Taliban takeover may embolden terror groups

Chinese officials have described the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s telephone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on August 16 as a desperate effort to “ask for China’s help” in cleaning up the mess after the humiliating ‘Saigon moment’ of the US in Afghanistan. They warned that the US is in “terminal decline” and in no position to help its allies, including Taiwan. Most extremists and terrorists in the world are still targeting the West, particularly the US as their top enemy, not China and Russia.

The Chinese were quick to set the terms for their assistance to the US. Wang Yi said that when the US was maliciously carrying out “strategic coercion and containment” against China, there was no need for her to render any help; the US should abandon these policies and first designate the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an Uighur group seeking independence from China, as a terrorist group.

China views the Taliban victory primarily in security terms — it wants the Taliban to make a clean break with all terror groups, particularly those directed against China, such as the ETIM, and ensure that they do not harm the Chinese interests and projects in Afghanistan, Central Asian countries and Pakistan. If the Taliban is able to establish an inclusive government, peace and stability, the Chinese companies would invest in oil, minerals and other projects.

China took the lead in inviting a Taliban delegation led by its senior leader, Mullah Baradar to Beijing a few days before the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul. Baradar promised that the Taliban would not allow the ETIM militants to enter the country and the Chinese investors could return to Afghanistan. But unsure of the Taliban’s actual conduct and its failure to follow on past promises, Wang Yi ordered repatriation of most Chinese nationals from Afghanistan.

China has teamed up with Russia to tell the Taliban that they could help in building peace with various domestic parties, getting international recognition and rebuilding Afghanistan’s economy.

China has also pushed Pakistan to augment trilateral cooperation between them and Afghanistan to contain security risks arising from the expansion of regional and international terrorism in Afghanistan. On the ground, the Chinese army has reinforced its defences along the narrow Wakhan corridor, which comprises a 70-km border between China’s sensitive Xinjiang province and Afghanistan.

Certain Afghanistan watchers believe that there are at least 22 known terrorist networks and groups, which operate in Afghanistan. Taliban has deep rooted and complex ties with these groups having fought together historically against foreign forces and sharing the same objective of establishing an Islamic state; most members are recruited from the same areas that border Afghanistan and Pakistan and have ties of kinship.

Despite its past promise to the Americans under the Doha peace deal, the Taliban has not cut off ties with the al-Qaeda, which continues to operate in many provinces of Afghanistan. Pakistan has been unable to persuade the Afghan Taliban to pressurise the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to discontinue its armed attacks against the Pakistan army and Chinese interests. In the past, the Afghan Taliban has been able to play off Pakistan and other countries by making promises, which were never kept in practice.

TTP’s strength has, in fact, increased after five splinter groups and disaffected Pashtun and Baluch ethnic groups were brought together by its new chief, Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud in July-August, 2020. Mufti has also been successful in receiving the support of groups associated with the al-Qaeda and Punjabi Taliban. The TTP chief has declared his intent to set up an independent Islamic state in certain areas bordering Pakistan.

Similarly, a large number of ETIM supporters have reportedly shifted from Syria and Turkey into Badakshan and other provinces of Afghanistan and have been quietly carrying out their activities. Many analysts believe that the Taliban’s victory will have the disastrous effect of emboldening these terror groups breeding in Pakistan-Afghanistan region.

It is too early to say if the Taliban 2.0 will be different from the Taliban 1.0. Some Taliban leaders have made statements that they would not indulge in prosecuting those who supported the Afghan government and women would be free to work as per the Islamic laws. But there are also reports of the Taliban cadres not allowing girls to go to school, suppressing popular protests with firearms, searching those who worked with the US and NATO forces and blowing up the statues of their adversaries.

Some Taliban watchers believe that any change in the Taliban’s behaviour would result only from the pressure of the international community rather than any change in its ideology. While other conservative Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia are liberalising their polity, the Taliban wants to take Afghanistan backward to its conception of a theocratic state.

There is a broad consensus among the international community that a representative and inclusive government should be set up in Afghanistan. The US, its allies and partners such as India also want that the human rights of the Afghan people and progress of the past 20 years must be preserved. The Taliban has so far not agreed to implement these provisions. The IMF, under US pressure, has blocked the availability of funds to Afghanistan to put pressure on the Taliban.

The Taliban’s victory is a win for Pakistan’s covert support, duplicitous policies, mistakes made by the US in handling of the Afghanistan operation, including its failure to impose timely sanctions on Pakistan. But it is clear that the US and its allies who have been funding the Afghanistan operation will continue to exercise considerable influence there.

The Taliban takeover will result in a prolonged period of tension, internal strife and instability threatening the peace and security of the entire region and beyond. Its impact will be deeply felt by China, Pakistan and other countries also as various terror groups would pursue their own agenda without any effective opposition from the Taliban government.