Al Qaeda’s reported links with Taliban make Afghan peace more difficult
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The power vacuum widened by the exit of foreign forces seems to have allowed various transnational militant groups greater space to operate in Afghanistan. In its latest report the UN Security Council’s Sanctions and Monitoring Committee has last week warned against the revival of Al Qaeda’s activities in some parts of the strife-torn country as the Taliban has intensified a military offensive in an effort to expand territorial control.
According to the report, a significant part of the Al Qaeda leadership resides in the regions along the borders with Pakistan which have become the main center of militant activities. Despite the killing of a number of its senior figures, the militant group has reportedly expanded operations.
Meanwhile, the South Asia chapter of Daesh, despite recent setbacks in the battlefield, is still actively pursuing its regional agenda pushing Afghanistan further into chaos with each group competing for territorial space. More than two dozen militant groups are reported to be active in the region including several factions of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which makes the regional situation extremely volatile.
Most disturbing is the report of continued Taliban links with Al Qaeda in violation of the Doha agreement. The UN Committee report said that the ties between the two groups “remain close, based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle and intermarriage.” This is certainly not the first time that the Taliban has been accused of collaborating with Al Qaeda. But the detail of their association in the latest report is damning.
While acknowledging that the Taliban has begun to tighten its control over Al Qaeda by gathering information on foreign militant fighters and registering and restricting them, the report raises questions about whether the Taliban is willing to live up to its commitment to “suppress any future international threat emanating from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.” It particularly accuses the Haqqani network, the most powerful and lethal of the Taliban factions, of aiding the group.
While Al Qaeda has not been directly involved in any such attacks, the reports of the group’s presence in eastern Afghanistan which is the stronghold of the Haqqani network, gives some credence to the UNSC report. The reported increase in the activities of foreign fighters may also make it more difficult for the Taliban and Kabul government to come to the negotiating table.
Zahid Hussain
Taliban has rejected the UNSC committee report as biased and “based on false information.” In a statement, the insurgent group said that it was totally committed to its pledge that it would not allow anyone to use Afghan soil to threaten the security of anyone else. It has denied any association with Al Qaeda or any foreign fighters operating from Afghanistan. The Taliban said it’s bound by all the clauses of the Doha agreement.
Taliban’s commitment it would not have any links with the global militant group had cleared the way for the Doha agreement that led to a withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan. The last of the American soldiers are expected to leave Afghanistan by July 4, thus ending America’s longest war.
But with no agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government on the future political structure, the situation in the country has become more unstable. Taliban’s refusal to join proposed intra-Afghan talks in Istanbul has further increased uncertainty.
Notwithstanding the Taliban’s denial, reports of growing militant violence involving transnational militant groups has raised serious concerns over the post-US withdrawal situation in Afghanistan. Most of the recent attacks have targeted civilian populations. Dozens of students were killed in a Daesh-claimed attack on a school in Kabul last month.
While Al Qaeda has not been directly involved in any such attacks, the reports of the group’s presence in eastern Afghanistan which is the stronghold of the Haqqani network, gives some credence to the UNSC report. The reported increase in the activities of foreign fighters may also make it more difficult for the Taliban and Kabul government to come to the negotiating table.
More alarming is the report of splinter TTP groups based across the border in Afghanistan being reunited, backed by Al Qaeda and some other militant groups. The development has led to an increase in cross-border attacks in the former tribal districts, particularly in North Waziristan. Scores of Pakistani soldiers have been killed in these attacks, which have become increasingly frequent. The reports of regrouping of the militant groups raises fears of violence spreading to both sides of Afghan–Pakistani borders.
Inevitably, the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan will have a huge impact on regional geopolitics. The country’s strategic location has historically made it vulnerable to the involvement of outside powers and proxy battles. A major concern has been that the American military withdrawal could lead Afghanistan to further descend into chaos, fueling a full-scale civil war with the involvement of external forces. The spillover effects of this spiralling instability and conflict in Afghanistan could be disastrous.
*Zahid Hussain is an award-winning journalist and author. He is a former scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholar, USA, and a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, and at the Stimson Center in Washington DC. He is author of Frontline Pakistan: The struggle with militant Islam (Columbia university press) and The Scorpion’s tail: The relentless rise of Islamic militants in Pakistan (Simon and Schuster, NY). Frontline Pakistan was the book of the year (2007) by the WSJ.
Twitter: @hidhussain
