With eyes set on Kabul seat, Taliban don new T-shirts and guns, bodes ill for Kashmir

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Eyeing power in Kabul in the backdrop of ongoing negotiations with the Americans and NATO, the Taliban has been busy equipping its militants with modern military equipment and raising its own ‘elite forces’ even as the spectre of a bloody civil war in the offing is looming large.

Gone are the days of the Taliban fighter being dressed in loose flowing robes and a turban, dragging a rocket launcher on his shoulder.  A recently released video shows scores of masked Taliban militants apparently from the ‘Red Unit’ or ‘Danger Group’—the Taliban’s version of ‘special forces’—training in well-maintained weapons, boots, trousers, T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) and moving around in a brand new Toyota  military vehicles.

With a September 1 deadline for a tremulous negotiated settlement fast approaching, the US and NATO are only too desperate for an ‘honourable’ exit away from the dusty battlefields of Afghanistan, after 19 years of endless indecisive fighting with no clear victory in sight that saw the death of thousands including about 2,419 US combatants.

According to research by the acclaimed Long War Journal (LWJ), which has been studying the status of Afghanistan’s districts since 2014, in January 2019, the Afghan government controlled only 35.1 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, the Taliban controlled another 13 percent while the remaining 49.6 percent were contested, even as seven districts (or 1.7%) could not be properly assessed.

These figures are at variance with the figures given out by the NATO and US defence department figures which puts the Afghan government control at 53.8 percent of the 407 districts, the Taliban at 12.3 percent while the remaining 33.9 percent were contested.

Since January 2019, the Taliban control has been widely reported to have increased. And in the areas under their control, the Taliban has been setting up some governing architecture by raising taxes, indoctrinating and training its fighters and preparing for operations to launch attacks in areas under government control.

While the Taliban is not a single entity and is indeed a multi-layered one, the ones the US is negotiating with represents the softer elements and not the hardliners who are nurturing just one aim—the establishment of the IEA—an orthodox Wahabbi adherent government in Kabul.

The Taliban is closely assisted and supported by its affiliates including the Al Qaida, the Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba—once the sworn and dreaded enemies of the US establishment.

Says the report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team that was submitted to the UN Security Council Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee on July 15, 2019: “Al-Qaida considers Afghanistan a continuing safe haven for its leadership, relying on its long-standing and strong relationship with the Taliban leadership… Al-Qaida continues to cooperate closely with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and the Haqqani Network. Al-Qaida members continue to function routinely as military and religious instructors for the Taliban.”

Besides the Taliban, various ethnic groups like the Uzbek, Hazara, Tajiks and other warlords and militias are also mobilizing their forces in anticipation of the imminent power struggle.

At the other end of the spectrum are the fighters of the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K), an organisation that is gaining ground by the day. On the IS-K, the July 15 report says: “The group (IS-K) remains concentrated in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces…on the basis of the assessment of one regional member state, broadly borne out by other member states, fighters associated with ISIL-K, including foreign terrorist fighters, number between 2,500 and 4,000”.

CIA MILITIAS

The other element in this developing situation in Afghanistan is the existence of the secretive Afghan paramilitary units or militias raised, maintained and handled by the CIA. Such militias, one example being the Khost Protection Force, are paid for by the CIA and are specially trained to undertake ‘kill’ missions.

While no clear numbers are publicly available, they are believed to number more than 10,000.

A recent report “The CIA’s Army” brought out by Brown University on August 21, 2019, says “CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses.”

“All we know is that the CIA-sponsored forces are uniformed and well-equipped, sometimes work with American English-speaking men during raids, use English phrases, and have also been able to call in air strikes, likely by the American military, which executes most of these strikes. The paramilitary forces are also very well paid, which may be a principal reason why highly skilled and capable Afghans would want to join the units.”

“If cut loose by the CIA, they may be reborn as private armies or “security guards” in the service of powerful individuals, or operate autonomously to prey on civilians and commercial sources. Either possibility is in line with patterns of collective violence in modern Afghan history”, says the Brown University report.

KASHMIR IMPLICATIONS

Amid the ongoing US negotiations with the Taliban, whatever the results be, the implications on Kashmir can be immense. For one, the Taliban enjoys very close relations with the Pakistan army and the latter will try its best to influence more Taliban focus on Kashmir especially by sending in militants in the name of jihad. In fact, it is at the behest of the Pakistan army that the US-Taliban talks are being facilitated.

There will be large numbers of fanatical Taliban fighters and of affiliated groups who will be reluctant to go along with the leadership for a negotiated settlement with the US and will seek to satiate their battle longing elsewhere. Here, Kashmir is bound to be one of the prime destinations for many including the numerous militias and the CIA set-up militias where besides the call of religion, money could well be a motivating factor.

Moreover, India has got bad legacy issues with the Taliban, including the infamous IC 814 Kandhar hijack. The Taliban will not be unhappy if violence spirals in Kashmir. Taliban’s proximity to Lashkar and its leader Hafiz Saeed is only too well-known.

The Nangarhar and Kunar, both provinces in northeastern Afghanistan, are the bases of the IS-K which announced its arrival in the country in 2015. Notably, from Jalalabad (headquarter of Nangarhar) and Asadabad (headquarter of Kunar) to Muzaffarabad (the capital of PoK) or even to the militant launch pads near the Line of Control with India is less than a night of car travel.

These networks already have a support base and existent network in the troubled Kashmir valley and would only be too inclined to exploit the local angst particularly in the backdrop of abrogation of Article 370. In the likely event of a civil war, there is all the likelihood of spillover effects in Kashmir.

And in this entire scenario, Pakistan will be the most willing partner to India’s distress, which in itself can act as a force multiplier.