Justine Fleischner of Afghan Peace Watch

A year ago the Western-backed Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban, 20 years after their ouster, seized power once more in Afghanistan. Since then conditions in the country have worsened, with a financial crisis working in tandem with a food crisis, followed by natural disasters and a new war in Europe distracting attention from Afghanistan.

“The Taliban has clearly prioritized its religious and ideological agenda over the economy and the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people,” said Justine Fleischner, director of research at Afghan Peace Watch (APW), in the following interview with The Diplomat’s Catherine Putz. Fleischner identifies key developments in the past year, from new security risks to the revival of age-old repression of women, and points out that the Taliban are ill-equipped to manage these overlapping crises.

It’s been about a year since the collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government. What would you say are the most important developments since then with regard to Afghanistan?

There are three major areas of concern we are monitoring closely: the economy and lack of inclusive governance; human rights abuses such as collective punishment and extrajudicial killings; and the reemergence of transnational terrorist threats.

So far, the Taliban have ignored both domestic and international pressure to form an inclusive government. Technocrats have been sidelined in favor of the Taliban’s core leadership. This includes ministerial posts such as economy, finance, water and energy, civil aviation, and rural rehabilitation and development. Ethnic Pashtuns occupy over 90 percent of these top positions, leaving little room for other ethnic and religious minorities. There are no women present in the Taliban’s government and decree after decree has denied women access to education, employment, and freedom of movement. For war widows and female-headed households this is tantamount to a death sentence.

Second, the human rights situation in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly problematic as former Afghan security forces, ethnic and religious minorities, women right’s activists, and journalists are subjected to forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings, now widely documented by human rights groups. Afghan Peace Watch (APW) maintains a database on these kinds of incidents, including information provided directly to APW by victims’ families. In Panjshir, for instance, where there is significant armed resistance to the Taliban, civilians are subjected to collective punishment and young men have been detained, tortured, and killed by the Taliban.

Finally, the Taliban’s counterterrorism agenda may not be fully aligned with regional and global priorities. In February, the U.N. Sanctions Monitoring Team first highlighted increased al-Qaida and Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K or ISK) activity. Weapon proliferation from Afghanistan also remains a very real and immediate risk as the Taliban demonstrate low technical and institutional capacity. The Taliban maintain longstanding ties with a host of regional terrorist groups, including the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and Kashmiri groups. These terrorist networks may be difficult to monitor and disrupt due to an overreliance on the Taliban, which share personal and ideological ties with these groups.

So far, the spike in ISIS-K activity under the Taliban has been particularly concerning. Previously, the Taliban were responsible for the bulk of terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan, which explains the overall decrease in violence noted by some observers.

As you noted in an article for The Diplomat earlier this year, your team at APW in partnership with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) noted that violence overall had decreased in Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power. Is Afghanistan at peace? Is the country safer? For whom?

If peace is described as the absence of conflict, violence, or intimidation, then women have experienced nothing like peace since the Taliban took over in August of last year. In order to reclaim cultural space from the West, and reinforce their ideological agenda, the Taliban have passed numerous decrees effectively limiting women’s access to healthcare, education, employment, and other basic rights.  Painfully, girls above the age of 14 are still unable to return to school. While university classes remain in session, there will be no new female graduates from high school, effectively severing access to higher education and employment for women. The Taliban have reimposed all their previous restrictions on women, such as a ban on traveling without a male guardian and face coverings. While these rules may not be strictly enforced in Kabul, a banner recently hung in Kandahar warned, “A woman without a hijab is like an animal.” Significantly, the promise of Western donor support and recognition in exchange for an inclusive government and progress on women’s rights has proven to be insufficient leverage over the Taliban.

Violence against civilians, journalists, and activists has also continued, as well as targeted assassinations, detentions, and torture of former Afghan security forces (ANDSF). The New York Times independently verified over 500 cases of former ANDSF personnel being abducted, tortured, and killed, despite the general amnesty declared last year.

One of the trends you noted was not only a series of high-profile Islamic State attacks but also newly formed armed groups and Taliban infighting. How serious do you think the risk of renewed civil conflict in Afghanistan is?

While there may be greater freedom of movement due to the absence of roadside bombs and ambushes set by the Taliban, the risk of renewed fighting remains significant, particularly as the core Taliban leadership continues to alienate other religious and ethnic groups. The Taliban face both internal and external challenges, with internal rifts becoming more pronounced and attacks against the Taliban by both former ANDSF and ISIS-K.

In June, Shia Hazara commander Mehdi Mujahid defected after being dismissed by the Taliban, setting off a wave of fighting in Balkhab, Sar-e-Pul. The redeployment of Taliban forces from neighboring provinces was quickly followed by reports of human rights violations and extrajudicial killings, further inflaming inter-ethnic tensions. Journalists were denied access to the area while the Taliban pushed Mujahid’s forces into the mountains surrounding the area.

While large-scale clashes between the National Resistance Front (NRF) and the Taliban have yet to materialize, the NRF continues to hold territory in Baghlan and Panjshir and engage the Taliban in a deadly low-level insurgency. Former ANDSF troops that make up the ranks of the NRF have adopted many of the same tactics previously deployed against them by the Taliban, who now find themselves on the receiving end of ambushes and roadside bombs. Deaths due to armed clashes between the Taliban and the NRF are difficult to confirm, but fighting may continue to intensify as the Taliban struggle to assert their control on multiple fronts across the country.

ISIS-K has also continued attacks against the Taliban, as well as religious and ethnic minorities, including a spate of terrorist attacks against the Shia Hazara community in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul in April, and the attack on the Sikh temple in Kabul in June. The group has also carried out cross-border attacks in Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan to embarrass the Taliban and ostensibly attract new recruits to their hardline anti-Taliban and transnational agenda.

Afghanistan’s economic state is bleak and the outlook seems even worse. Why is the economic crisis important to address?

Over the past six months, the Taliban have collected $33.80 million in revenue on coal exports to Pakistan alone and will likely continue to benefit from high coal prices globally due to Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. The Taliban recently released their first annual budget for a proposed $2.6 billion, raised by domestic revenue sources alone, without any international assistance. The budget still has a deficit of $500 million. It is unclear how the Taliban will generate the proposed revenues or make up for the shortfall. To put this in perspective, the previous Islamic Republic had an annual proposed budget of $5.5 billion in 2020, of which half was paid for by the international community.

In addition to the economic crisis, Afghanistan has been hit by two major natural disasters and an ongoing drought. On June 22, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over 1,000 people were killed and 6,000 injured. Weeks later, on July 18, a second 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit the same area in Paktika. Top Taliban officials visited the area in June, but demonstrated a lack of capacity to respond. International and local aid agencies have led humanitarian relief efforts. These back-to-back disasters have laid bare the Taliban’s inability to provide basic services, deepening the country’s dependence on aid.

Heightened economic instability is likely to have knock on effects regionally and globally, including forced migration, human trafficking, narco-trafficking, and weapon trafficking emanating from Afghanistan.

In the diplomatic realm, the Taliban have yet to secure recognition from any corner of the international community. Does this matter? What are the practical implications of this continued pariah status? What would it take for other countries to recognize the Taliban government?

While no country has officially recognized the Taliban, several regional countries have established diplomatic ties in some capacity, including China, Pakistan, Qatar, and Russia. The European Union set out clear benchmarks for recognition early on, including respect for women’s rights and the formation of an inclusive government, neither of which the Taliban have taken seriously. For its part, the U.S. has failed to articulate a clear strategy and the Biden administration seems eager to move on from the botched evacuation effort last year. According to the U.S. based non-profit No One Left Behind, over 160,000 SIV-eligible Afghans remain stranded in Afghanistan one year later.

The Taliban have taken steps to ensure their survival, with or without international recognition and support. This position was echoed during the Taliban’s tightly guarded three-day “grand assembly of ulema” that concluded on July 2. The meeting of 4,000 Taliban religious scholars and the group’s secretive supreme leader, Mawlawi Haibuatullah Akhundzada, failed to come to any resolution on the contentious issue of girls’ access to education, clearly signaling to the international community their unwillingness to compromise on their ideological agenda.

As part of the Taliban’s strategy to ensure its survival irrespective of Western recognition, the group has placed greater emphasis on regional engagement. Pakistan enjoys the closest relationship with the Taliban and Pakistani officials were among the first to visit Kabul following the collapse last year. Pakistan is also Afghanistan’s most important trading partner and hosts over 1.4 million Afghan refugees. Pakistan has been a lifeline for the Taliban for decades.

Iran also seems to be on good terms with the Taliban and has accepted Taliban diplomats at the Afghan Embassy in Tehran. Iran also recently returned weapons to the Taliban that had been brought across the border by fleeing ANDSF last year. The only sensitivities for Iran seem to be the Taliban’s ability to control migration and ISIS-K activity, given Iran’s Shia majority, although the Iranian government seems unaffected by violence against Shia Hazaras inside Afghanistan.

Both China and Russia have hosted Taliban delegations and maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul along with Iran and Pakistan. Russia is primarily concerned with creating a buffer for Central Asia to cushion the impact of any instability in northern Afghanistan, as well as groups such as the IMU. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are both marginally sympathetic to their ethnic communities in Afghanistan, but are under Russia’s sphere of influence.

While China has hosted the Taliban, it seems unlikely to invest in serious infrastructure and resource extraction until the situation becomes more stable. For their part, the Taliban have proven willing to overlook Chinese treatment of Muslim Uyghurs, in exchange for economic support. Given the situation in Ukraine and the Russian sanctions, the Taliban are likely to continue to look toward their immediate neighbors to ensure its survival.

In the Middle East, Qatar has long hosted the Taliban’s political offices and has played a central role in negotiations with the United States. The Taliban trust the Qataris, which is why they were chosen to host the peace talks. Nevertheless, a Dubai-based firm recently won the bid to continue running all of Afghanistan’s major international airports. This development is interesting as there were credible reports that both Turkey and Qatar had put in bids for the same contract.

Collectively, this suggests the Taliban may have adequate regional backing that does not require any religious or ideological concessions to the West.

Why is it important to continue paying attention to what happens in Afghanistan, even amid so many crises around the world competing for attention?

The Taliban have clearly prioritized their religious and ideological agenda over the economy and the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people, which has raised fears of renewed conflict, political instability, and forced migration due to food insecurity. As a result, the Taliban may ultimately prevail in successfully securing Western aid while also remaining intransigent on women’s rights, an inclusive government, and amnesty for former ANDSF. It is also unclear how the West will assess the Taliban’s cooperation on counterterrorism, including severing ties with al-Qaida and effectively tackling the threat posed by ISIS-K. Competition between these terrorist groups for attention and credibility among global jihadi networks, with significant audiences in Africa and the Middle East, may present new terrorist threats the Taliban are ill-equipped to contain.