The modern Taliban – more ambitious, more global

The Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan over recent months has been a particularly brutal affair. Public displays of violence and a reversion to the repressive regime of the previous Emirate have beamed across television screens the world over.

However, the Taliban has carefully crafted its image to be seen as a more global and legitimate face of the country. In late October, the Taliban even requested help in fighting climate change as well as promising to protect freedom of speech and women’s rights.

However, unlike the Taliban prior to US occupation, a far more insidious group has gained key leadership positions within the organisation, making the Taliban more ambitious and global, and potentially spelling disaster for the West by reinvigorating relations with al-Qaeda and the local Islamic State offshoot.

Such are the views of Jeff Smith, research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, in War on the Rocks this week.

The Haqqani network, founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, first emerged in the early 1970s when Pakistan’s intelligence service began to train Afghan insurgents to undertake operations against Afghanistan’s Prime Minister Daoud Khan, and were later re-energised following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

“Pakistan accepted arms and aid from the United States and Saudi Arabia for the anti-Soviet jihad, even as Pakistani intelligence 'controlled their distribution and their transport to the war zone', while limiting contact between the CIA and the mujahideen. Nevertheless, CIA officers, who observed that Jalaluddin 'could kill Russians like you wouldn’t believe', idolised him,” Smith wrote.

“Jalaluddin further distinguished himself by drawing Gulf money and Arab fighters to the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad, even taking an Arab wife from the United Arab Emirates with which he had a son, Sirajuddin. According to Steve Coll, the “Haqqanis did more than any other commander network in Afghanistan to nurture and support Arab volunteer fighters, seeding al-Qaeda’s birth.” Indeed, al-Qaeda’s first training camp was established in Haqqani territory, though at the time Haqqani did not espouse a global jihadist ideology.”

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Throughout this time, Jalaluddin Haqqani received widespread praise in the Western world for their efforts in repelling the Soviets, including from then-president Ronald Reagan who called the movement's leader a "freedom fighter".

We know what happens next.

Amid the post-Soviet chaos in Afghanistan throughout the mid-1990s, the Haqqani network and the Pakistan intelligence services allied themselves with the emerging Taliban movement of Mullah Omar, Smith explained.

By the commencement of Operation Enduring Freedom, the Haqqani network was a staunch enemy of the US.

“From his sanctuary in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Jalaluddin 'began to remobilise his front, and [by late 2002] Haqqani fighting groups were operating in Paktia and Khost' in eastern Afghanistan,” Smith argued.

“Inside Pakistan, Siraj was making the Haqqani network increasingly indispensable to Pakistani intelligence. In the mid-2000s, militant groups in the Haqqani stronghold of North Waziristan began turning their guns inward, targeting the Pakistani state and civilians, eventually coalescing under the banner of a new Pakistani Taliban in 2007.

“Pakistani intelligence leaned on the Haqqani network to broker a series of peace deals with the Pakistani Taliban. Siraj used his connections to 'pressure them to cease attacking [Pakistan’s] security forces — and attack Afghan and Western forces in Afghanistan instead'.”

Not only are they willing to attack Pakistanis and American alike, but Smith argues that the network's new generation (led by Jalaluddin’s son Siraj) are even more aggressive and deadly than their predecessors.

“The Haqqani network was the first among all Taliban factions to embrace suicide bombing tactics and is believed to have played a role in the July 2008 suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed over 50 people, as well as the December 2009 suicide bombing of a CIA outpost in Khost,” Smith notes.

In addition to demonstrating an overwhelming desire to commit acts of violence, Smith evidences a willingness for the Haqqani network – or at least elements within – to collaborate with the Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot.

“In 2020, the group appointed a former 'mid-level Haqqani commander' as its new leader. A 2020 UN report noted 'most attacks claimed by [the Islamic State in Afghanistan] demonstrated some degree of ‘involvement, facilitation, or the provision of technical assistance’ by the Haqqani network'. In May 2020, the Afghan government busted a 'joint cell' of Haqqani network and Islamic State fighters,” Smith argues.

As such, Smith theorises that the modern Taliban government may yet be more ambitious and more global than its predecessors.

This opinion was further evidenced by Abdul Sayed, security expert based in Sweden, and Colin Clarke director of research and policy at the Soufan Group in Foreign Policy earlier this month.

“The Haqqani network has long been the most lethal and vicious element of the Taliban, itself a highly violent and rapoacious group. Now, with Sirajuddin in a leadership role, the Taliban will inevitably grow more radical over time, quashing any hopes for a 'kinder , gentler Taliban',” the pair argue.

Are we back to square zero?

One of the key arguments used to both politically and legally justify the invasion of Afghanistan was the ‘unwilling or unable’ doctrine – positing that if the host state is unwilling or unable to take action against armed groups operating within its borders in the event of an armed attack – then a state can undertake self defence within their borders. Such a doctrine has sparked debate ever since, with critics suggesting that it will lead to a return of unilateralism while supporters say it is critical for the implementation of extrajudicial law enforcement.

With a global Taliban working with further and more violent international terror organisations, only time will tell whether the quagmire will ever come to an end in Afghanistan or whether the doctrine will once again be invoked to take aim at the Taliban.

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