Free Russian fuel giving cash to Taliban

RUSSIA/AFGHANISTAN: Russia has stepped up its support of the Taliban in Afghanistan in recent months in an effort to stave off the rise of Islamic State but also to avenge its humiliating defeat by Western-backed fighters nearly 30 years ago, according to Taliban officials.

One, a 23-year-old treasurer who is typical of a new youthful echelon of officials, explained how help from Moscow delivered cash into the hands of its commanders.

‘‘The Russian fuel supplies began coming to us 18 months ago,’’ he said. ‘‘At first it was just a few tankers to test the system. But then the numbers suddenly increased so that dozens were coming each month. The Russians give it all to us for free – we just pay the import duty and then keep the profits.’’

Most of the fuel is sold on by Taliban front companies to businessmen in Kabul. The money is

"They [the Russians] have got three aims in dealing with us: defeat Islamic State, undermine the US-supported Afghan government and humiliate and hurt Nato."

A senior adviser to the Quetta Shura, the Taliban leadership based in Pakistan

then transferred through the inscrutable ‘‘hawala’’ system used by terrorist groups and insurgents across the Islamic world.

‘‘I just deal with the finances of a few Taliban commanders in one sector in one province,’’ the treasurer said. ‘‘I transfer them the money and then account for its distribution. But there are many other people like me.’’

The fuel scheme was worth an estimated US$2.5 million (NZ$3.48m) a month to the Taliban and was ‘‘one of many’’ methods of Russian funding to the Taliban, he added.

He agreed to be interviewed on the authority of a senior adviser to the Quetta Shura, the Taliban leadership based in Pakistan. The senior adviser was a former specialist bombmaker from Sangin who was involved in numerous operations against coalition and Afghan units before accepting a political role within the group.

Russia’s presence in the region dates back to the 19th century when it began competing with Britain for influence in central Asia in what came to be known as the ‘‘Great Game’’.

In December 1979 Russian forces invaded Afghanistan in support of Kremlin loyalists. Thousands of Russian troops were killed by Afghan insurgents using weaponry supplied by the West and after a decade of fighting they withdrew. The last of their armoured columns crossed the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan over the Amu Darya river at Hairatan, the same bridge over which their supplies to the Taliban now pass.

The Kremlin’s current support for the Islamist group accelerated when Islamic State established a foothold in Afghanistan in 2014.

‘‘The Russians are afraid that if we become weak then Islamic State will grow stronger in Afghanistan, which will be a big headache for them – and for us,’’ said the senior adviser.

‘‘So now it’s about money, warm relations and weapons. Russia has lost its faith in this government to beat Islamic State. So the Taliban have become their default choice of ally.’’

The adviser said he had met Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s leader in Afghanistan, in Helmand six weeks ago. Akhundzada is well known in Taliban circles for organising prominent suicide attacks, including one that killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president of Afghanistan, in Kabul in 2011.

The adviser said Russia was motivated in part by a wish to avenge its humiliation at the hands of Western-backed mujahidin groups. ‘‘They have got three aims in dealing with us: defeat Islamic State, undermine the US-supported Afghan government and humiliate and hurt Nato.’’

United States officials have accused the Russians of playing on a ‘‘false narrative’’ in supporting the Taliban against Isis in Afghanistan. ‘‘We think it’s really part of a dual-track policy to give the Russian an inroad with whichever power is in place pending a peace one day,’’ an American military official in Kabul said.

Isis is thought to be responsible for less than 5 per cent of the violence in Afghanistan but its presence has caused a paradigm shift among today’s Great Game players. Iran, another traditional enemy of the Sunni insurgents, has also stepped up its supplies of weaponry to the Taliban, and Afghan intelligence officials tell of funerals held in Tehran of Iranian special forces advisers killed on the battlefield while assisting Taliban units in the west of the country.

The role of Pakistan, traditionally the Taliban’s central regional ally, has also begun to shift after Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the group’s leader, was killed by a US drone strike inside Pakistan in May last year while on his way back from a meeting in Iran.

American power was used to carry out the assassination but the Taliban accused Pakistan of treachery in revealing Mansour’s position to the US. They claimed Islamabad’s collusion in the hit came from Mansour’s increasing desire for more independence from his Pakistani handlers.

The roles are changing but the Great Game’s actors remain unchanged, as does one common plot line. This has become the longest war in American history, costing half a trillion dollars, and more than 150,000 lives on all sides have been lost – but peace remains as elusive today in Afghanistan as when Russian troops rolled away down the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan on February 15, 1989.