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      The Taliban Uses Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      After the collapse of the Afghan government last August, the only significant challenge to the Taliban’s primitive totalitarianism was mounted by women in big cities — the capital Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif in the north, and Herat in the west, among others. The Taliban’s approach to women’s rights brought fears of violence that engulfed the country in the 1990s when the Talibs first won power. But Afghan society has undergone considerable changes since then, and many Afghan women refuse to accept the militants’ restricted approach to their right to work and education.

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      In response, the Taliban have deployed various oppressive measures. In September, they replaced the Women’s Affairs Ministry with morality police, which enforces the armed group’s strict religious doctrine on the country. At the same time, while trying to confine women to their homes by forbidding them to work or study, the Taliban are using the threat of violence against women as a bargaining chip against the Western powers.

      Violent Tactics

      In September last year, the Taliban attacked the media to prevent them from covering the women’s protests in Kabul. Two Etilaatroz journalists were tortured. Etilaatroz is one of the leading Afghan newspapers and a critical voice mainly focused on investigative journalism. An attack on the newspaper was a clear signal for everyone covering the protests against the Taliban.

      Since the armed group took control of the country, at least 318 media outlets closed in 33 of 34 provinces and, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 72% of those who lost their jobs are women.

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      But the Taliban quickly changed their tactics to tackle women’s protests through more intimidating methods, including nighttime house searches to locate those who dared raise their voice. Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, a member of the movement demanding rights to work and education, is just one of the women taken from their homes in Kabul in the middle of the night; her whereabouts remain unknown. Some families report being contacted by detainees from Taliban prisons in undisclosed locations.

      The Taliban deny capturing, detaining or killing women and other opponents. This tactic aims to mislead public opinion, the media and policymakers in Western countries. The situation may be even more critical in the provinces, beyond the eyes of the media. In September last year, the Taliban killed a former police officer with the ousted Afghan government in front of her family in Gor province; she was pregnant at the time of her murder.

      There is no way to assess the true number of disappeared women across the country. Some of them are known by the media, such Mursal Ayar, Parwana Ibrahimkhel, Tamana Paryani, Zahra Mohammadi and Alia Azizi. Most of them belong to the protest movement against the Taliban’s policies. Azizi worked as a senior female prison official in Herat and went missing when the Taliban took control of the city. Amnesty International urged the Taliban to investigate the case and release her “immediately and unconditionally” if she is in their custody.

      Last week, the UN repeated its call and asked the Taliban to release the disappeared women activists and their relatives. The German Embassy, currently operating from Qatar, has called for an investigation into the missing women. It is entirely possible that the Taliban will eventually release some of the captives, claiming that they were rescued from the clutches of the kidnappers, in order to portray themselves as a responsible government.

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      Gang rape is another tactic that the Taliban deploy against women in detention. The Independent reports that last September, bodies of eight detainees arrested during a protest in Mazar-e Sharif were discovered. According to reports, the girls were repeatedly gang-raped and tortured by the Taliban. Sexual assault is a many-sided weapon against women in a society based on strict honor codes. Some of those who survived the rapes were killed by their families.

      In January, The Times reported that the staff in the government-run Mazar-e Sharif Regional Hospital claim that they receive around 15 bodies from Taliban fighters each month — mostly women with gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

      Bargaining Chip

      Violence has been the Taliban’s primary tool both in war and during negotiations with Western powers. Over the course of two decades of conflict, the Taliban used violence as a means to win recognition as a political force. During their talks with the US and the Afghan government, the Taliban escalated violence to enhance their position at the negotiating table. Now, they are pursuing the same strategy by trading repression for recognition.

      Since the Taliban took control of the country, women’s rights are a constant subject of ongoing diplomatic discussions that have so far brought no result. The international community has failed to press the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect women’s rights.

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      But the armed group wants the international community to recognize their government. In January, a Taliban delegation was invited to Oslo to talk with Western powers and representatives of Afghan women for the first time. At the meeting, Hoda Khamosh, a civil society activist, asked the Taliban delegation: “why are the Taliban imprisoning us in Kabul and now sitting here at the negotiating table with us in Oslo? What is the international community doing in the face of all this torture and repression?”

      Since then, nothing has changed. The reality is that the Taliban used the talks in Oslo as an opportunity to make an international appearance to advertise their government. They are deploying precepts like women’s rights to force more international engagement. While Norway was criticized for inviting the Taliban and offering them exposure, Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it invited the Taliban to talk about “the protection of humanitarian actors and respect for human rights.”

      The Taliban is an ideological, zealot religious movement, and years of experience suggest that they are unlikely to revise their position on women’s rights and other fundamental issues, including human rights and political pluralism. Talking about women’s rights in Western capitals is just an opportunity for them to normalize their regime and travel abroad. Human rights violations, particularly violence against women, not only serve the Taliban’s ideological purposes but have turned into a convenient bargaining chip against the international community.

      It is critical that Western powers support fundamental human rights in the country without providing the Taliban with opportunities for blackmail, implementig realistic measures to press the group to release activists and to respect women’s rights. First, it is important to maintain or escalate the current sanctions regime against the Taliban leadership. Second, making sure that there is no rush to recognize the Taliban regime mong foreign governments is another key leverage point.

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      Third, there is a need to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation and document violations to hold the Taliban accountable. Fourth, it is important to extend and support the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan to help monitor the human rights situation in the country.

      Finally, the international community can continue its humanitarian support through UN agencies and other organizations without recognizing the Taliban. Recognition of the group will not only increase human rights abuses but will send the wrong signal to other extremists in the region. All these measures will reduce the Taliban’s ability to use violence as a bargaining chip against the international community.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      What the Taliban’s Constitution Means for Afghanistan

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      In a recent webinar titled, “Recognition of the Taliban as a Legitimate Government of Afghanistan,” a participant asked me which constitution is currently in place and the status of the Afghan Constitution from 2004? I couldn’t answer because the status of the constitution was still unclear.

      In August 2021, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan through unconstitutional means. They initially did not establish a new government or issue a decree suspending or repealing the constitution. However, when prompted by the Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan, the minister of justice noted that the Taliban plan to temporarily enact the 1964 constitution, excluding parts that contradict the principles of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the formal name of the country under the new government. Thus far, the Taliban have not released a formal document or policy statement that would indicate how they plan to govern.

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      When the caretaker administration was introduced last September, the government was modeled on a different system than the one intended in the 2004 constitution, but it shared similarities with the 1964 version. The 2004 model provides for presidential rule, and a direct vote elects a president as the head of state to serve a five-year term.

      So far, it is clear that the 2004 constitution is no longer in force in Afghanistan and that the Taliban have, more or less, restored their constitution that was drafted in 1998. Under that version, the Taliban’s caretaker administration is a theocratic monarchial system with a supreme leader, known as the amir al-Mu’minin (leader of the faithful), as its king.

      The Taliban’s Constitution

      Under its rule between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban never introduced a written constitution for Afghanistan nor validated any previous version. But they made some efforts to draft a constitution. This process began in 1998 when the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar — formally known as amir al-Mu’minin — issued a legislative decree under which a so-called constituent assembly — or ulema committee (a religious body of scholars) — was established, led by Maulvi Noor Mohammad Saqib, the former chief justice of Afghanistan.

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      The decree placed the power to review laws with the committee, under the supervision of the supreme court of Afghanistan. The committee’s task was to look at existing laws, including under past constitutions, and to remove articles that did not conform to sharia. The committee began working on the constitution in July 1998 and decided that the review of the previous constitution should be in accordance with the Hanafi madhab (school of jurisprudence) of Sunni Islam. Articles inconsistent with sharia would be amended or repealed and, if necessary, a new article would be added.

      The constitution was drafted after a round of sessions, but it was not approved before the Taliban were toppled by US-led forces in 2001. The preamble of the constitution notes that it was adopted in 2005 by the supreme council of the Taliban, with 10 chapters and 110 articles. The constitution’s travaux préparatoires (preparatory works) are not publicly available to show which constitution of Afghanistan was chosen as the basis for the Taliban’s version. Yet based on preliminary examination of both versions, it appears that the 1964 constitution, which was adopted under King Mohammad Zahir Shah, has been chosen as a foundation for the Taliban’s model. The Taliban’s constituent assembly has reviewed the 1964 constitution and removed, amended or added articles to the constitution that it believes contradict Islamic law.

      Despite the considerable differences between the two constitutions, many articles of the Taliban’s version are verbatim to those of the 1964 model. While not explicitly mentioned, the Taliban’s constitution provides for a theocratic ruler under the title of amir al-Mu’minin, who would be similar to a king under the 1964 constitution in terms of political power.

      The Taliban’s constitution is focused on the religious dynamics of the country, without considering the social and economic implications, and it forms the basis of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The constitution recognizes Islam as the national religion and adheres to the Hanafi madhab of Sunni Islam. Due to its similarity with the 1964 model, in principle, the constitution commits to the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the charter of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Non-Aligned Movement, and other relevant laws and regulations within the limits of Islamic law and national interests. Power is divided between the amir al-Mu’minin, the prime minister or executive, the Islamic shura (parliament) and the supreme court. Ultimately, however, the amir al-Mu’minin has unlimited power to execute his will in all aspects of the government.

      To make sense of the Taliban’s constitution, it is important to examine the responsibilities of the head of state, the shura, the executive and the judiciary and the role of foreign policy.

      The De Facto King

      Under the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the amir al-Mu’minin is the head of state. He executes his authority in the executive, legislative, and judiciary fields according to the provisions of the constitution and other laws. Under the Taliban, the amir would be an Afghan national, born to Afghan Muslim parents and a follower of the Hanafi madhab. The amir al-Mu’minin has similar immensurable powers as the king had under the 1964 constitution. For example, under that version, the king was able, inter alia, to appoint and remove prime ministers and other government ministers, issue a state of emergency, approve the national budget, ratify laws, select and dismiss judges, promote and retire high-ranking officials and declare war. The Taliban’s constitution gives the same powers to the amir.

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      Unlike the 1964 and 2004 constitutions, the procedure for appointing the head of the state is not clearly laid out in the Taliban’s constitution. Yet one of the tasks of the shura, together with the supreme court and the prime minister, is to decide on what happens in the event of the amir al-Mu’minin stepping down. The amir would inform the speaker of the shura, chief justice of the supreme court and the prime minister about his resignation. After this, a meeting between the shura, the chief justice and the prime minister takes place. However, if the amir al-Mu’minin dies and does not choose a successor, then the chief justice takes over as acting leader. 

      The constitution does not explicitly state who appoints the amir al-Mu’minin. But it does imply that the authority to appoint him rests with the shura, the chief justice and the prime minister. The one significant difference between the amir and the king under the 1998 and 1964 constitutions, respectively, is that leader of the faithful is accountable and equal before the law like any other citizen. Under the 1964 constitution, the king was not accountable and was to be respected by all.  

      Islamic Shura

      Chapter three of the Taliban’s constitution deals with the nature of the shura, the appointment of its members and its powers. Under the constitution, Afghanistan would have a unicameral shura that has, inter alia, legislative power and the interpretation of the constitution. Members of the shura are appointed by the amir al-Mu’minin for an indefinite duration. The amir would appoint three members from the first grade I provinces, a maximum of two from the grade II provinces and one from grade III provinces. (Based on criteria determined by the Afghan government, all provinces are given different grades and, according to these grades, they receive particular privileges and allocation of the national budget.)

      The members of the shura would also have met the conditions set by the ahl al-hall wa’l ‘aqd, which refers to those qualified to elect or depose a caliph on behalf of the Muslim community under Sunni Islam. The constitution does not specify a method for the appointment of this group of people. Hence, this process remains open to arbitrariness and biased selection of pro-establishment individuals of dubious credibility and competence.

      The amir al-Mu’minin also appoints the speaker of the shura from amongst existing members, but the constitution does not address the appointment of the deputy and secretary of the shura. The shura has the power to ratify, modify or abrogate laws. However, the procedure of enacting laws and abrogation of laws and how the shura will engage with stakeholders is not specified. The shura also has the power, inter alia, to oversee the actions of the government, make decisions on contentious issues, approve the state budget, ratify international treaties and agreements (together with the supreme court and the council of ministers), approve loans and grants, adopt government policies, and elucidate and question the government.

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      The Taliban’s constitution does not give immunity to members of the shura in case they commit a crime. Article 51 states that if a member of the shura is accused of an offense, the official responsible shall communicate the matter to the speaker. The legal proceedings against the accused would be initiated only when the speaker allows it. In the case of a witnessed crime, the official responsible can start legal proceedings and arrest a member without seeking permission from the speaker.

      Executive

      The prime minister and other ministers who lead the government are the highest executive and administrative authority under the Taliban’s constitution. Appointees to the position of prime minister must meet specific criteria. This includes being a Muslim, a follower of the Hanafi madhab and born to Muslim parents. The prime minister represents the government (executive) and he chairs the council of ministers. The prime minister can delegate his powers to other ministers, sign contracts and agreements at the government level, organize and oversee the affairs of ministries, and appoint, promote, retire and dismiss government officials.

      The government under the Taliban’s model is in charge of the country’s domestic and foreign policies, regulates the performance of ministries and independent authorities, takes necessary measures in executive and administrative matters, drafts government-related laws and regulations, drafts and amends the annual budget, supervises banking affairs, ensures public security in the country and approves external expertise recruitment. The prime minister can also propose removing ministers to the amir al-Mu’minin, but they can only be removed if the head of state gives his approval.  

      Judiciary

      Articles 70 to 82 of the Taliban’s constitution contain detailed provisions on the courts and the status and independence of the judiciary. The constitution establishes the judiciary as an independent organ of the state. The only court established under the constitution is the supreme court, while the number of other courts and their jurisdiction is determined by law. The jurisdiction of the courts to hear cases brought before them is exclusive and, as per the constitution, “under no circumstances shall a law exclude from the jurisdiction of the judiciary, as defined in this title, a case or sphere, and assign it other authorities.”

      The amir al-Mu’minin appoints judges on the recommendation of the chief justice. The number and qualifications of the supreme court judges are not determined. But for the appointment of the chief justice, an ambiguous criterion of “full competence,” or Ahliat-e-Kamil, has been laid down. The deputies and justices of the Supreme Court are also appointed by the amir al-Mu’minin on the recommendation of the chief justice of the supreme court, taking into account the criteria of religion, piety, sufficient knowledge of jurisprudence, the judicial and legal system of the country.

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      Under the 1964 constitution, the king could appoint judges and review their position after 10 years, but he was not permitted to remove officials from their office through other means. The Taliban’s constitution, on the other hand, does not state the terms of tenure of supreme court judges, and the amir al-Mu’minin can remove judges from their offices.

      The power of the amir to remove judges and the appointment of judges for an undetermined period brings the judiciary’s independence into question. The supreme court under the Taliban’s constitution no longer has the power to interpret the constitution under judicial review. That power has been assigned to shura. Thus, the constitution does not recognize the separation of power and enforce checks and balances.

      Foreign Policy

      According to the Taliban’s constitution, the foreign policy of the Islamic Emirate is based on the teaching of Islam, human values, securing the public interest and political independence, territorial integrity, playing an effective and constructive role in international peace, and cooperating with the international community.

      In principle, the constitution supports the UN Charter, the charter of the OIC, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other internationally accepted principles and regulations, as long as they do not conflict with Islamic principles and national interests. The constitution condemns the use of force against any country and calls for dispute settlement through peaceful means. It also supports the program of disarmament and the elimination of the weapon of mass destruction.

      The Rights of Afghans

      So, with all this in mind, what does the constitution mean for the people of Afghanistan?

      First, it is clear that under the Taliban’s constitution, the public has no say in the decision-making process — neither in the form of voting, nor with holding government bodies to account. The constitution denies the people their right to elect members to the shura, choose a prime minister, pick members of provincial assemblies or select governors, mayors and members of district assemblies since, according to the Taliban, elections are considered un-Islamic.

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      Second, the selection of members of the shura by the amir al-Mu’minin opens the door for picking individuals who are close to the inner circle of the Taliban, particularly Taliban members themselves. By introducing the strict and ambiguous conditions of Ahl al-hall wa’l ‘aqd for shura appointees and a constitutional clause for the amir and prime minister to be followers of the Hanafi madhab of Sunni Islam, women and religious minorities such as Shia Muslims are excluded from positions of power and the decision-making process. Such provisions also contradict other clauses of the Taliban’s constitution, including the one that provides for equality before the law and prohibits all forms of discrimination.

      Third, the Taliban’s constitution guarantees certain fundamental rights with limitations. This, in principle, includes freedom of speech, the right to a free and fair trial, liberty, human dignity, right to property, right to assemble unarmed and inviolability of person’s residence. It also provides for certain social rights, including the chance to receive free education. Most importantly, however, it leaves the regulation of women’s education to a specific law, which limits their right to education.

      Prime Minister Mulla Hasan Akhund also confirmed such limitations in his first speech, where he indicated that only sharia education is compulsory and that women could seek knowledge in other fields if necessary. Thus, it can be inferred from his speech and the constitutional clause that the government will determine and specify faculties where women can take enroll and which the Taliban think are necessary for women. This provision itself contradicts other clauses of the constitution.

      Finally, regarding the rights of children, women and minorities, the Taliban’s constitution does not specifically guarantee their protection. However, all Afghan citizens are provided with general protection, which includes children, women and minorities.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Pashtun-led Taliban Could Break Apart Both Afghanistan and Pakistan

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      More than a century ago, the Russians and the British played the Great Game for the control of Afghanistan. Immortalized in Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim,” this game defined three generations of soldiers, spies and diplomats. As the remarkable Rory Stewart records, the Great Game never ended. The Soviets and the Americans carried on where the Russians and the British left. Now, a new great game is about to begin.

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      As is well chronicled, Afghanistan emerged as a buffer state between the Russian and British empires. Dominated by the Pashtuns, this state remained an inchoate entity of competing ethnic groups, feuding clans and autonomous villages. As Tabish Forugh and one of the authors noted in an earlier article on Fair Observer, this Pashtun-dominated order crumbled when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Taliban brought back this order in the 1990s and are establishing Pashtun primacy yet again.

      New Life to Old Identities

      Modernity has not been kind to Afghanistan. Until the 1970s, this country was a land where hippies showed up to smoke pot and have a good time. Older Pakistani friends reminisce about driving from Peshawar to Kabul to buy videotapes of Bollywood movies and bask in the relatively liberal milieu of Afghanistan. When the Soviets intervened in 1979, this idyllic version of the country disintegrated. For all the efforts of Soviet troops, engineers and administrators, communism failed.

      By February 1989, Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Later that year, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union itself imploded in 1991. The loosely allied mujahideen turned their guns on each other and a bloody civil war followed. The Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Pashtuns were at each other’s throats. Eventually, the Pakistani-trained, Islamabad-backed, Pashtun-led Taliban triumphed in 1996. Their rule was cut short by the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which brought American intervention and began a 20-year experiment with democracy.

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      Sadly, the democratic experiment has failed too. In June 2021, Forugh and one of the authors wrote that President Ashraf Ghani occupied “his fancy palace in Kabul thanks to the barrels of American guns,” and, once the Americans left, he would be toast. Americans established a presidential system based on their own model that was destined to fail in a famously diverse and fractious society. Note that the US leaders after World War II chose parliamentary democracy for Germany and Japan, two industrial societies with a far higher degree of homogeneity. If Washington blundered at the beginning, its decisions were catastrophic at the end. Today, democracy is dead and buried, the fanatical Taliban rule the roost and ethnic identity is replacing fragile multiethnic Afghan nationalism.

      The Rise of Ethnic Nationalism

      As stated earlier, Afghanistan is where two expanding empires met. The British had digested modern-day Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, then British India. The Russians had taken over an odd assortment of clans and khanates in Central Asia, many of whom were descendants of Genghis Khan and Timur. Just like the boundaries drawn by the British or the French, the Russian ones were arbitrary too. As ethnic nationalism rises in Afghanistan, it will spill over into Central Asia.

      As late as February 2020, the US State Department declared that “a secure and stable Afghanistan [was] a top priority for the Central Asian governments.” It encouraged these governments to boost economic and trade ties with their Kabul counterparts. American hopes for “stable governance of multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority countries” now lie in tatters. Kazakhstan demonstrates that Russian realpolitik of supporting strongmen has triumphed.

      Yet even the Kremlin cannot hold back the tide of ethnic nationalism that is unfolding in Afghanistan and spreading to Central Asia. The Tajiks led by Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud have the tacit, if not explicit, support of the Tajikistan government. The Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum fled to Uzbekistan when the Taliban took over. As the Pashtuns leave not even scraps at the table for others, it is only natural that minority ethnicities are looking across the border for a better future. Just as in former Yugoslavia, ethnic nationalism is now on the rise in Central Asia.

      Pakistan’s Frankenstein Monster’s Problem: Radical Islam

      To a large degree, Pakistan has fostered, if not created, the ethnic nationalism now rising in Afghanistan and spilling over into Central Asia. It is an open secret that Pakistan’s military elite created the Taliban. As Ishtiaq Ahmed explains, “the Garrison State” has always been paranoid about its lack of strategic depth. The loss of East Pakistan that won independence as Bangladesh in 1971 has scarred the Pakistani psyche and made the country’s political elites double down on political Islam. In the 1980s, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq moved Pakistan along a fundamentalist arc. Jihad became the order of the day not only against the Soviets in Afghanistan but also against India, which he sought to “bleed through a thousand cuts.”

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      Zia was not an exception to Pakistani hostility to India. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the man Zia ousted through a military coup and hung on the gallows, vowed to wage a “thousand year war against India.” In 1974, Pakistani mobs massacred thousands of Ahmadis and, instead of delivering them protection or justice, Bhutto brought in a constitutional amendment declaring the Ahmadis non-Muslims. The same year, he declared Pakistan would go nuclear, claiming “We shall eat grass but have our bomb.” Islamic fundamentalism and Pavlovian anti-India ethos drive Pakistani state policy regardless of whether the country is under civil or military rule. 

      Backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, the Pakistan-backed mujahideen brought the Soviet Union to its knees. Against India, Pakistan has followed an asymmetric strategy of championing irregulars, insurgent and terrorists from its very inception. In the first of a three-part series analyzing the fallout of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Rakesh Kaul points out how Pakistan supported a Pashtun jihad in Kashmir as early as 1947. The marauding tribesmen killed Kaul’s great-grandfather, “tied his dead body to a horse and dragged it through the streets to terrorize the local population into submission.”

      Starting from the 1980s, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) unleashed terror as an instrument of state policy against India. First, the ISI backed the violent Sikh insurgency for an independent state of Khalistan, a strategy that it continues with till today. Second, the ISI supported the insurgency in Kashmir that blew up in 1989 and persists till today. Third, the ISI created and supported militant jihadist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to overwhelm India through multiple terrorist attacks. With a crisis-ridden economy and much smaller military, Pakistan has bet on asymmetric terror tactics and nuclear deterrence to tie India down.

      However, Pakistan is discovering that when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. Like Victor Frankenstein, the Garrison State has created a monster: radical Islam. Since the 1980s, Pakistan has become intolerant, sectarian and violent. Minorities have faced persecution and suffered ethnic cleansing. The case of the animistic Kalash people in Chitral is a case in point. Many documentaries have recorded how they have faced persistent persecution and forced conversion. As a result, a mere 3,500 Kalash are left and they may not survive for too long.

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      Radical Islam was meant to be a tool the Pakistani state used against its neighbors. Now, it has spread like cancer throughout all aspects of the country’s life. Instead of Pakistan’s corrupt and inefficient government, madrasas now provide education for refugees and lower-class Pakistanis. Many of them are hardline and churn out jihadis by the thousands. For instance, most of the Afghani Taliban leadership graduated from the madrasa Dur-ul-Uloom Haqqania.

      Religious figures can now bring the country over a standstill in an instant. Violent protests repeatedly erupted after French President Emmanuel Macron said that Islam was in crisis. Terror attacks within Pakistan have shot up. Roohafza, a sugary syrupy drink, has replaced whiskey in officer messes. Many officers now sport flowing beards and offer prayer five times a day. In the words of Javed Jabbar, Pakistan has experienced “a steady retreat into showy religiosity and visible piety in the public domain and in most media.” A new law makes it compulsory for every child to learn Arabic.

      Pakistan finds itself in a bind. It has to direct the thousands of jihadis graduating from madrasas against external enemies to avoid internecine strife. In fact, it is only a question of time before radical Islamists will infiltrate all organs of the Pakistani state. The Taliban’s victory has convinced them that Allah is on their side. The risks of a general like Zia or a cleric like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini taking over and unleashing nuclear terror or nuclear war are getting higher by the day.

      Radical Islam and Pashtun Pride Make an Explosive Cocktail

      If radical Islam is dangerous, radical Islam combined with ethnic nationalism is terrifying. After 20 years, the Pashtun-led Taliban is back in power. They are surging with confidence after humbling the world’s superpower. This time, they are battle-hardened, better trained and savvier than their predecessors from the 1990s. The Taliban also have a strong sense of history and look back to the expansionist 18th-century Ahmed Shah Durrani as a model to follow. 

      Durrani was a historic figure who sent troops to Central Asia, defeated the Marathas in the historic 1761 Third Battle of Panipat with assistance of local Muslim rulers and created the modern nation of Afghanistan. Durrani’s young nation soon fell victim to the Great Game and lost much territory to the British. Led by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the British delineated the modern-day border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Till date, many Pashtuns have not accepted this border.

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      The Taliban are expansionists. In the north, the Tajiks and the Uzbeks will fight a guerilla war, ensuring their eventual retreat. To the west lie Turkmenistan and Iran, two ethnically distinct entities where the Taliban cannot expand. To the south and east lies Pakistan where the Taliban trained and where their Pashtun kin reside. Furthermore, the Pashtuns have a deep memory of raiding and ruling the plains of Indus and the Ganges. When Babur swept down from modern-day Uzbekistan to modern-day Pakistan and India through the Khyber Pass, he defeated a Pashtun sultan who was ruling Delhi.

      When Pakistan won independence, Pashtun opinion was divided. Some like Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar wanted a homeland for Muslim Indians in the shape of Pakistan. Others like Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a friend of Mahatma Gandhi, fought for a unified India and then for an autonomous Pashtunistan. Still others wanted reunification with Afghanistan. Worryingly for Pakistan, Pashtun refugees have streamed into the country from Afghanistan since 1979. Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that there were “about 11 million Pashtun in Afghanistan and 25 million in Pakistan in the early 21st century.” Multiple estimates indicate Pashtuns to be over 15% of Pakistan’s population. In Afghanistan, they comprise about 42% of the population. Once all-out ethnic conflict erupts in Afghanistan, Pashtun identity is only likely to strengthen.

      So far, the Punjabi elite running Pakistan has co-opted the Pashtun elite by giving it plum positions in the state apparatus, especially the military. The ruling elite has also used Pashtuns to fight wars and proxy wars in Kashmir since 1947 when both India and Pakistan emerged as two independent entities after the partition of British India. During the 20 years of US presence in Afghanistan, cross-border incursions into and violent incidents in Kashmir declined because Pashtuns were too busy fighting a jihad at home. Now, these jihadis will turn their attention to Kashmir.

      Not all jihadis are fixated with Kashmir. Some of them are sworn enemies of the Pakistani state such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. With the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan may have achieved its long-cherished strategic depth against India, but it now has the tail of the Pashtun tiger in its hands. Pakistan’s ISI has no option but to deploy Pashtun jihadis against India in Kashmir. Failure on the Kashmir front could trigger Pashtun dissatisfaction against Punjabi leadership.

      A tiny wrinkle many forget is that Pashtuns see themselves as a warrior people and the natural leaders of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. They have successfully beaten back the British, the Soviets and the Americans. Pashtuns see the Punjabis as soft, loud and showy. Like the Balochs, the Sindhis, the Muhajirs and others, Pashtuns resent the Punjabi domination of Pakistan. Furthermore, many Pashtuns regard the banks of the Indus, not the Durand Line, as their natural border.

      Blood Borders

      Pakistan’s Pashtun problem is a particular example of a more widespread phenomenon. Most of the current borders in Africa, the Middle East and Asia are colonial legacies that do not make sense. In 2006, Ralph Peters published a controversial article in Armed Forces Journal titled “Blood Borders” where he argued for redrawing “arbitrary and distorted borders.” Peters took the view that “significant ‘cheated’ population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia” deserved their own states. He blamed “awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries,” not Islam, for much of the violence in the Middle East and South Asia.

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      Since 2006, many analysts have slammed Peters. The US has resolutely upheld the stability of the borders in former British and French colonies even as it has championed the independence of nations once under the Soviet yoke. That policy might be nearing the end of its shelf life. In its moment of triumph in Afghanistan, Pakistan might have set wheels into motion that will lead to its own disintegration.

      Today, Pakistan is held together by an anti-India Islamic identity. The different linguistic ethnic groups that comprise Pakistan have long been pulling in different directions. Therefore, Pakistan has fostered a siege mentality among its people and created an identity that looks to Arab, Turkish and Pashtun conquerors of India for inspiration. Pashtun identity is far more cohesive, time-tested and real. After humbling the US, Pashtuns are unlikely to play second fiddle to the Punjabis for much longer. Inevitably, they are bound to take charge of their own destiny as they have done many times in the past.

      To add fuel to the fire, Pakistan’s economy is in dire straits. Last year, the International Monetary Fund instituted yet another bailout and released $6 billion to Islamabad in November. Over the last three years, the Pakistani rupee has fallen by 30.5% against the US dollar. Inflation and unemployment are running high. In such circumstances, anti-India rhetoric is useful, desirable and essential to keep the country together. 

      Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly condemned India’s “descent into fascism” and claimed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s parent organization, of being Nazi-inspired entities. This puts pressure on Khan’s government and his military backers to act against such a toxic neighbor and evil enemy. The trouble for Khan and his delusional friends in Islamabad is that state coffers have little money to fund conflict with a far more prosperous and numerous India. Khan and co are riling up a mob that they are bound to disappoint. The last-ditch effort to keep Pakistan together would be war with India and, if Islamic radicals were to seize power in Islamabad, the risk of nuclear war would only turn too real.

      Whether conflict with India is conventional or nuclear will be determined by circumstances in the future. It is clear that the Taliban have unleashed ethnic nationalism not only in Afghanistan but also in neighboring Central Asian states. Inevitably, the Pashtuns in Pakistan will be infected by that sentiment as well, especially as Islamabad leads the country to economic and military disaster. The scenario Peters conjured of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes reuniting with their Afghan brethren and creating Pashtunistan would then come true. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan would no longer be the same again.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Is Afghanistan Going to Break Apart?

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      After the shambolic US withdrawal, Afghanistan faces an existential problem: Its very existence as a state is now in question. Most people forget that Afghanistan is a patchwork of disparate ethnic groups and remote villages. Unlike Germany or Japan, it is not and has never been a nation-state. Since the 1880s, Afghanistan has been a state based on a loose coalition of poorly governed provinces, forgotten villages and marginalized ethnic groups. 

      A Chequered Past

      For more than a century, different power centers in Afghanistan have had some sort of representation in the central government, even if they often got leftovers from the dominant Pashtun ruling class. This class was repressive and often bloody. Abdur Rahman Khan, the Iron Amir, conducted genocide against the Hazaras in the 1890s, erased a substantial part of the cultural heritage of Nuristanis by forcing them to convert to Islam, and confiscated fertile lands of Tajiks and Uzbeks in the north only to redistribute them to Pashtun tribes. Even a modernist king like Amanulla pursued the Iron Amir’s policies. Yet, at the helm of power, there was generally a servant’s seat at the table for other ethnic groups such as the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and even the Hazaras. This seat at the table along with the backing of superpowers, first the British and then the Soviets, kept the state and the political order intact.

      Afghanistan Is On the Verge of Disaster

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      When the Soviets invaded in 1979, the Pashtun-dominated order of Afghanistan gradually crumbled. Ideology trumped ethnicity, and groups like the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Hazaras rose in prominence. Much credit for this goes to Babrak Karmal, the president of Afghanistan from December 1979 to November 1986. When the Soviets withdrew in February 1989, this order collapsed. The battle-hardened mujahideen groups fought a brutal civil war in which Tajik leaders Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the Jamiat Party, and Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the “Lion of Panjshir,” held the upper hand.

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      The Pashtuns struck back through the Taliban and took over Kabul in 1996. They exercised power over most of the country while Massoud was leading the resistance to the Taliban government from the Panjshir Valley. He was killed in Afghanistan two days before the 9/11 attacks in 2001 by an al-Qaeda suicide squad masquerading as journalists on the pretext of filming an interview. Even after his death, the resistance to the Taliban continued and Massoud’s fighters contributed heavily to the ground fighting that drove out the Taliban from much of the country, including Kabul.

      In the five years of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, the Pashtuns returned as the dominant military and political group. They ran an autocratic regime, marginalizing other ethnic groups and suppressing opponents. Hence, resistance to the Taliban was persistent and ferocious in many parts of the country.

      The Post 9/11 Experience

      The 9/11 attacks led to the American intervention and the creation of a new democratic state. Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmens and other marginalized communities became active participants in the political process. Despite its fragility and flaws, the post-2001 political order and its democratic components offered a unique opportunity for Afghanistan to transform into a functioning polity and society.

      The governing Pashtun ethnonationalist elites, their non-Pashtun partners, including conservative warlords, and the reemergence of a Pashtun-led insurgency squandered the resources and opportunities that otherwise might have consolidated a civil and democratic political order.  

      The Taliban’s forceful return to Kabul last August ended the post-2001 American-backed constitutional order. Today, chaos prevails and a fanatical Pashtun clergy has a vice-like grip on every aspect of Afghanistan’s social, political and economic life. Furthermore, the Taliban are fanatical Muslims with ethnofascist tendencies and a profound apathy for Afghanistan’s ethnic, cultural and political diversity.

      In recent months, many analysts have been very charitable to the Taliban. In an interview with Fair Observer, political analyst Anas Altikriti said, “The reality is the Taliban have won and in today’s world, they have the right, the absolute right to govern.” If the right to govern comes from conquest, then Altikriti is right. Lest we forget, the Taliban have yet to win an election or demonstrate that they are actually capable of governing. Moreover, they are rigid, dictatorial and revanchist. An inclusive political formula that represents Afghanistan’s mosaic-like diversity is impossible so long as the Taliban remain exclusively in charge.

      The legitimate aspirations of non-Pashtun ethnic groups such as the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Hazaras, the Turkmens and others are now dissolving in the acid of Sunni fundamentalism. The Taliban have marginalized them completely. These groups have no seat at the table, no representation in the decision-making process and have to live under the barrel of the Taliban gun.

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      In 2022, this situation is untenable. Non-Pashtun ethnic groups are fed up and want control over their destiny. Many Pashtun technocrats, including the former president, Hamid Karzai, have switched sides and are part of the ruling dispensation. They claim the Taliban are the source of stability and have formed the only organization capable of ruling the country. However, they forget an important point. Marginalized groups in Afghanistan are chafing under Pashtun hegemony. If the Taliban-led Pashtuns cling to their unilateral rule and convert Afghanistan into a centralized state, the country will indubitably and inevitably break apart.

      Federalism Is the Way Forward

      To avoid a bloody partition along ethnic lines or a 1990s style civil war, Afghanistan needs a federal political system. Afghanistan is not France or the United Kingdom. It cannot be run out of a grand capital no matter how powerful the ruling class is. Like Switzerland and the United States, Afghanistan is an extremely diverse country with a history of local autonomy and a glorious tradition of bloody rebellion as the British, the Soviets and the Americans discovered at their cost.

      Therefore, the balance of power in any political system that can work must lie with local, not national government. Such a system could turn Afghanistan’s disparate ethnic groups into building blocks of a new federal state and avoid the looming bloodbath due to the Taliban’s autocratic rule.

      With China and Russia taking center stage, Afghanistan is increasingly forgotten. That is as risky as it is unfortunate. Conflict in Afghanistan could spill over into South and Central Asia, threatening global peace and security. Afghanistan needs dialogue between different groups ready to hammer out a territorial, judicial, and administrative settlement that leads to a functional union. Only then can we expect the fragile state of Afghanistan to survive.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Inside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste

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      The ObserverAfghanistanInside the CIA’s secret Kabul base, burned out and abandoned in haste A Taliban commander invited the media to inspect the site where America plotted killing raids and tortured prisonersEmma Graham-Harrison in KabulSun 3 Oct 2021 01.00 EDTThe cars, minibuses and armoured vehicles that the CIA used to run its shadow war in Afghanistan had been lined up and incinerated beyond identification before the Americans left. Below their ashy grey remains, pools of molten metal had solidified into permanent shiny puddles as the blaze cooled.The faux Afghan village where they trained paramilitary forces linked to some of the worst human rights abuses of the war had been brought down on itself. Only a high concrete wall still loomed over the crumpled piles of mud and beams, once used to practise for the widely hated night raids on civilian homes.The vast ammunition dump had been blown up. Many ways to kill and maim human beings, from guns to grenades, mortars to heavy artillery, laid out in three long rows of double-height shipping containers, were reduced to shards of twisted metal. The blast from the huge detonation, which came soon after the bloody bomb at Kabul airport, shook and terrified the capital city.All formed part of the CIA compound that for 20 years was the dark, secret heart of America’s “war on terror”, a place were some of the worst abuses to sour the mission in Afghanistan would fester.The sprawling hillside compound, spread over two square miles north-east of the airport, became infamous early on in the conflict for torture and murder at its “Salt Pit” prison, codenamed Cobalt by the CIA. The men held there called it the “dark prison”, because there was no light in their cells, the only occasional illumination coming from the headlamps of their guards.It was here that Gul Rahman died of hypothermia in 2002 after he was chained to a wall half-naked and left overnight in freezing temperatures. His death prompted the first formal CIA guidelines on interrogation under a new regime of torture, eviscerated in a 2014 report that found that the abuse did not provide useful intelligence.The base has for two decades been a closely guarded secret, visible only in satellite photos, navigated by the testimony of survivors. Now the Taliban’s special forces have moved in and recently, briefly, opened up the secret compound to journalists.“We want to show how they wasted all these things that could have been used to build our country,” said Mullah Hassanain, a commander in the Taliban’s elite 313 unit, who led the tour of destroyed and burnt-out compounds, “burn pits” and incinerated cars, buses and armoured military vehicles.Taliban special forces include suicide attackers who recently marched through Kabul to celebrate seizing the capital. Vehicles now emblazoned with their official “suicide squadron” logo escorted journalists around the former CIA base.It was a grimly ironic juxtaposition of the most cruel and ruthless units on both sides of this war, a reminder of the suffering inflicted on civilians by all combatants in the name of higher goals, over several decades.“They are martyrdom seekers who were responsible for the attacks on important locations of invaders and the regime. They now have control of important locations,” said a Taliban official, when asked why suicide squads were escorting journalists, and if they would continue to operate. “It is a very big battalion. It is responsible for the security of important locations. They will be expanded and further organised. Whenever there is a need, they will respond. They are always ready for sacrifices for our country and the defence of our people.”They planned to use the CIA base for their own military training, Hassanain said, so this brief glimpse of the compound is likely to be both the first and last time the media is allowed in.The men guarding it had already changed into the tiger-stripe camouflage of the old Afghan National Directorate of Security, the spy agency once in charge of hunting them down. The paramilitary units that operated here, based in barracks just near the site of the former Salt Pit jail, included some that were among the most feared in the country, mired in allegations of abuse that included extrajudicial killings of children and other civilians. The barracks had been abandoned so fast that the men who lived there left food half-finished, and barracks floors were littered with possessions spilled out of emptied lockers, cleared in an apparent frenzy.Mostly they had taken or destroyed anything with names, or ranks, but there were 01 patches, and one book that was filled with handwritten notes from weeks of training.Nearby, the site of the Salt Pit jail had apparently been razed a few months earlier. A New York Times satellite investigation found that, since spring, a cluster of buildings inside this part of the CIA compound had been levelled.Taliban officials said they did not have any details about the Salt Pit, or what had happened to the former jail. Rahman’s family are still searching for his body, which has never been returned to them.Other torture techniques recorded at the site included “rectal feeding”, shackling prisoners to bars overhead, and depriving inmates of toilet “privileges”, leaving them naked or wearing adult diapers.Construction equipment was abandoned on the site, with concrete slabs half poured. Next door, a building that had once been fortified with high-tech doors and equipment had apparently been firebombed, its interior as totally destroyed and reduced to ash as the cars outside.Destroying sensitive equipment at the base would have been complex, and there was evidence of several burn pits where everything from medical kits and a manual on leadership was put to the flames, along with larger pieces of equipment.The Taliban officials were jumpy about letting journalists into areas that had not been officially cleared. They had found several booby trap bombs in the rubble of the camp, Hassanain said, and were worried that there might be more.For days, helicopters ferried hundreds of people from the base to inside the airport, where men from the 01 force – aware they were likely to be prominent targets for reprisals – helped secure the perimeter in return for evacuation in the final hours, under a deal struck with the US.Untouched nearby was a recreation hall with snooker, ping-pong, darts and table football gathering dust. A box in the corner held brain teaser puzzles. It was unclear what the Taliban, once so austere that they even banned chess, would do with the trappings of western military downtime.TopicsAfghanistanThe ObserverTalibanCIACIA torture reportSouth and Central AsiaTortureWar crimesfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Trump-Taliban deal had 'psychological' effect on Afghan government says top US general – video

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      The collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces can be traced to a 2020 agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration that promised a complete US troop withdrawal, senior Pentagon officials have told Congress.
      Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of central command, told the House ‘the signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military’. He identified a troop reduction ordered by Joe Biden as the ‘second nail in the coffin’.

      Top US general says Afghan collapse can be traced to Trump-Taliban deal More

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      Blame-shifting over US withdrawal ignores deeper failings in Afghanistan

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      AfghanistanBlame-shifting over US withdrawal ignores deeper failings in AfghanistanAnalysis: Senators’ questions to military leadership a contest in sharing out responsibility for failures Julian Borger in WashingtonTue 28 Sep 2021 18.52 EDTLast modified on Tue 28 Sep 2021 19.02 EDTThe deeply partisan US Congress is rarely a conducive place for national introspection and Tuesday’s Senate hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal did not provide an exception.In the midst of the point-scoring and blame-shifting on display in the senators’ questions to the nation’s military leadership, it was clear that it was a contest to apportion shares in failure.And behind the debacle of the pullout that left tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans behind, there were fleeting references to the far deeper failure of the preceding two decades – a reckoning that has only just begun for the Pentagon and the US foreign policy establishment.US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley saysRead moreFor obvious reasons, the Republicans on the armed services committee sought to keep the focus on the past eight months, accusing Joe Biden of surrendering to terrorists, throwing in occasional demands for the immediate resignation of the three military leaders sitting before them: the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, the head of Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie and the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin.The three witnesses, nudged from time to time by the Democrats, would occasionally point out that the surrender in question truly began in February 2020, with the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban in Doha.In return for a US withdrawal by 1 May this year, the Taliban agreed to seven conditions, but as Gen Milley pointed out, they only stuck to one of them: not to attack the departing Americans. Every other undertaking, such as entering into good-faith negotiations with Kabul and breaking ties with al-Qaida, the Taliban had reneged on. But Trump nonetheless sought to accelerate the withdrawal, at one point demanding it be completed by January.The Republicans barely mentioned the Doha agreement, preferring to frame the withdrawal as Biden’s original idea. It was hardly surprising. Over the past four years, the party has become accustomed to cognitive dissonance. The one backhanded Republican reference to Doha came from Thom Tillis who asked why Biden had stuck to Trump’s bankrupt deal.“I don’t buy the idea that this president was bound by a decision made by a prior president,” Senator Tillis said. “This was not a treaty. And it was clearly an agreement where the Taliban were not living up to it. President Biden could have come in, reasserted conditions and completely changed the timeline.”The answer the White House has given is that the Doha agreement gave the Taliban considerable momentum, boosting their morale, destroying Afghan government self-confidence, and freeing 5,000 Taliban fighters. Reneging on the deal by a new administration would have meant a return to war with far higher stakes, and probably tens of thousands of soldiers.Milley, McKenzie and Austin, however, took a different route in their testimony. They confirmed that in the policy of review in February, March and April, they had advocated retaining a small force of about 2,500.They were not questioned on how such a remnant could have withstood a resumption of direct attacks from an invigorated Taliban. Instead the focus of many of the exchanges centred around Biden’s baffling insistence in an ABC News interview on 19 August that he had received no such advice from his military advisers.The three witnesses tried to get around this awkwardness by saying that while they had believed a small force should have been retained, they could not possibly disclose the nature of their advice to the president.Asked by Senator Tom Cotton if Biden had been speaking the truth, Austin could only squirm and insist the president was “an honest and forthright man”.In his opening statement Austin had sought forlornly to widen the focus from the last few weeks of the US presence in Afghanistan to the preceding two decades and warned: “We need to consider some uncomfortable truths.”Mismatch of mindsets: why the Taliban won in AfghanistanRead more“Did we have the right strategy? Did we have too many strategies?” he asked. So much faith had been put in nation-building that the sudden collapse of the army and the government, and the panicked flight of President Ashraf Ghani “took us all by surprise”. “It would be dishonest to claim otherwise,” Austin said.Milley said the US military would be trying to learn the lessons of the Afghan failure for a long time to come, but he outlined some of his initial thoughts.One of his lessons, the general said, was not to give the enemy a fixed date for your departure as the Doha deal had done, but base it on a set of conditions. Another of Milley’s conclusions was “don’t Americanise the war” and don’t try to build another country’s army as the mirror image of US forces.But as Milley himself conceded, these were lessons that were supposed to have been learned in Vietnam. The Biden White House had been anxious to avoid parting scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975 but that is exactly what happened, in part because those lessons had been forgotten.The deeper question – never likely to be answered, or even asked, in the bearpit of Congress – is why the US has suffered from such recurrent amnesia each time it has gone off to war.TopicsAfghanistanUS CongressJoe BidenDonald TrumpRepublicansDemocratsTalibananalysisReuse this content More