Thread by @NavroopSingh_

#DohaTalks

One of the key conditions of the U.S.-Taliban agreement, signed in February 2020, is that the Taliban must cut off links to global jihad.

Until the autumn of 2020, the Taliban sought to address this commitment by reaching out to al Qaeda and the global jihadist groups aligned with it and asking them to sign asylum agreements.

The Taliban in essence offered these groups the opportunity to remain in Afghanistan in exchange for fully registering their members with the Taliban, including members’ exact whereabouts, and renouncing the use of Afghanistan as a base for attacks against other countries.

These agreements were meant to tighten pre-existing agreements, according to which foreign jihadists would be allowed into Afghanistan on condition of “postponing” their own jihads elsewhere.

According to Taliban sources contacted in October and November 2020, during the summer of 2020 just three jihadist groups signed the new, tighter agreements: the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

All the other groups (including al Qaeda, Imam Bukhari Jamaat, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan) either refused outright to sign or kept negotiating inconclusively.

Taliban sources within their political commission indicated in February 2021 that during the previous autumn the Taliban decided to freeze negotiations of these agreements, as their deal with the United States appeared increasingly in trouble.

The situation worsened when President Joe Biden decided on April 13 to delay the departure of U.S. troops to September 11, 2021, as opposed to May 1, 2021, as specified in the United States’ agreement with the Taliban.

After a couple of weeks of tough internal discussions, the Taliban went back to the team of U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, offering to accept a delayed withdrawal if it was completed by July.

The Taliban were in all likelihood well aware that the United States was already trying to complete the withdrawal by July 4 rather than September 11.

Eventually in May the Taliban agreed with the United States that a withdrawal completed by the end of July or early August would be acceptable to them and would not undo the U.S.-Taliban agreement.

The attitude of the Taliban appears to reflect genuine concern to salvage the agreement.

With such an accord substantially reached (even if President Biden later fixed the completion date at the end of August), by early July the Taliban were resuming their negotiations with al Qaeda and its allies.

The Taliban have been at war with the Islamic State–Khorasan for years, so they would have no hesitation in resuming their campaign against it and its allies.

Aside from the fate of the agreement with the United States, the Taliban’s leadership has other good reasons for finding a way to manage global jihadists based in Afghanistan.

Sources in the Taliban’s political commission, contacted repeatedly over 2020 and early 2021, indicated that many neighboring and regional countries (e.g., Russia, China, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) had clearly warned the Taliban that they wud not establish positive relationships

with a Taliban-dominated government in Afghanistan if the Taliban were in any way allowing the export of jihad and terrorism. As the regional powers have repeatedly reminded the Taliban of this red line, the leadership is fully aware of the consequences if it fails to deliver.

The issue is therefore not so much one of whether the current leadership of the Taliban wants to cut ties with jihadists. There are two problems with the Taliban’s approach to global jihad. One concerns how the break with jihadist groups is implemented.

The Taliban’s interest is to extract as many concessions as possible from the United States in exchange for shutting off any global jihadist base in Afghanistan.

Any U.S. or regional hesitation in delivering to the Taliban the international legitimacy that they seek could lead to delays in the Taliban implementing the deglobalization of their jihad or to threats of stopping it altogether.

The other is whether the Taliban can effectively cut ties with jihadist groups that refuse to sign the agreement. Given that the Taliban might never be able to bring all of Afghanistan under its strict control, there could be areas where even global jihadists,

linked to al Qaeda or otherwise, could be based, without having to be subject to the Taliban’s rule. From an external viewpoint, any failure to police the agreements with the global jihadists would be seen as suspicious.

There are certainly many Taliban commanders even leaders who disagree with the policy of cutting off ties to global jihad, acknowledged by Taliban sources both in the political and military commissions in the leadership council, contacted on various occasions throughout 2019-21

On April 30, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was bound to “concentrate” the minds of the “free riders,” seemingly referring to regional actors active in and around Afghanistan.

Some of these actors might want to keep the wider picture in mind and take U.S. interests into consideration, in the hope of either trade-offs elsewhere (in the case of Russia) or of improved relations with Washington (in the case of Pakistan).

Others, such as Iran and perhaps China, are more likely to be tempted to ignore U.S. interests or even actively work to undermine them.

None wants chaos in Afghanistan or state collapse. Beyond that, however, their interests start diverging. Pakistan would like to have a friendly government in Afghanistan but also wants to keep the United States happy in the hope of improving relations with Washington.

Even within the Pakistani establishment, there are different views on which of these two primary aims should be prioritized. Prioritizing Islamabad- Washington relations would likely lead to lower levels of Pakistani influence and control in Kabul in the future, and vice versa.

For now, Pakistan has tried to prevent the Taliban from sliding toward a military solution as a reaction to the obstacles met on the diplomatic path. Sources in the Taliban’s political and military commissions, contacted in February and May 2021,

confirmed that the Pakistani authorities have put pressure on the Taliban leadership to salvage the agreement with the United States, despite the delayed plan for U.S. withdrawal.

Although Pakistan’s leverage over the Taliban has been decreasing for some time, the Taliban’s leaders as of late seem to be trying to act relatively constructively with regard to salvaging the agreement, as discussed above.

According to the Taliban sources mentioned in the previous passage, Pakistan has been helping prevent a Taliban slide toward militancy by cutting the level of funding and supplies, though allegedly only temporarily.

These actions ensure that sustaining an all-out military offensive for several months will be hard for the Taliban.

But Pakistan does not seem ready to abandon some aims in Kabul—first and foremost seeing the establishment of an interim government in place of the Ghani administration.

According to members of the Taliban’s political commission, contacted repeatedly in 2020–21 (after the signing of the U.S.-Taliban agreement), Iran is wary of the United States leaving Afghanistan on good terms with the Taliban has been doing what it can to preempt that outcome.

According to these same Taliban sources, Russia is less interested than Iran in sabotaging the agreement and has instead appeared supportive of it. Russia appears to insist on the Taliban accepting collaboration with other Afghan parties and factions, suggesting that the country

would also like to see the Taliban “trapped” in a web of political agreements with other Afghan political actors. Such a scenario would facilitate conditions for controlling and restraining the Taliban, including in matters related to the export of jihad.

The Taliban’s perception of their own power appears to have been magnified by the approach of the team of U.S. special envoy Khalilzad in the U.S.-Taliban talks, as well as by the apparent weakness of the Afghan security forces.

There are also different views about how power sharing should be managed. In particular, disillusioned by the management of Afghan elections so far, important actors such as the Jamiat Islami and the Hizb Wahdat constellations (each having fragmented into multiple factions)

are now looking at some type of federal solution as an integral part of a peace settlement. Yet the Taliban and Pashtun parties and politicians in general flatly reject that option.

Off the record, however, Taliban diplomatic and political cadres acknowledge that they do aim for an interim government, a concept first raised by Pakistani officials in late 2018.

Ideally, the Taliban want an interim government presided over by a neutral personality. Their main concern is to avoid negotiating with President Ashraf Ghani, whom they do not trust.

The Taliban probably also believe that with Ghani out of the way, the coalition of nationalists and modernizers gathered around him would disintegrate for lack of a unifying figure.

The Taliban are reasonably confident that with an interim government in place, they would be negotiating with an Islamic republic delegation dominated by the former mujahideen of the 1980s, primarily Jamiat Islami, Hizb Wahdat, and Hizb Islami, plus some smaller groups.

These main mujahideen groups are all deeply divided into mutually hostile factions (around half a dozen large and small factions of Jamiat Islami, at least four large and small factions of Hizb Wahdat, and at least three factions of Hizb Islami.

While the majority of these groups have their roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Taliban have theirs in clerical Deobandism, they could in principle share the aim of “Islamizing” the Afghan government.

The Taliban have been reaching out to Jamiat Islami and Hizb Wahdat leaders, facilitated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but talks have not yielded positive results so far, according to Taliban sources in the leadership council and the political commission, Feb & May 2021.

It did not help the Taliban’s cause that in their exchanges with Afghan politicians in Doha some of the Taliban delegates came across as arrogant and dismissive of the old mujahideen, according to some of the delegates themselves, who spoke to Afghan journalists.

Within the Taliban’s ranks, the idea remains popular of forming a kind of “united front from below” with the old mujahideen—that is, of co-opting their members and local leaders, while leaving out the majority of the top figures.

The rhetoric about a “new resistance” propagated by some of the old mujahideen and their offspring seems directed as much against Ghani as the Taliban in the light of the incidents of Behsud and Faryab, where local militias clashed with the authorities.

In a speech in Kabul on May 5, 2021, Ahmad Massoud, son of commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, spoke at length against Ghani while announcing his intention to mobilize a militia.

Politicians such as Karzai promoted themselves as brokers who could unify the Islamic republic camp, but their odds of success remain unclear.

In conclusion, the final outcome of the Afghan conflict remains wide open, even if the possibility of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan surviving in its current form appears already more and more remote.

By mid-July a substantial number of the stakeholders of the Islamic republic seemed to have reached an understanding with the Taliban on handing over to them much of the country.

The Taliban appear highly likely to emerge as the dominant player in any future government, even if the collapse of any tentative alliance of their different factions remains a definite possibility.

This are summary of Doha talks as of now. Situation is very fluid and it is changing by the hour & days so too early to conclude who is winner or looser in the gamble. Information based on writing of: Antonio Giustozzi, who is an long time expert on Afghan affairs & Taliban.

Highlights:

> Taliban willing to Talk & Negotiate
> Intra Afghan rivalry lead to chaos and collapse of ANA.
> Russia is not willing to rock US boat, China & Iran are upto sabotaging it as they want US to quagmired in Afghanistan.
>Pakistani control has reduced over Taliban.

#PostScript
There are various factions inside Taliban & Shuras like Quetta Shura, Rasool Shura. Pakistan wants Sirajuddin Haqqani of Haqqani network to be part of the Government while for top job there is contest between Mullah Akhunzada its chief & Mullah Baradar(Leadership ⬇️)

So there is internal wrangling going on between Taliban who will lead the Government & what will be the natures which parties will be included which is Anas Haqqani another Terrorist met Dr Abdullah & Hamid Karzai on wider consultations on Government formation in Kabul.

Yes this is all totally scripted. America expected ANA will fold. ANA initially gave resistance but Ghani orders who knew he was sidelined at Doha in talks in future stakes asked ANA to stand down making it a walkover for Taliban. Thus erupted this crisis as we see today.

Only flaw that Americans & British rather neither side expected that ANA will fold like pack of cards. They expected some resistance & thus giving time to prepare for evacuations but then there were tactical errors like not using Bagram Airbase for it instead.

Taliban is co-operating to great extent with Americans in evacuations rather on instructions of American & British Forces; Taliban is doing crowd management outside the Kabul Airport. Its been accepted Americans even.

@threadreaderapp unroll

Taliban is a composition of various factions so but natural some will show their true character. Still US & UK are willing to give it more time, form government & display governance skills. Complex job given Faction ridden Afghan Polity.

Most of the current crop of Afghan Leadership is born out of Afghan Jihad except for imported ones like ‘Kachi’ Ghani. Few are former terrorists, few were rebels & few are terrorists. Difficult to decipher between them ! 🤷🏻‍♂️