Two years of Taliban rule: The view from Afghanistan's neighbours

Two years after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is not panning out as its neighbours had hoped for.

AFP

Afghan nationals carry placards as shout slogans during a demonstration against the Taliban government in Islamabad on August 15, 2023, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Two years of Taliban rule: The view from Afghanistan's neighbours

Shelly Kittleson

last update on 17 Aug 2023

Baghdad: “Because they can more easily control a weakened Afghanistan,” one member of the government security forces at the time claimed in a July 2021 interview in trying to explain why two of the country’s neighbours seemed to be supporting parts of the Taliban.

“But it will one day come back to hit them in the face,” he opined, angrily.

As provincial capitals fell in rapid succession across Afghanistan in July and August of 2021, numerous Afghan officials told me both Pakistan and Iran expected to gain a great deal from a Taliban takeover.

A few weeks later, on 15 August 2021, the Taliban took over the capital and the man quoted as well as many of his colleagues fled the country.

While both countries have seen benefits in terms of trade, they have also seen negative repercussions. Threats to security and water disputes may lead to major problems in the near and distant future for both.

AFP — An aerial view from a medevac helicopter shows the Helmand River in the Helmand province in Afghanistan.

Iran and its chessboard of support

In recent weeks, media reported that “Taliban leaders” had shut down the offices of Iran’s Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation in some of Afghanistan’s largest cities in July.

High-ranking Iranian officials have requested an explanation.

The charitable organisation was founded in March 1979 to provide support to poor families inside and outside Iran and has branches in many countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Iraq.

Iran has long used its cultural institutions and other bodies operating in foreign countries to promote not only Iranian culture but also to foster political influence and spread its ideas on religion and so-called “resistance” struggles.

When reporting from Kabul in 2015, I spoke to one man from Afghanistan’s Shiite community who said that the Khatam Al-Nabayeen mosque and religious seminary complex in Kabul founded by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Asif Mohseni set “policies for sermons in other mosques throughout the country, which often focus on countering the Western “cultural invasion” of the country.

Mohseni — who studied in the Iraqi city of Najaf and lived for many years in Iran’s holy city Qom — is originally from Kandahar. He died in 2019 and was buried at the Khatam al-Nabayeen complex.

The Afghan grand ayatollah owned Tamadon TV, a television network similar to Iranian state-run television channels with largely religious content that continues to be run by members of the Hazara Shiite community.

“On Tuesday, February 14, about 10 armed Taliban members raided the headquarters” of Tamadon TV, “beat several staff members, and held them for 30 minutes,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

AFP — Members of the Taliban security forces arrive as Afghan women march during a demonstration they call ‘Stop Hazara genocide’ a day after a suicide bomb attack at Dasht-e-Barchi learning centre, in Kabul on October 1, 2022.

In 2010, the New York Times reported that then-president Hamid Karzai’s chief of staff Umar Daudzai had been receiving a ‘’steady stream of Iranian cash intended to buy the loyalty of Mr Daudzai and promote Iran’s interests in the presidential palace’’, and that the money had been used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and Taliban commanders.

The source from the Shiite community in Kabul told me in 2015, however, that Iran had by that year seen its power to influence the Afghan government reduced and that the Taliban had then become ‘’a good tool for Iran’’.

In 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran was believed to have stepped up its supply of weapons, ammunition and funding to the Taliban and quoted sources saying Iran had begun training and recruiting fighters for them.

The media outlet quoted Western and Afghan officials as stating that Iran had allowed the Taliban to set up an office in Mashhad in 2014. It added that Iran was allegedly operating at least four training camps for them.

AFP — Taliban members pose for a photo to celebrate the second anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces in Ahmed Shah Massoud Square in Kabul on August 15.

Iran and its discontent

Iran is often held up by its supporters as the “protector of the Shiite community” in the world but channels money to Sunni militants in regions where it serves their purposes, for example to Palestinian armed groups.

Iran is often held up by its supporters as the "protector of the Shiite community" in the world but channels money to Sunni militants in regions where it serves their purposes, for example to Palestinian armed groups.

Afghanistan is Sunni majority but with a large Shiite minority mostly from the ethnic Hazara group, often recognisable from their appearance and comprising between 10 and 20% of the overall population.

The Taliban claim to have established a state governed by Sunni Hanafi jurisprudence.

AFP — Taliban members drive through the streets of Kabul on an armoured vehicle to celebrate the second anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces on August 15.

During their time in power across most of the country in their first time in power between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban targeted the Shiite community and multiple massacres were committed.

In the years prior to their August 2021 takeover, the Taliban curried favour with Iran and pledged to protect the country's Shiite community.

Two weeks before the Taliban took Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said during a Clubhouse question and answer session hosted by an Iranian journalist that: "We always wanted to establish relations with Iran because Iran has an Islamic system and we want an Islamic system."

The numerous attacks targeting the Shiite Hazara community have in the past two years been blamed on the local branch of the international terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS) — Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).

Some Afghans claim parts of the Taliban may however been involved in facilitating at least some of these attacks despite the Taliban's track record of fighting ISKP in some provinces.

Many ISKP fighters are former Taliban fighters.

Meanwhile, according to one former security official under the former Islamic Republic of Afghanistan now living in exile with whom I spoke in August of this year, it is largely in Mashhad that Iran is now "paying for housing for former National Directorate of Security officials".

Mashhad is the largest city in eastern Iran, which borders Afghanistan.

The National Directorate of Security (NDS) was the national intelligence and security service of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The former Afghan official suggested that Iran might at some point use these fighters and intelligence operatives to put pressure on the Taliban.

Numerous reports suggest that some CIA-trained units of the NDS were brutal and possibly engaged in major human rights abuses.

During a reporting trip to Kandahar in late July and early August of 2021, multiple residents told me that the Taliban are "only afraid of zero three' - a notorious NDS unit - and forces commanded by a local district police commander known as Pacha.

Shelly Kittleson — Government security forces outpost in eastern Afghanistan during the final weeks of the fighting prior to the Taliban takeover of the country.

In an interview in Kandahar in early August 2021, Pacha claimed to me that Iran had provided some Taliban commanders in the western and southern regions with support, including bodyguards for one he knew from his home district.

Should it serve Iran's purposes, the country may also not hesitate to use others against the Taliban despite its longstanding assistance to the group now in power.

Ever-thorny water issues

For an article for Foreign Policy in August 2021, Mike Martin, a former British Army officer fluent in Pashto who has worked extensively in Helmand, told me that "Iran has developed links over many years to multiple militant groups inside Helmand Province, with its allegiance changing depending on who has the upper hand in the province."

"This is because control of Helmand (...) means control of a series of dam canals—in fact, built by USAID in the 1950s-70s—that allow control of the output of the Helmand river, which empties into Iran's Sistan region where it waters around a million people."

Disagreement over the interpretation of a 1973 treaty between Iran and Afghanistan on water from the Helmand River and dams built on it has long-muddied relations between the two countries.

In the two years since the Taliban took over, this issue has gained greater prominence and attention as Iran has not reaped the benefits it had hoped to in terms of access to water supplies.

In the two years since the Taliban took over, a longstanding water dispute has gained greater prominence and attention as Iran has not reaped the benefits it had hoped to in terms of access to water supplies.

Several protests and clashes have occurred at the border between Afghanistan and Iran in recent months, with water issues being a prime motive.

Across Afghanistan's eastern 'border'

Pakistan's export volume to Afghanistan increased by 32% in the first eight months of the 2022-2023 fiscal year, according to Ariana News.

However, near-daily attacks by a group closely linked to the Afghan Taliban and reports that Taliban fighters are still hungry for adventure and bored with the attempted transition to civilian life are creating headaches for Pakistan.

AFP — A Taliban military parade on a main street in Kabul to celebrate the second anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces.

In an article published on 14 August, the New York Times quoted Taliban members, local leaders and security analysts as saying that "hundreds of young Taliban soldiers have crossed illegally into Pakistan to battle alongside" the militant group "Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or T.T.P., which seeks to impose strict Islamist rule".

The NYT article went on to note: "Over the past year, the T.T.P. has carried out at least 123 attacks across Pakistan — about double the number it claimed in the year before the Taliban seized power, according to the Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies"

The TTP is an offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban and is recognised as a terrorist organisation by the US. During the years of fighting the Afghan government security forces and foreign forces, the Taliban was given support, shelter, and recruits by the TTP.

The line of demarcation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, known as the Durand Line, is recognised internationally as the border between the two countries but is generally not recognised within Afghanistan. Former president Hamid Karzai said in 2017 that they "will never recognise" it.

It has since its creation been highly porous and local tribes straddle both sides of the border.

In July 2021, when reporting from near the line in an eastern part of the Nangarhar province, I was told numerous stories of when local residents had crossed into and out of Pakistan without using the official border crossings.

Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace, a federal government institution, told Al Majalla on Aug. 15 that the "Taliban are providing political cover and material aid to the TTP through a highly permissive safe haven in Afghanistan — enabling the group to become stronger as an organisation and sustain its insurgent challenge against Pakistan.

Despite Pakistan's support to the Taliban in years past, the Taliban's provision of a safe haven to the TTP is now a source of considerable tension between Pakistan and the Taliban, also reflected in statements by the Pakistani military."

Despite Pakistan's support to the Taliban in years past, the Taliban's provision of a safe haven to the TTP is now a source of considerable tension between Pakistan and the Taliban.

However, he added, "It is unclear if Pakistan — embroiled in political and economic problems as well — is willing to seriously escalate in retaliation or will choose to absorb the cost that the TTP will impose."

Despair in Afghan diasporas amid stepped-up commerce

Both Iran and Pakistan have hosted large Afghan communities for decades.

An estimated 3 million Afghans are believed to have been living in Iran as of late 2020, the vast majority undocumented.

In addition, according to a January 2023 report by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA): "As of September 2022, the government of Iran recorded about one million new arrivals of Afghans, 65 % of whom were reportedly deported by the Iranian authorities back to Afghanistan, while smaller numbers returned voluntarily or travelled onwards to Türkiye and/or the European Union".

Pakistan has also hosted a large Afghan diaspora and refugee population for decades. Hundreds of thousands fled to the country after the fall of the former republic.

AFP — Afghan nationals carry placards as shout slogans during a demonstration against the Taliban government in Islamabad on August 15, 2023, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

On 15 August, the South Asia Media Solidarity Network called for "urgent international support to help Afghan journalists and media workers displaced and forced into exile in the two years since the fall of the country to the Taliban", according to the website of the International Federation of Journalists.

In its press release published online, it noted: "It is estimated that at least 600,000 Afghans fled to neighbouring Pakistan after Kabul's fall. Afghan refugees in Pakistan now number around 3.7 million. Of these, only 1.32 million are registered with the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, the only agency that grants legal refugee status allowing them to stay in Pakistan. Backlogs in granting appointments for interviews are one of the key issues that have left many applicants, including journalists, stranded.

Meanwhile, limited movement, threats, and self-censorship by Afghan media that have remained in the country results in a lack of reliable information available.

Both Iran and Pakistan seem to be watching warily even as major infrastructure and cooperation plans continue to be developed.

In February, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) – as Afghanistan's Taliban-led administration is referred to – reportedly set up a consortium of companies including ones from Russia, Iran and Pakistan.

The IEA's acting commerce minister Nooruddin Azizi told reporters at that time that the consortium would include 14 Afghan businessmen and that the "Islamic Emirate will ensure security and will support the private sector in the security field".

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