India has no option other than to engage with the Taliban. This does not mean accepting the latter’s vision of Afghanistan and the world. How the Taliban emerge this time will be known by their government’s composition and actions. If the Taliban are not moderate, inclusive, respectful of the human rights of Afghan men and women of all ethnic groups that make up Afghanistan, and if they does not distance themselves from the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, India’s bets on it will be off.
The people of India and Afghanistan have a connection based on shared culture, history, and India’s two-decades-old development partnership with Afghanistan. India must find creative ways to preserve this inheritance. The Pakistani objective is to reduce India’s profile in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s signalling presents that they want to maintain the multi-faceted relationship with India and do not wish to get drawn into any India-Pakistan confrontation. For India to resume its cooperative activities in Afghanistan, a prerequisite is that the Taliban enable the Indian Embassy and its Consulates to function effectively.
The Haqqani Network
Voices from within the Biden administration, calling for a conditions-based recognition of the Taliban after evaluating their commitment to form an inclusive government, reconcile with the diverse ethnic groups in Afghanistan, and take effective steps to distance itself from al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations, appear to be marginalised.
In response to a question about coordination between the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, the US State Department spokesperson on August 29 stated that the two are separate entities. It is true that while the United States removed the Taliban from its list of designated terrorist organisations, in 2012, the Haqqani Network was put on this list.
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However, the distinction between the Taliban and the Haqqani Network is specious. Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani is one of the deputies of the Taliban chief, Malawi Hibatullah Akhundzada. Khalifa Siraj’s uncle, Haji Khalil-ur Rahman Haqqani, with an unrevoked $5 million bounty on his head has been designated the security chief of Kabul. The Taliban’s Badri 313 unit, comprising commandos now equipped with captured US M-4 rifles and night vision goggles, includes Haqqani Network fighters, as do the internal security units deployed in Kabul.
Al-Qaeda, Daesh and the Taliban
Given the US dependence on the Taliban until August 31 to safeguard US aircraft and troops at the Kabul airport and extract the remaining Americans, allies and friends from Afghanistan, both operational-level and senior US officials have continued their interactions with the Taliban. The Commander of US Central Command, General Kenneth Franklin McKenzie, has been speaking with Taliban leaders. The Wall Street Journal quoted him as stating that during the evacuation process from Kabul, US troops “use the Taliban as a tool to protect us as much as possible,” and added that the US and the Taliban now share a “common purpose”. Less than a week later, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, flew to Kabul to meet with the head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The United States had evicted the Taliban government out of Kabul in a few weeks in 2001. Less than 20 years later, the Taliban have become the security guarantor of US interests in Afghanistan. How much clout the Biden administration has with its new partner can be perceived by the Taliban’s negative reaction to the request of extending the August 31 deadline for the airlift operation, which the US Group of Seven (G7) partners were also seeking through the US good offices.
President Biden rhetorically justifies the new US bonhomie with the Taliban by asking, with al-Qaeda gone, “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point?” He has repeatedly asserted that al-Qaeda no longer presents a threat. The United States acted against the Taliban regime in 2001 because it refused to believe in the US evidence against Osama bin Laden for the September 11 attacks and turned down the request to hand him over. Now that the Taliban are in the saddle again in Afghanistan, their spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, told NBC News in an interview: “Even after twenty years of war, there is no evidence of his (Osama bin Laden’s) involvement (in the September 11 attacks).”
The Taliban claim that al-Qaeda is no longer present in Afghanistan, and the Biden administration echoes this position. This is at odds with the latest available July 21, 2021, report of the United Nations Security Council’s Sanctions Committee, which states that al-Qaeda is present in at least 15 Afghan provinces, operating under the Taliban’s protection from Kandahar, Helmand and Nimroz provinces. The al-Qaeda group in Afghanistan comprises Afghan and Pakistani members and also has representation from India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
More disquietingly, the report states that Daesh or the Islamic State-Khorasan has fanned out from Kunar and Nangarhar provinces to Nuristan, Sari Pul, Badghis, Baghlan, Badakhshan, Kunduz, and Kabul, where it maintains sleeper cells. They claim to have bombed the zenana hospital in Kabul, attacked the Karte Parwan Gurdwara killing the Granthi and several men, women, and children, and bombed the assembled crowd waiting to be evacuated outside Kabul airport. The Haqqani Network is known to have been permissive of Daesh. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence has two main terrorist arrows in its quiver: the primary one in the form of the Haqqani Network and the reserve of Daesh.
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India’s Response
Despite India not being contiguous to Afghanistan, there has been active interaction between the two countries in the form of commercial exchanges and their development partnership. Arguably, India has left several more visible symbols of its reconstruction activities in Afghanistan than other major donor countries. Afghans have a favourable view of Indians, for whom they have tremendous goodwill. This must not be wasted. Afghans need food and medicines. These could be sent via the Iranian port of Chabahar.
Afghan students and those Afghans requiring emergency medical assistance should resume coming to India as soon as commercial flights re-start. The scheme of e-visas announced for Afghans should be implemented. By facilitating the resumption of normal people-to-people interaction that has been the strongest element of India-Afghan ties, the Taliban have an opportunity to show their readiness to engage meaningfully with India.
The Taliban leaders have presented a benign face to the world, anxious to secure recognition and aid. The new narrative, spun by Pakistan, of co-opting the Taliban to combat more radical terrorists, seems to have been embraced by the United States, China and Russia. Iran is more measured in its response. India’s interests in Afghanistan are distinct from its other neighbours and the great powers. It cannot, therefore, bandwagon and will have to find its own equation with the Taliban, which has made some positive promises. It is time for purposive actions now.
Jayant Prasad is former Director-General, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, and former Indian envoy to Nepal and Afghanistan. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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