Taliban’s rapid territorial gains: The future of the post-US Afghanistan
Taliban’s rapid territorial gains: The future of the post-US Afghanistan
WRITTEN BY ABDUL BASIT
19 July 2021
Though the Taliban’s ascendance following the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan has come as something of a fait accompli, the rapidity of the insurgent group’s territorial gains and the meltdown of the Afghan security forces has surprised many. Since May, the Taliban have overrun around 150 districts, some without fighting, giving them control of a third of Afghanistan’s 421 districts. This has prompted US intelligence to revise its Afghan outlook, projecting that President Ashraf Ghani’s government could collapse in as little as six months. By now the Taliban have gained control of areas sharing borders with Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Arguably, The Taliban’s longstanding strategy of gaining control of the rural districts to overtake the provincial capitals is delivering dividends. Presently, the insurgent group is surrounding several key population centres, including those in Badakhshan, Takhar, Faryab, Kunduz and Paktia provinces. Surprisingly, the Taliban have stated that they have no intentions of seizing Kabul militarily. In fact, on 5 July, the Taliban resumed their talks with the Afghan government in Qatar with a commitment to present a written peace proposal in August. A delegation of the Taliban and the Afghan government also met on 8 July in Iran to reduce tensions and resume talks.
At the same time, the Taliban’s ground offensive is surging ahead in Afghanistan’s northern and western peripheral parts closer to the Central Asian states, instead of their traditional strongholds in the south and the east. Of the 153 districts under the Taliban’s control, 100 are in the north and the west. Among these, attaining control of the Tajik-dominated Badakhshan province, sans its capital Fayzabad, is the Taliban’s most significant territorial gain so far. Similarly, the Taliban have made great strides in the northeastern Takhar province — another Tajik-majority area.
Why Taliban gains in the north matter
The Taliban’s territorial advances in the north and the west, particularly in Badakhshan, are instructive for several reasons. First, the Taliban expect significant resistance to their territorial contestations from the north and the west, which are predominantly non-Pashtun Afghan regions dominated by the Tajik and Uzbek ethnicities. The staunchly anti-Taliban warlords, such as Ata Noor Muhammad, Ahmed Massoud (the son of late Ahmed Shah Massoud), Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, and General Abdul Rashid Dostum’s militias are located in these regions.
The gap and the lack of trust between Afghanistan’s political and military leadership have equally contributed to the Afghan security forces’ poor performance against the Taliban’s ground offensive. It is a well-known fact that several units of the Afghan security forces were not fighting by making arrangements with the Taliban, such as staging fake operations.
Even at the peak of their self-styled theocratic rule in Afghanistan (1996-2001), the Taliban struggled to control these areas. From the experience of hindsight, the Taliban know that ignoring these areas or the efforts to take them later will allow their non-Pashtun opponents to fortify their positions and strengthen their defences. So, taking control of these areas to weaken and eventually neutralise the anti-Taliban resistance is part of the Taliban’s military strategy and gain as much territory as possible to strengthen their bargain position in peace talks.
Second, the Taliban want to dispel the impression that they are a Pashtun-centric and not an Afghan representative movement. To this end, the Taliban have recruited non-Pashtun foot soldiers and commanders, and are making efforts to gain control of the non-Pashtun areas. For instance, the deputy head of the Taliban’s military commission and the main architect of spectacular military success in Badakhshan is Qari Fasihuddin an ethnic Tajik. Fasihuddin was instrumental in negotiating surrender deals with the local forces in exchange for indemnity. Likewise, the Taliban appointed Shia Hazara commander Maulvi Mahdi in 2020 as the shadow district chief for northern Sar-e-Pul province.
Third, Badakhshan’s near-fall is both of strategic and symbolic importance. Strategically, Badakhshan is an ethnic Tajik-majority province sharing borders with Tajikistan and China via the Wakhan Corridor. The Tajiks constitute roughly 30 per cent of the Afghan population. If the Taliban succeed in neutralising the Tajik resistance, it will be easier to overcome resistance from Uzbek and Hazara communities who are far less in numbers than the Tajik community. The Central Intelligence Agency launched its post-9/11 campaign against the Taliban with the help of the Northern Alliance from Badakhshan. Even during the heydays of their rule, the Taliban could not penetrate Badakhshan, which was the centre of gravity of the anti-Taliban resistance. India, Russia and Iran helped the Northern Alliance group financially and militarily in the 1990s from Tajikistan via Badakhshan. By taking over the Tajik border crossing, the Taliban have neutralised that supply route, and have gained control over large parts of land adjacent to Afghanistan’s border with China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Why the Afghan forces are melting away
If the Afghan government loses complete control of Badakshan, the Panjshir valley, the birthplace of former Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, will come under direct Taliban threat. Symbolically, the fall of non-Pashtun areas to the Taliban without much resistance also underscores the unpopular nature of the Ghani regime, whose poor governance, corruption and gross mismanagement have alienated swathes of Afghans. Notably, the Tajik warlords’ plundering of local resources for the last two decades has angered locals. Moreover, the population as a whole is sick and tired of endless chaos and bloodshed. They want peace and order, the Taliban’s harsh theocratic rule notwithstanding. In a way, the fall of Badakhshan to the Taliban without any resistance is the rebellion of the ‘subaltern’ against the corrupt Tajik political elite.
The Afghan security forces’ surrender to the Taliban through pre-negotiated deals, locally known as tasleems, instead of putting up a fight, is equally significant to assess the future trajectory of the Afghan conflict. The Afghan forces were heavily reliant on US and NATO troops to execute their responsibilities. The rapid departure of those troops has exposed them to the Taliban’s sophisticated insurgency. The Taliban fight for an ideology, i.e., jihadism, motivated both by the religious fervour of performing a holy task and nationalist ambitions of fighting the foreign occupation. The Taliban believe they have defeated the superpower of the day and the battlefield momentum is in their favour. On the other hand, the diminishing writ of the divided Ghani government does not inspire any confidence in the Afghan security personnel. The Afghan forces lack professional training, clear command structures and competent leadership. They are losing their personnel in large numbers without replacement. According to one report, the desertion rate in Afghan forces is 40 per cent — the highest in the world.
Furthermore, most of the Afghan security personnel are non-Pashtun, primarily drawn from the former Northern Alliance. When they took over Kabul, the Pashtuns, erroneously blamed for supporting the Taliban, were at the receiving end of their atrocities and political discrimination. Knowing this bloody past, they are melting away by availing the Taliban’s indemnity offers through surrenders to avoid the same fate. The gap and the lack of trust between Afghanistan’s political and military leadership have equally contributed to the Afghan security forces’ poor performance against the Taliban’s ground offensive. It is a well-known fact that several units of the Afghan security forces were not fighting by making arrangements with the Taliban, such as staging fake operations. The fall of Takhar and Badakhshan reflects the Afghan government and military’s ineptness and weakness rather than the Taliban’s strength.
Persistent political interference in security matters by President Ghani and his National Security Adviser Hamdullah Muhib’s, who has no military experience, has also affected the performance of the beleaguered Afghan security forces. In recent months, Ghani has changed his interior ministers twice and replaced his defence minister, the army chief and six-core commanders — all in the middle of the US withdrawal and the Taliban's surging ground offensive. Muhib has established a command centre in Afghanistan’s National Security Council, appointing district military commanders and police chiefs and even dictating troop deployment.
Looking ahead
The anti-Taliban warlords and their militias will try to fill the security vacuum created by the Afghan forces’ meltdown. While this strategy may be an effective stop-gap measure, it will create more confusion and chaos in the long run. In a fluid operational environment, this patchwork anti-Taliban coalition of Afghan forces and warlord militias can end up working at cross purposes. If the militias hold their ground, which has not happened so far, and become stronger, they will try to create their small fiefdoms creating more problems for Kabul on top of the Taliban challenge.
Given the fluidity of the situation in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s territorial gains are reversal-prone. Though the Taliban might be winning the battle, Kabul has not lost the war yet. So, it will be premature to jump to any conclusions — the Taliban’s tactical upper hand notwithstanding. The Taliban’s willingness to resume talks offers a slim ray of hope to avoid Afghanistan’s descent into chaos. Still, a politically negotiated settlement holds the key to durable peace and stability in Afghanistan.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Abdul Basit is a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Image credit: Wikipedia.