Ahmad Massoud: Ignoring the Taliban threat jeopardises global security

The ultimate goal is to bring all sides together, the Taliban, the opposition, and those that are in a 'wait and see' situation. Finally, Afghans can sit together to ask themselves tough questions such as: "Where are we? What happened in the past five/six decades in our country?"

"Why do we keep fighting and fighting and why are we sometimes fighting about something that can be solved through dialogue? And sometimes we are fighting the wars of others: regional wars, superpower wars. Why is Afghanistan in this situation?"

I hope Afghanistan can turn its fortunes around like Rwanda. It's incredible how they transformed their country. Afghanistan has the potential to do this but first, we need to sit and talk to each other.

So, the first step for all those who oppose the current situation is dialogue. This includes those who believe in the military, those who believe in non-military resistance, those who believe that Afghanistan should have an Islamic government, and those who believe Afghanistan should have a secular government.

Second, to bring the Taliban to the same conference in Vienna, let's all of us talk and find a solution for the future of Afghanistan. Maybe this time, after the experience of the past five decades, fighting each other, fighting other countries' wars, and allowing other countries to intervene in our affairs and us carrying out their agendas, we can finally find a solution that works for us.

My ultimate goal is to reach a consensus that Afghanistan needs a big change.

What kind of support are you receiving? Countries seem to be increasingly accepting reality and dealing with the Taliban. Do you have enough support to unify the opposition factions so that you can compete with the Taliban?

We have two things: the reality and the demand of the Afghan people.

The reality is that the Taliban are currently in power in Kabul and foreign governments, based on their own security considerations, are dealing with the Taliban. The majority of these engagements are tactical and not strategic. 

The Taliban do not enjoy internal legitimacy. The nation of Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan did not vote for them and do not accept them. This is why the Taliban, over the past two years, could not bring any prominent figure back to Afghanistan or unify the country.

Regional engagement with the Taliban is purely because of security concerns. The Taliban are exploiting this to boost their position.

The other thing happening is that the world is preoccupied with other things: the war in Ukraine, a decline of the West amid the rising power in the East and the subsequent confrontation between the East and the West.

Afghanistan is a very sensitive spot that the whole world is trying to avoid. Washington is completely trying to ignore what is happening in Afghanistan because of its own massive mistake there.

They are basically trying to throw dirt on it and just bury it. Because of all that, the Taliban know that the world does not have a proper plan for Afghanistan.  Therefore, it is up to us, the Afghans, to stand up and prepare for the future.

At the beginning of August, you tried to launch military resistance against the Taliban then that stopped. Is this because you are receiving less international support?

Each passing day is showing more and more the true reality of the Taliban. When I went to Peshawar, my decision was not to start military resistance against the Taliban. I just wanted to be with my people and to talk to the Taliban.

I tried to talk to Mullah Abdul Ghani Barada and Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob. I spoke with Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mullah Ghani, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, Sheikh Ali in Qatar, Faiz Hameed in Pakistan, the head of ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), the representative of Iran IRCG (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) in Kabul who were in touch with Taliban.

In an attempt to avoid war, I dispatched two delegations: a group of scholars and a group of politicians. 

The Taliban said that Ashraf Ghani, before his departure, was sabotaging the peace process which is why peace was never reached. We wanted to continue those peace talks and say: OK, Taliban, you say it was Ghani, now Ghani is gone, let us talk.

Imposing your government through the barrel of a gun will not bring you legitimacy. I am not here to start a war, I am here to talk. What is the vision for the future of Afghanistan? What do you want for the future of Afghanistan? Let us establish a foundation to build upon.

The Taliban's answer to me was: We just want you to surrender. We are not going to talk about the future of Afghanistan with anyone. They believe they possess 'ghalaba' which means they believed they are divinely entitled to rule.

I studied Islam to some extent and Islamic jurisprudence. I am just a student, not a scholar, but with my very limited knowledge of Islam I know that it is completely baseless and 'hukumat ghalaba' does not exist in Islam, especially in the Hanafi sect which I belong to and the Taliban are trying to represent themselves as Hanafis.

Unfortunately, the Taliban did not listen to the scholars and politicians and they attacked us. They attacked women and children.

Read more: Banned from schools, Afghan girls face bleak future

We had no choice but to defend ourselves. Once we stood up, the whole nation stood up against them. The women stood up in the streets, people started to protest in different cities across the world.

The world saw that the people of Afghanistan do not accept the Taliban. So there was a very big movement. As we are speaking right now, the resistance is spreading. We are at the beginning of the movement, it will spread further and further.

Regarding international support, no country is supporting us financially.

Even France? Because France used to give you some support.

We have the support of God and the Afghan people. The world has too many problems at this stage to do something, but we have their moral support.

The West is fatigued in Afghanistan, they have been in Afghanistan for 20 years and they failed miserably because of their own bad policies, their mismanagement and miscalculation.

Regional countries have security concerns. The Taliban are hosting regional terrorist groups like Ansar Allah, ETIM [East Turkestan Islamic Movement], Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, TTP [Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan] and many others.

The Taliban have these cards to play and they are using them to pressure countries not to engage with the opposition or they will 'release' all these terrorists. They are using scare tactics to rule.

We know what you do not want but what do you want? What kind of vision do you have for Afghanistan, what kind of role do you envisage for the Pashtun and is it different from the Northern Alliance that took place before?

My very short answer to this is that I want one thing and one thing only: I want the people of Afghanistan to be able to decide their own future. That is all.

I do not want a tyranny, I do not want a dictatorship, I do not want the people to have a government imposed upon them, by the Taliban or myself or the West or the East. We fought against the authoritarian government which was imposed upon us by the Russians.

If the Taliban truly believe they are representing the people of Afghanistan, very well, let us hear from them, and let us have an election.

If the people of Afghanistan say we want the Islamic Emirate of Taliban, absolutely I will 100% accept it. I will be a teacher at a university in Kabul or Mazar (Sherif) or Balkh or Herat or somewhere, I will seize all my political activities and I will be a citizen in my country and accept the Islamic Emirate of the Taliban.

Read more: Nearly two years after Taliban takeover, Afghans say they are tired and scared

However, we need to respect our people and let them decide for themselves. Our people have the will, the mind and the vision to decide their future. We are not living in medieval times where you can impose something on people and think the people do not understand. This is insulting to the people of Afghanistan.

What we want is a government that represents all of Afghanistan, not just Tajik, Pashtun, and Hazara. Of course, we want social justice, unity, and good relations with all Afghans. But all these come second. First and foremost the people should decide. 

For example, in 2001 the National Front of Afghanistan led by Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, my father was assassinated two days before that by al-Qaeda. When they won, they did not impose their own government upon the people.

They accepted the Bonn Conference, invited all different groups from across the world, Afghan communities and groups from the diaspora and said now that we are in Kabul, we do not want to impose our own government.

Let us have a transitional government and then from there an election, so we pave the way for the future of Afghanistan. They all accepted it.

Your father fought the Soviets, you fought the Taliban before but why you are not fighting the Taliban now?

We are fighting the Taliban and we are resisting the Taliban and probably there are others fighting militarily against the Taliban. The prominent forces right now are fighting against the Taliban. Last year, we lost 400 people in fighting with the Taliban. We shot down one of their helicopters, we destroyed many of their vehicles.

This is an ongoing war so we must take into consideration that we just started our resistance. We are in our infancy. It has only been a year since we started our resistance against the Taliban with no help.

With the Taliban, because of the Nato presence in Afghanistan, maybe they had a lot of regional and external support because it was to the strategic benefit of the countries opposing Nato to support the Taliban.

At the time, it was a mix of the engagement of the Taliban by the left and the right, by the West and the East. They always had external support and have been enjoying the flow of money from narcotics and opium.

Meanwhile, the resistance is solely based on the generosity of the Afghan people and their aspirations.

Do you think this war might drag on for a long time?

If the Taliban continue on the same path and the world continues to face distractions, if we do not find a political solution soon, not only will it drag on but it will get bigger and bigger.

Right now the majority of the people of Afghanistan are not happy with the current situation, even within the Taliban. We heard Sirajuddin Haqqani express his feeling about the Taliban and he was not happy. Also, Abdul Salam Hanafi is not happy, and a lot of their ranks are speaking against them.

So, it is not just the opposition. Even within the Taliban there are some figures that are not happy with the way they are governing the country.

You mentioned in an interview last year that you were very concerned about Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Could you please elaborate?

As we are speaking, we have more than 21 terrorist groups in Afghanistan, safely freely happily living recruiting and training. From al-Qaeda, to Ansar Allah … to TTP to ETIM to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan to Daesh to many many others.

It is becoming a safe haven where terrorist groups can move freely and carry out activities in Iraq and Syria and in different countries, and come back to Afghanistan, working, meeting and recruiting people.

Afghanistan is also serving as a model to other terrorist groups, for example, TTP and others, who think that if they follow the Taliban model, the world will have no choice but to engage with them.

We have hard evidence of their presence, their recruitment, and their training. They have become much more ambitious and committed to pursuing this model.

When you share this information with representatives of certain governments, what do they tell you?

I need to emphasise that countries are engaging with the Taliban in an effort to contain them.

After the jihad against the Soviet Union finished in Afghanistan, many Arab fighters returned to their own countries. Their governments gradually saw them as a threat and sent them back to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Afghanistan has become a place to store 'rotten fruit'.

What about spillover to other countries?

Definitely, it will spill over and we see the evidence of it in Pakistan. Pakistan thought that Afghanistan is going to be a place to contain them and they surely see that it is not possible.

Have the Taliban already started carrying out attacks in Pakistan?

What is happening in Pakistan right now is worse than in the past 10 years. We see attacks and killings in Balochistan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and in different areas in Pakistan. The Pakistani government is also slowly losing its grip on the situation and losing its strategic partners. It was truly enjoying the unconditional support of Saudi Arabia and different countries.

Now the shift in Saudi Arabia is toward a more progressive and more neutral vision. Saudi Arabia is no longer supporting a country with such tactics. Therefore, in that sense, Pakistan is truly in deep trouble.

Your father, God rest his soul, was a threat to al-Qaeda. He was assassinated and then we witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Do you feel that maybe some countries are not listening to your warnings that Afghanistan is becoming a safe haven for terrorists and then maybe they will pay the price?

Absolutely. The thing is that this time I believe it will be much worse. It will be an organised movement because they are going to copy what is happening and the Taliban model is going to spread.

At this stage, because of the engagement, maybe of the recognition, they are staying silent. But surely they are supporting the TTP (Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan), For example, last year we were the biggest buyer of equipment and ammunition in Afghanistan to defend ourselves against the Taliban's savagery and brutality.

This year, although our budget has doubled since last year, we are not even in 10th place because now there are groups that came in the past two years who have a bigger budget than us and are buying everything on the ground and things are becoming really expensive.

For example, we were buying one Kalashnikov to defend ourselves for 80,000 Afghanis, now the cost is 200,000 because there are more buyers.

TTP is on top of the list. Daesh is close to the 2nd and then there are different groups buying the equipment worth billions of dollars which were left behind by Nato in Afghanistan.

I do not know why it was left in Afghanistan. This is a question in itself. I believe this time TTP in Pakistan have shifted their tactics to a more serious confrontation. It is going to be much worse than before.

Are you saying that we might witness something worse, something bigger than 9/11?

Absolutely, because once again those things were a spark: 9/11, the attack on the tanker, the attack on the embassy, these things were an ignition. What we are going to see is a constant threat, because they now want to impose their own ideology, their own system, their own government.

Now the TTP's demand is to take over the government, to come into power, and to have a portion of Pakistan under their own rule. It is no longer to destabilise Pakistan but to be a serious threat.

Is their aim to establish a Caliphate (Islamic State) like IS did in Syria and Iraq?

At this stage, I believe they are not going to call it that but the ultimate goal surely among all of them is that. 

What do you think of the UN-sponsored Qatar conference and calls from some countries to recognise the Taliban?

Once again this is the same issue. When we fought against the Taliban, I clearly remember that Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani was in Afghanistan during the Bonn Conference. He called upon the world and told all the representatives that the representative of the Taliban must be involved in the Bonn Conference.

Our president, our leader, the martyr Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani said: 'Now that you are starting a new era in Afghanistan, do not exclude the Taliban so that we, once and for all, end the conflict in Afghanistan.'

At that time, the Americans were very much against the idea and they said, 'either with us or against us'. They did not allow any of the Taliban representatives.

Now, once again, we are at a stage where the Americans, the West and the world are making the same mistake. At that time they did not listen to us and now again they are not listening.

What we are saying is that whatever the government in Afghanistan, it should first and foremost be recognised internally. Americans made a huge mistake by signing an agreement with the Taliban before we Afghans reached an agreement among ourselves.

We told the Americans not to sign anything. If you want to leave, just leave but do not sign any agreement. We Afghans must reach an agreement among ourselves. Once we reach an agreement, then you can all do whatever you want.

At that time they made a mistake which led to the government's collapse and all of the unfortunate events which unfolded afterwards.

Now they are making the same mistake again by hosting a conference in a place that unfortunately does not have a good reputation because of the first Doha conference.

I respect the rulers of Qatar and I respect what they were doing, however, the way the talks were previously being managed left a bitter taste in the mouths of Afghan people.

They could execute it in a much better way, a much more progressive and constructive way. However, once again, without understanding the situation in Afghanistan and the pain of the people and their demands, they are pushing a narrative which is completely against the demands of the Afghan people.

In the last few weeks, some embassies have been handed over to the Taliban. Even Iran's embassy. How do you feel about it?

It is the decision of those countries. We have no say in it.

Of course, the people of Afghanistan will not forget what is happening and, in the hardest and the darkest hours of their lives, who is standing with the people of Afghanistan and who is not.  

Let me tell you that right now many countries engage with the Taliban because they see the Taliban as a knife. They are scared that China will have this knife in its hand, that the US will use this knife, the South, the West, the East, and the North. It is a tool of destruction and war. Different countries are worried that they will fall into the hands of the 'enemy'.

That is why they want to engage with them, so they will not be using it to cut one of them. They know that the Taliban cannot be a strategic partner — a tactical partner surely but not strategic.

As many scholars said, Afghanistan is the graveyard of all empires: the British, the Soviets, and then the Americans. Who is next? Some people say China. 

I think China is taking very careful steps and they are not going to come into Afghanistan. If you look at China's tactics in Africa and southern Asian countries, it is adopting a much different approach. I do not believe that China is going to influence or invade Afghanistan the way the other powers did.

However, if any country, and I am saying with 100% clarity, invades my country, I will join hands with the Taliban to fight against them. The invasion of Afghanistan by any country is something that we do not accept. My father was a freedom fighter, a true patriot, and so am I. 

We are calling upon the world to pay attention to the situation in Afghanistan and to help its people. 

Is there anything you wish to add?

The role of the Umma (Global Muslim Community), and the role of the Islamic countries is something I want to speak about.

As an Umma and as Muslims, we are forgetting a lot of things. We are allowing Islamic countries, one after another, to fall into misery.

I call upon the Islamic countries to intervene in the situation in Afghanistan and Syria to finally bring peace. There is a clear verse in Quran which says that when two brothers are fighting against each other, it is upon the Islamic Umma to try to make peace between them. And if one side does not accept the 'verdict' of this arbitrator then all Muslims should unite against that.

I call upon the Islamic countries to intervene in Afghanistan and challenge the Taliban's mentality and ideology. A peaceful Islamic country is of benefit to all of us.