Taliban success on the battlefield has been won with the support of its regional allies
‘An Islamist government in Kabul with close ties to Islamabad would be an ideal outcome for Pakistan’
The breathtaking speed with which the Taliban have seized control of key territory throughout Afghanistan is not just down to the determination and resourcefulness of its fighters. It also owes a great deal to the support, both military and political, that the hardline Islamist militants are receiving from key allies in the region and beyond.
The Taliban’s nationwide blitz against the beleaguered Afghan security forces has seen them capture about a third of the country’s provincial capitals. They include Kandahar, the country’s second city, as well as Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province and the former base for British forces during their long-running counterinsurgency campaign that ended in 2014 and resulted in 457 war dead and thousands more combat casualties.
The Taliban’s success, which has led US intelligence to conclude the capital, Kabul, could fall within days, is due to a variety of factors: the desire of local warlords to reclaim control of tribal heartlands, growing support among ordinary Afghans who desire an end to decades of conflict, and a catastrophic collapse in the ability of the Westernbacked Afghan security forces to defend vital government positions.
To this list must also be added the critical support the movement has received from a number of key regional allies, whose contributions, in their differing forms, have turned the tide of the conflict in the Taliban’s favour.
For example, the Taliban’s capture earlier this week of the western city of Herat, a major trading post located close to the border with Iran, owes much to the tacit support they have received from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has facilitated – at the very least – the transfer of equipment and supplies across the Iranian border to help the Taliban cause.
Historically, Iran and the Taliban have had a fraught relationship dating back to the late 1990s when the militants murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. But in a classic manifestation of the adage, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, Tehran believes its broader interests are better served by allying itself with the Taliban’s well-orchestrated campaign to destroy any remaining semblance of Western influence in its Afghan neighbour.
To the south and east of the country, the Taliban’s success has been aided by the insidious influence Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service continues to exercise over the lawless tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
The ISI’s complex relationship with Islamist terror networks, which resulted in al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden being given a safe haven in a prominent Pakistani frontier town, is all part of Islamabad’s aim of maintaining “strategic depth” across the Afghan border – i.e. not allowing its deadly foe India to form a close alliance with Kabul.
The creation of an Islamist government in Kabul with close ties to Islamabad would be an ideal outcome for Pakistan, where prime minister Imran Khan’s public support for the Taliban, whom he recently called “normal citizens”, has earned him the nickname “Taliban Khan”. Pakistan these days also enjoys close commercial ties with China, which has a vested interest in acquiring control over Afghanistan’s vast mineral riches.
Meanwhile, the Taliban’s impressive string of victories in northern Afghanistan, which has culminated in a multi-pronged assault on the major city of Mazar-e-Sharif, is being closely watched by Moscow, a veteran player of the Great Game.
Vladimir Putin may no longer be paying the Taliban to kill and maim British and American troops, as was revealed last year, but Moscow will back any outcome that leads to the humiliation of its Western adversaries.
Then there is the role the Gulf state of Qatar, which is due to host next year’s Fifa World Cup, has played in providing the Taliban with the political legitimacy that has enabled it to embark on a global diplomatic offensive, with Taliban envoys using their Qatari base to deepen ties with China and Russia.
Qatar has a long history of funding and supporting hardline Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and its support for the Taliban could prove invaluable to establishing a new Islamic regime in Kabul.
The involvement of so many rival factions and interests in the Afghan conflict means that this is much more than a fight between Islamist extremists and the Afghan government. It is a battle for influence in one of the world’s key strategic locations, one where the West is about to suffer a humiliating defeat.