liberal face, the Taliban have been enforcing a strict religious code on the public and violence against anyone who resists. The last time the Taliban were in power, women were not allowed to work. They had to cover their faces and be accompanied by a male relative outside their homes. Girls were not allowed to go to school. The Taliban had also banned TV, music, painting and photography, handed out brutal forms of punishment to those violating their Islamic code, and persecuted minorities.

There were reports of women being told to stay at home in Kabul, Helmand and Herat and not go to work or to school/college, contrary to the original announcement of Zabiullah Mujahid (spokesperson) on 16 August, while he overturned that statement on 24 August, saying women were asked to temporarily stay away.

The Haqqanis, Wardakis and Logari factions are vocal in asking women to work and study as they were doing pre-August 15. The Pashtun factions seem to be at cross-purpose on the subject at a time when jubilation over winning the war should have set aside differences.

The key differences that appear to be emerging are on policy with regard to women, education, narcotics, source of riches and China, despite its vicious violations of the rights of Uyghur Muslims, an anathema to an Islamic Emirate.

The Taliban initially issued statements that women would be part of the new cabinet. Within two days all female TV anchors were sacked and the women who tried to protest were publicly thrashed with belts.

Taliban spokesman Zakirullah Hashmi had to eat crow when he said, “A woman can’t be a minister… It is not necessary for women to be in the cabinet. They should give birth.”

Afghanistan’s history is littered with tales of resistance. Five women stood fearlessly with placards of protest. Their numbers were limited, but they were a symbol of resistance. Newspapers and television channels showed a Talib aiming his gun at a woman who had fearlessly flung aside her burqa’s mesh from her face. Now, Afghan women enjoy tremendous support among social media users.

While those associated with the past regime have been targeted, the Taliban have neither spared children nor women through their heavily armed moral police. Beauty parlours have been shut and billboards and ads with women’s faces have been blackened in the capital city.

When the Taliban took over Kabul in 1996, it had imposed an extreme version of Sharia law. While the harsh punishments appealed to some men seeking law and order, it was devastating for women: Schools for girls were closed and women were rarely permitted to leave the house. The group also banned nearly all forms of entertainment, from music and television to sports and kite-flying.

The American invasion brought a new constitution that treated men and women equally. Although women still faced discrimination, life was far better than under Taliban rule, with girls and boys able to attend school together. Many Afghans also got a taste of modern life, with access to the internet, Western films and a popular national cricket team.

While the group is “a very different kind of Taliban” from earlier decades, it remains to be seen if Afghanistan’s new rulers will allow women in government, cooperate with former enemies and respect basic freedoms.

The US and its allies said recognition of any Taliban-led government would depend on the Taliban’s willingness to create an inclusive discussion that includes women and minority groups.

Anti-Taliban Protests

Since seizing Kabul on 15 August, the Taliban presented a more moderate face to the world, saying they wanted peace, would not take revenge against old enemies and would respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.

But flag-waving protesters took to the streets of Kabul and more Afghan cities on August 19 as popular opposition to the Taliban spread. Protests flared up in Jalalabad and a district of Paktia Province and eastern cities and several killed by the Taliban.

US Conditions

The Taliban are consolidating their hold on Kabul by identifying and eliminating those involved with the security set-up of the previous regime while trying to work out a face-saver transitional government in lieu of recognition from the west.

The United States, the European Union and others have cast doubt on such assurances, saying formal recognition of the new government – and the economic aid that would flow from that – is contingent on action.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that Germany was ready to resume a diplomatic presence in Kabul if the Taliban met certain conditions.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that Paris had yet to see positive signals the group had changed.

The Biden administration had committed to at least $300 million in reconstruction assistance after the US withdrawal to “demonstrate our enduring support for the Afghan people.” And the Afghan people certainly need it. According to a 2019 World Bank study, 75% of the Afghan government budget is funded by international donors, with the US the largest by far.

The good news is that the Biden administration has begun to set out conditions for recognising the Taliban. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US would recognize and work with a Taliban emirate in Afghanistan if it respected the rights of its citizens and did not harbour terrorists. The US Treasury Department has frozen all Afghan government assets in US banks.

But one never knows with the Biden administration. After all, it is still trying to negotiate the lifting of sanctions and return of frozen assets with another Islamic regime, in Iran, that shows as much respect for human rights — and as much hospitality to international terrorists — as the Taliban.

Pakistan Factor

All these inherent contradictions are confused with Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan, which promise to make the formation of a government very difficult, leave alone its continuance. Pakistan is clearly focused on an inclusive government, concerned that the Pashtun versus others sentiment must not emerge, else its original concern, that of an independent Pakhtunistan, will cause it serious bother.

The Taliban today is also not a unified entity. Mullah Baradar is a co-founder of the Taliban and Mullah Omar was his brother-in-law. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took him into custody in 2010 to punish him for being in direct contact with President Hamid Karzai. Eight years in ISI custody is unlikely to have left him with happy memories. The Doha negotiators constitute the public face but the fighting has been done by local commanders on the ground. The Quetta shura is headed by a cleric, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada and two deputies, Mullah Yaqub, son of Mullah Omar who has been overseeing military operations in the south, and Sirajuddin Haqqani who heads the Haqqani network, operating in the east.

One of the most interesting parts of the history of modern Afghanistan is that it was the only country which formally objected to the creation of Pakistan when the British left India. It was their contention that the Durand Line, which divided Pashtun tribal areas and incorporated the eastern regions into Pakistan, was merely an artificial line arbitrarily drawn by the British. Pashtuns were the people who lived in the eastern slopes and foothills of the Hindu Kush mountain ranges up to the plains of the Indus. After independence, the Pashtuns dreamt of an independent Pakhtunistan. In the early years of the 21st century, the military of Pakistan sought to crush this dream by killing almost half a million Pashtuns and displacing over three million, all in the name of the myth that religion breeds brotherhood and unity.

Taliban was united only once in its history that is during the leadership of Mullah Omar. Subsequently, it was the ISI of Pakistan that maintained unity among the factions like the Haqqanis, Durranis and others.

There is an intricate relationship between Taliban and Pakistani state with the former having their bases and families in various parts of Pakistan. However, it is a fact that the Taliban don’t recognise the Durand Line, which is one of the existential issues for Pakistan’s Punjabi elite, both in the military as well as political spectrum.

The old headache of relationship between the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), Pakistani Taliban and Afghan Taliban is already bothering the Pakistani governing elite. This is reflected in the recent release of TTP terrorists such as Maulana Faqir Mohammad, who is from Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He is the former deputy chief of the TTP with reported ties to the al-Qaeda leadership.

Deobandi Extremism Funds Taliban

To understand their governance model, one must look at the Deoband school of Islam which started during 1866, as part of the revivalist movement that was sweeping British India. The Deobandi movement became the most popular school of Islamic thought among Pashtuns living on both sides of the Durand Line. Many prominent Pashtun community leaders established Deobandi seminaries in these areas. In other parts of British India, however, they faced competition from other Islamic schools, primarily Barelvi Islam, the most popular Islamic school in what is now Pakistan’s Punjab province. It was not surprising that during the Afghan jihad in the 1980s, Deobandi seminaries on both sides of the Durand Line, as many scholars have pointed out, were the prime target of Saudi funding and influence. Along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia was one of the few countries that recognised the Taliban after they assumed power in 1996.

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