The Growing Threat of the Islamic State in Afghanistan and South Asia

June 9, 2023

BY: Abdul Sayed;  Tore Refslund Hamming

United States Institute of Peace

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, counterterrorism experts were alarmed at the possible resurgence of Islamist terrorist groups within the country. This Special Report lays out why those concerns, particularly about the regional Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), were well-founded. The report discusses the likely trajectory of ISKP’s activities in South Asia and recommends measures to minimize potential threats to the West and build regional resilience to extremism.

Summary

  • Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the threat posed by terrorism in the region has grown. The primary threat, however, is neither the Taliban nor their close ally al-Qaeda, but the Islamic State’s regional affiliate the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).
  • ISKP’s “core” territory remains Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although ISKP first emerged as a Pakistani-dominated network, it soon focused on Afghanistan. It has switched its strategy there from controlling territory to conducting urban warfare. It posed a serious security threat to the former Afghan government and now seeks to disrupt the Taliban’s efforts to govern.
  • The Islamic State’s presence in South Asia is not limited to Afghanistan and Pakistan but extends to include “periphery” territory, including India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. In these periphery states, however, the Islamic State faces a struggle for relevance in the face of competition with rival militant groups and strong counterterrorism pressure.
  • ISKP poses a growing threat to the West and its South Asian partners, and ISKP’s alarming potential calls for the West to take a variety of countermeasures, including even limited counterterrorism cooperation with the Taliban.

About the Report

This report analyzes the origin, status, and future of the Islamic State in South Asia and the threat it may pose to the West. Drawing on primary sources issued by ISKP and associated networks and individuals, the report explores the situation and prospects of the Islamic State not only in its regional “core” territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also in its “periphery” territory, including India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. The work was supported by the Asia Center at the United States Institute of Peace.

About the Author

Abdul Sayed is an independent researcher on jihadism and the politics and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Tore Refslund Hamming is senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicali-sation at King’s College London and director of the research consultancy Refslund Analytics.

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The Daily Hustle: Being a widow in Afghanistan

June 5, 2023

Roxanna Shapour

Afghanistan Analysts Network

The word most often used by Afghans to refer to widows is bisarparast (without someone to take care of you). In Afghanistan’s highly patriarchal society, where men are expected to be the breadwinners and opportunities for women to work are relatively few, being a widow is likely to be socially and economically precarious. They are often stigmatised, passed over for jobs and considered burdens on their families. One of the legacies of almost a half-century of war in Afghanistan it the high number of widows – there are no official statistics, but news reports put their number at two million or more. The position of widows without sons is even more insecure, especially since the Taleban takeover has intensified the requirement for women to have a close male relative to act as a chaperone (mahram) and legal guardian. The subject of our latest Daily Hustle is such a widow, an older woman who never had children and who has learned to live on her wits to survive widowhood, economic upheaval and her marginal status in society. 

A daughter’s legacy 

There is a pear tree outside the room in the house that I share with my three brothers and their families. It grew from a cutting taken by my father from a tree in his father’s garden in our ancestral village, brought with him to Kabul when he and my mother moved here in search of work and a better place to raise a family. This is the house I grew up in and this room is my birthright. The room and the pear tree outside its window – a daughter’s inheritance amounts to half of a son’s share – are the only things I own in this world .

I am the only daughter and the youngest in my family. I’m also a childless widow.

I spent my girlhood at home doing chores and caring for my parents, who, by that time, were ailing and needed me to look after them. So, I never expected to get married. But after my mother died, my father came home one day with a man he said had asked for my hand. I was 25 years old – an old maid by Afghan standards – and lucky to have found a husband. He was a distant relative several years older than me, with a grown son from his first marriage. His first wife had died in childbirth and my husband, unable to care for his son, had left him in the care of his grandmother. That son still lived in our remote village in Afghanistan’s central highlands.

Our wedding night was the first I had spent away from my father’s house. We lived in the piyada khana (outbuilding) at the bottom of the garden of the guesthouse of the small NGO where my husband worked as a driver and odd-job man. He was a gentle, caring man with a great sense of humour. He always treated me with respect. He never beat me and never mistreated me. Eventually, the NGO also hired me as a cleaner and we settled into a routine. Later, his son and wife came to Kabul in search of work and lived with us for a time before they moved into their own place and got going on starting their own family. These were happy years and I thought they would last forever.

The precarious life of a widow

My husband died unexpectedly from a heart attack ten years after I married him. I had to move back to my room in my father’s house. Society cannot abide a woman living alone in a house full of strangers without a mahram. By then, my brothers were married and had children of their own. At first, they weren’t happy giving me back my room, but they came around to the idea when they realised I could contribute to household expenses and ease their financial burdens. With the help of my stepson, I fixed my room, put carpeting down and bought new toshaks (floor cushion or narrow mattresses). Several months later, the manager of the NGO gave me an old TV that was no longer being used in the guesthouse. The arrival of the TV raised my status in the household and my room became the gathering place in the evenings. When we had electricity, we used to watch Turkish soap operas over dinner.

Then, the NGO closed its guesthouse and I was suddenly without a job. I had worked there for 15 years and never considered the possibility that I might lose my livelihood. It was the only job I had ever had and I didn’t know how to find another. My old colleagues used their contacts to find me jobs, but they never lasted. First, there was the woman who didn’t like how I cleaned and thought I was too old and, later, a foreign organisation with a big guesthouse in Wazir Akbar Khan [an affluent neighbourhood in Kabul]. That job paid well, but the NGO eventually downsized and moved its staff into one of the big compounds near the airport. I again lost my job.

After my husband died, I’d been forced to start thinking about my future. My late husband was a good man, but not so good at planning for the future or putting away a nest egg for a rainy day. I used to give him all my salary, so I had no savings. I had been left only with the room I’d inherited from my father. I also knew I couldn’t count on my brothers for financial support. Instead, it was my stepson and his wife who were my safety net.[1] He had a good job and he and his wife are warm and generous people, but their family was growing and I couldn’t contemplate having to impose on their goodwill into my old age. So, every month, I started saving some of my salary. I resisted all efforts to get me to open a bank account. Instead, I bought gold, mostly bangles as well as other gold trinkets – savings that I could see and touch and keep on my person at all times.

Facing an uncertain future 

Finally, after two years of working sporadically and living mostly on the generosity of my stepson, I was introduced to a young couple who’d moved back to Afghanistan from America. The wife was pregnant and they needed someone to clean the house and care for the baby when it was born. I worked for this family for five years. I was there when their daughter took her first steps and spoke her first words and later, also, when they came back from America with their second daughter. I had grown to love this joyful young family and knew they cared for me in return.

But this was not to last. Afghanistan was changing. There were peace talks in Doha and rumours that the Taleban were going to come back to power soon. Finally, [President] Ashraf Ghani ran away and the Taleban came into Kabul the same day. The young couple I worked for started making plans to leave the country. When the Taleban took power, their jobs disappeared and they decided to return to America, where their families lived and where they had a support system. So, on a cold December morning, several months after the Taleban came back to Kabul, they left. There were tears and hugs and promises that they’d soon return.

Their departure took an emotional and financial toll on me. Once again, I was facing an uncertain future. Most people were busy making plans to leave Afghanistan and there were no jobs to be had for a middle-aged widow. My former colleagues, who’d helped me find work in the past, were no longer in Afghanistan. They called to check I was OK and some occasionally sent money. Luckily, I’d grown my savings into a long row of gold bracelets and I had some cash – several months’ salary – that the family had given me before they left. When the banks closed after the Taleban takeover, my gold bracelets kept food on the table for my brothers and my stepson’s family. I sold them one by one and got a good price for them too. The price of gold had gone up and I was able to sell them for much more than I’d paid. But with each bracelet sold, I watched my little nest egg dwindle and still I had no job.

Counting my blessings

I am truly blessed to have people who care about me. Once again, friends and former colleagues clamoured to help. Finally, with the help of a former colleague, I got a job cleaning a small organisation’s office. The work is easy, but the pay is low. I don’t think I can ever make enough money to replenish my savings. Still, I’m not complaining. For now, I earn enough to make ends meet and keep my sisters-in-law from complaining that they might have another mouth to feed.

On my way to work every morning, I walk past a group of burqa-clad women, each indistinguishable from the next, huddled together in front of the neighbourhood bakery. They are widows like me. They sit there all day, waiting for a kind passer-by or the baker to give them some bread. They must be from the neighbourhood. I probably know some of them, but any gesture of recognition would be a terrible breach of their abero (dignity). If I have any extra money, I buy a few pieces of bread for them. As I walk away, I say a prayer for them and thank God for his blessings.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour

References

References
↑1 This is unusual and not something expected of a stepson in Afghan culture. Rather, it should be a widow’s birth family, especially her brothers, who look after her, if needed.

 

The Daily Hustle: Being a widow in Afghanistan
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Who Are the Taliban Now?

June 2, 2023

Steve Coll

Hassan Abbas’s book surveys the second Islamic Emirate’s ideology and leading personalities and probes its internal tensions.

The New York Review of Books

June 22, 2023 issue

The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan After the Americans Left

by Hassan Abbas

Yale University Press, 286 pp., $26.00

Nearly two years after the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul, the UN refers to the regime only as “the de facto authorities,” to avoid any hint of formal recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban call their government. By any name, the Taliban today control Afghanistan’s territory, as well as federal ministries and local administrations. They also preside over a nation in severe crisis. Food insecurity haunts at least half of the population; a country shattered by more than four decades of war again faces the shadow of famine.

A succession of edicts by Taliban clerics has disrupted the delivery of vital international aid. The Taliban have forbidden girls and women from attending school beyond sixth grade and from working for NGOs, prompting dozens of international aid groups to suspend or reduce operations. In April the Taliban extended their work ban to the four hundred Afghan women employed by the UN, a decision that threatens about $3 billion in annual food, medical, and other humanitarian assistance. (The US and other wealthy donor nations funnel their Afghan aid mainly through UN agencies, to prevent the Taliban from controlling the funds.)

The Biden administration and European governments have many quarrels with the Taliban, but the regime’s policies denying education and work to women lie at the heart of the current emergency over international aid. “This extreme situation of institutionalised gender-based discrimination in Afghanistan is unparalleled anywhere in the world,” Richard Bennett, the UN’s special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, and Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, chair of a UN working group on gender discrimination, reported in May, after an eight-day visit to the country. The Taliban’s practices amounted to an “apparent…crime against humanity,” they concluded.

The Taliban’s position is that their gender policies are an internal matter and that shielding Afghan women from foreign-run workplaces is necessary to prevent sin.

During the Taliban’s earlier stint in power, from the mid-1990s until their overthrow after September 11, the movement banned women from working outside the home for NGOs, the UN, universities, and most government agencies, although it did allow women, under restrictions, to work for private businesses and occasionally in occupations such as midwifery, as it does now. Movement spokesmen say that the bans on female education are temporary while the regime works out acceptable forms of supervision and gender segregation in classrooms. Yet in view of the authorities’ tightening of restrictions, and the Taliban’s history of denying education to women and girls, it is doubtful they will ever adopt policies acceptable to the West.

These days, triumphant after their defeat of America and “half-believing” that they don’t need international aid groups at all, the Taliban see foreign-run organizations as “an even greater threat,” as Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network wrote recently. The movement’s policies toward women and girls have left the UN and its aid delivery partners with only terrible choices, she noted: comply with discriminatory rules that may violate international law, ignore or finesse the rules and put local employees at risk of Taliban punishments, or withhold food and medical aid from a population in acute need.

Is there a way to prevent yet more suffering by the Afghan people under Taliban rule? The questions of who the new Taliban are, what makes them different from the regime of the 1990s, and how the world should manage them are subjects of Hassan Abbas’s The Return of the Taliban, which surveys the second Islamic Emirate’s ideology and leading personalities while probing its internal tensions. Abbas, a Tufts-educated scholar and former senior Pakistani police officer who wrote an illuminating earlier book about the Taliban,

invites us to take them seriously, and the questions he explores are difficult and important. They are also largely ignored in the US, where the Biden administration and the Republican Party have turned their backs on America’s painful failure in Afghanistan, or else mined the disaster’s controversies for partisan talking points that have little bearing on the present situation.

The Taliban have established their second emirate on the rubble of the Islamic Republic constructed and defended by the United States and NATO allies after September 11, a project that exacted an enormous cost in lives and resources. After the US-led invasion of 2001, war against the Taliban and terrorist groups sheltered by the movement killed more than six thousand American military service members and contractors, and roughly 165,000 Afghans, including about 50,000 civilians. Military operations and reconstruction cost more than $1 trillion.

Initially vanquished, the Taliban used sanctuary and support in Pakistan to mount a gradual comeback as a guerrilla force, drawing NATO into a grinding stalemate that proved politically unsustainable. The Trump administration negotiated an exit of US forces in exchange for minimal concessions by the Taliban, and when Joe Biden announced a final departure in April 2021, the Islamic Republic collapsed even faster than the most pessimistic analysts had forecasted. In August 2021 President Ashraf Ghani fled by helicopter, and the US evacuated personnel and at-risk Afghans amid infamous scenes at the Kabul airport.

The Taliban of 2023 are not the same as the Taliban of the 1990s. Many of the movement’s cadres under arms today were toddlers or not yet born at the time of the September 11 attacks. They grew up as part of South Asia’s smartphone and social media generation, even as they fought to overthrow the US-forged Kabul republic, whose donors made digital technology available across Afghanistan. During the 1990s the Taliban banned cameras, tape recorders, and other modern gadgets. After September 11 they modified those doctrines and embraced online media as a propaganda vehicle. Taliban leaders today retain large Twitter followings and benefit from a sophisticated social media presence.

The rise of the digital Taliban may be ironic, but it should not be misunderstood as evidence of some new accommodation of global norms. “I will not let the disbelievers implement their rules on us,” Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s emir and supreme leader, who is in his mid-seventies, told a gathering of clerics and tribal leaders in July 2022. “Now is the time for us to take complete control. We do not want to live according to others’ expectations nor will we deal with them even if they use an atomic bomb on us.”

That month the chief justice of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, published a book entitled The Islamic Emirate and Its System, a manifesto for Taliban governance with an introduction by Hibatullah. The work “brims with fear and insecurity,” Abbas writes, as well as misogyny and intolerance of minorities. Crucially, the volume affirms the emir’s absolute power and a religious obligation to obey him.

Hibatullah is the third Taliban supreme leader and the one most obviously concerned with Islamic jurisprudence. Mullah Mohammad Omar, the deceased founding emir, was a conservative rural cleric, but he also gained renown among his followers as a guerrilla fighter who lost an eye battling Soviet forces during the 1980s. His successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour—who was killed in Pakistan in May 2016 by a US drone strike—was a more worldly figure, a hefty former aviation minister who reportedly ran sanctions-busting endeavors, frequented Dubai, and maintained ties with Iran. By comparison, Hibatullah is self-isolating and scholarly. He served as deputy chief justice on the Supreme Court during the 1990s. After the US-led invasion of 2001 he followed other Taliban leaders to safety in Pakistan, where he supervised a madrassa and joined the Taliban’s ruling council. According to Abbas, following Hibatullah’s appointment as emir, he got rid of Mansour’s team. He governs today mainly from Kandahar, the Taliban’s birthplace.

In 2018 Donald Trump appointed Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, to negotiate with the Taliban for a withdrawal of American forces. Khalilzad was one of a number of international diplomats who saw promise in the attitudes of Taliban negotiators who represented the movement at a political office in Qatar. These men (all men, of course) included Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, now a deputy prime minister. According to Khalilzad, Baradar expressed openness to a deal in which the Taliban might share power with non-Taliban Afghan leaders, and it was certainly Baradar who helped to seal the Doha Agreement of February 2020, whereby the US pledged to pull out its military forces from Afghanistan by May 2021 in exchange for Taliban counterterrorism pledges.

Since the Taliban took power, their policymaking has been dominated by Hibatullah’s harsh, idiosyncratic ideas about Islamic law and society, even as Baradar and other figures from the Qatar office have taken positions in the new cabinet. Looking back, we can see—as Afghan and other skeptics of the Taliban’s diplomacy warned at the time—that Hibatullah used his Doha negotiators as American presidents often use State Department diplomats in treaty talks: they were not making decisions but rather cultivating international credibility while talking and maneuvering their way to the best deal possible. As Abbas notes, “At the end of the day, Hibatullah and Baradar made a great team for the Taliban.”

Hibatullah’s leadership has reaffirmed that the Taliban’s cohesion depends on the authority and supremacy of the emir and the advice of his favored religious scholars. The supreme leader’s views on female education are rejected by many international scholars of Islamic law in Muslim-majority countries. Yet in Afghanistan today, only Hibatullah can change the rules, and he does not show any sign of doing so.

Supreme though he may be, Hibatullah is not the Taliban’s only powerful figure. The costs Afghanistan is enduring because of his edicts have given rise to persistent rumors of splits within the government—and even, this year, some notable if fleeting public evidence of internal dissent. In addition to threatening humanitarian aid, Hibatullah’s policies all but guarantee that neither the US nor European governments will formally recognize the emirate, help to fund the Afghan economy, or ease travel sanctions on Taliban leaders.

It is a measure of the worldwide unacceptability of the Islamic Emirate’s gender policies and other forms of extremism that, despite Afghanistan’s mineral wealth and crossroads location, not a single nation has yet formally recognized the government, although about a dozen countries—including Russia, China, and Pakistan—have accepted Taliban diplomats. It is fair to ask, as Abbas does, how long pragmatic Taliban leaders who have economic interests or who seek influence beyond Afghanistan’s borders will put up with Hibatullah’s decisions.

The second most powerful person in Afghanistan today is probably Sirajuddin Haqqani, the minister of interior affairs and the leader of an eponymous network founded by his late father, Jalaluddin. The Haqqanis pledge loyalty to the Taliban’s emir but are seen as more of a coalition partner than a subordinate faction. The family has long had ties to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the major Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI. (Jalaluddin was also a paid ally of the CIA during the 1980s, when he fought against the Soviets.) From their base in eastern Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, the Haqqanis have commanded thousands of guerrillas, run businesses, and founded Islamic seminaries. During the US war, their network carried out ferocious attacks, suicide bombings, and assassinations that killed thousands of Afghan civilians. The US and the UN have designated Sirajuddin and other family members as terrorists.

Nonetheless, Sirajuddin has lately positioned himself as a practical figure seeking to normalize Afghanistan’s place in the world. Last year he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, “We would like to have good relations with the United States and the international community based on rules and principles that exist in the rest of the world.” In February, without naming the emir, Sirajuddin hinted publicly at his network’s dissatisfaction with Hibatullah’s leadership. “Monopolizing power and hurting the reputation of the entire system are not to our benefit,” he said in a speech. “The situation cannot be tolerated.”

Not all Taliban leaders want to keep women and girls locked up at home. After the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001, some movement leaders living in exile in Qatar and Pakistan, or underground inside Afghanistan, sent their daughters to secondary school and even university.

Today some Taliban ministers may recognize how Afghanistan changed during the US-led war, which poured tens of billions of dollars into the country and promoted urbanization. A phantasmagoria of images and ideas—including Western ones—enter Afghan homes on social media. Literacy rates for women and men have risen, and a generation of girls grew up with a new set of expectations. The Taliban, without yielding their extremely conservative principles, have already adapted some of their rules to accommodate realities of the digital era. Some cabinet-level leaders seem clearly willing to also update their policies to allow Afghan girls and women—not just those related to powerful Taliban figures—greater scope to study and work.

Another perceived Young Turk in the Taliban cabinet is the defense minister, Mullah Yaqoob Mujahid, who is in his early thirties and is a son of Mullah Omar. He told NPR’s Steve Inskeep last year that it was “obvious” that he wanted better relations with the US. As the rising scion of a well-known family, he belongs to a class of dynastic politicians familiar across South Asia. Photographed on an official visit to Qatar last year, he looked at ease aboard his government jet and during conversations with Qatari leaders. Earlier this year, following Sirajuddin’s speech, Yaqoob too made remarks that were seen as obliquely critical of Hibatullah.

Abbas’s take is that “the battle lines…are drawn” between “the relatively pragmatic Taliban in Kabul and their highly conservative counterparts” in Kandahar. Yet, he observes, the divisions have resulted only in “policy paralysis.” In fact, the movement is not likely to crack up violently over issues like female education, even if such policies cause international isolation. The Taliban have a long record of maintaining military and political unity under severe pressure. And it is not obvious why Sirajuddin or Yaqoob (who do not get on with each other, according to Abbas) would risk their power in a confrontation with the supreme leader over women’s rights, a favored cause of the very infidel powers that the Taliban fought for two decades to expel from Afghanistan.

Some sort of political transition in Kabul that tests the contours of Taliban factionalism seems more likely during the next year or two than an ideological split does. Mullah Hassan Akhund, the prime minister, who is reportedly in his seventies, “is believed to be quite ill,” Abbas reports, and in May Maulvi Abdul Kabir was named as a temporary replacement. Kabir participated in the Doha talks with the United States, but it is unclear whether his appointment portends a change in direction on access to education or work.

We should be very cautious about forecasting changes to the Taliban’s policies toward women or in any other field. Again and again in assessing the Taliban, American and European diplomats have assumed that its leaders will act as conventional politicians might, adjusting their doctrine to obtain funding and diplomatic legitimacy. But the Taliban’s empowered clerical leaders believe they have been called by God to wage an eternal war of ideas against devilish enemies of Islam and must remain vigilant. They do not describe this conflict as a material one or as a struggle to be managed through the give-and-take of international politics. As Hibatullah explained in his speech last year:

Infidels and foreigners were not fighting us for territory or money. They were fighting against our faith and beliefs to stop the practice of Islam and jihad. This fighting is still not over and will continue until the end of times…. We have not done any kind of consultations with them and will never do so in future.

On July 31, 2022, a missile fired by a US drone killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, as he stood on the balcony of a home in a comfortable quarter of Kabul. Al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor, was a guest of the Haqqani network, according to the White House. The strike showed that the CIA could still assassinate an al-Qaeda leader even without American troops and intelligence officers in Afghanistan, a fact that offered credence to the Biden administration’s argument that the US withdrawal from the country wouldn’t sacrifice its counterterrorism goals. Yet it also offered vivid evidence of the persistent presence of globally ambitious terrorist groups in Afghanistan, and of Taliban collaboration with some of them.

The Taliban’s revived rule over Afghanistan has dramatically reduced violence in the country, yet an array of independent armed groups still operates there. Some, like al-Qaeda, whose presence in Afghanistan was the reason the US invaded in the first place, remain allied with the Taliban, but one formidable group, the Islamic State–Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, has battled the Taliban repeatedly. ISIS-K is a branch of the group that originated in Iraq; it emerged in Afghanistan around 2015. Since the Taliban’s takeover, ISIS-K has assassinated Taliban leaders, mounted attacks in a dozen provinces, and carried out devastating bombings inside Kabul.

During the US-led evacuation through Kabul’s airport, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed eleven US Marines, a Fleet Marine Force corpsman, a US Army soldier, and more than 170 Afghans. Defeating the group is the most obvious interest shared by the US and the second Islamic Emirate. David Cohen, the CIA’s deputy director, met with Taliban leaders in Qatar last fall to discuss counterterrorism, and American advocates for greater engagement with the Taliban often place counterterrorism at the top of their agenda. In late April, the White House announced that the Taliban had killed the latest leader of ISIS-K. It is unclear whether the CIA and the Taliban today maintain contact or cooperate in any way against ISIS-K, but they might.

In addition to ISIS-K, former commanders of Ashraf Ghani’s security forces have mounted scattered armed resistance against the Taliban. The most visible group is the National Resistance Front (NRF), led by Ahmad Massoud, the British-educated son of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the legendary anti-Soviet resistance fighter assassinated by al-Qaeda shortly before September 11. The NRF has fought the Taliban in and around Massoud’s former stronghold in Panjshir Valley, but it does not currently threaten the Kabul regime militarily. It is one of several groups operating mainly from exile that have embarked on political programs to establish a broad-based anti-Taliban opposition.

Shamed by defeat and focused on Ukraine and other priorities, US and European governments have taken little interest in the political potential of the evacuated Afghan diaspora—a fractured, struggling, and traumatized population whose leaders include figures from the Islamic Republic now discredited among their own people. In addition to the exiles, a sizable but largely unmapped population of Afghans inside the country either oppose the Taliban (judging by occasional daring public protests) or merely wish to have a say in their country’s governance and direction. The more the second Islamic Emirate acts as a dictatorship and excludes huge numbers of its people from opportunity and influence, the more important these non-Taliban Afghans are likely to become—whether or not international governments help them.

In The Return of the Taliban, Abbas provides a well-informed survey of the second Islamic Emirate through 2022. The book’s tone is oddly conversational, however, and the text is laced with exclamation points—more a professor’s riffing lecture than a narrative or well-organized argument. Abbas’s main conclusion is that the Taliban of today are adapting to governance and have “proven to be relatively pragmatic.” This is a hard judgment to accept, unless the standard of comparison is merely the pre-digital dystopia of the first Islamic Emirate. Since 2021, despite being urged by such Islamic allies as Pakistan and Qatar to form a government that includes non-Taliban figures and a fair representation of Afghanistan’s ethnic diversity, Taliban leaders—who are almost all Pashtun, members of the country’s largest ethnic group—have failed to do either.

Abbas argues forcefully for engagement with the Taliban regime, nonetheless, noting that this “does not in any sense equate with endorsement.” He writes, “Engaging with the Taliban will, at the very worst, result in the inflation of their egos—and at best will restore life to a nation and people who have long deserved peace and prosperity.”

In some respects, this argument is uncontroversial and is already accepted in Washington and European capitals. The US, Europe, and neighboring countries such as Pakistan and Iran have an interest in preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan that might produce a total collapse of the state and yet more destabilizing emigration by desperate Afghans. Biden administration special representative Thomas West and EU and UN envoys have regularly engaged with the Taliban on humanitarian aid and technical efforts to improve the country’s banking system and private market.

Since Hibatullah has reaffirmed the Taliban’s ban on university and secondary education for women and girls, and tightened work rules, the Biden administration has pulled back some, but it remains committed to providing humanitarian relief through UN agencies—assuming that the UN can find a way to work under the Taliban’s gender restrictions.

The questions get thornier if diplomatic engagement ranges beyond emergency aid into areas such as counterterrorism, economic reconstruction, and counternarcotics. (Afghanistan has been the source of about four fifths of the world’s opium, but the Taliban announced a ban on poppy cultivation last year, though it isn’t clear how effective the ban will be.) Opponents of further engagement argue that to talk and bargain with the Taliban on matters beyond humanitarian aid is to implicitly legitimize their gender and human rights policies, and their tolerance of terrorists.

In any event, the language of professional diplomacy typical in this sort of sustained negotiation—the search for “leverage” to fashion a “quid pro quo”—seems misplaced. All of the Taliban’s leaders, whether perceived as extreme hard-liners or not, are under the impression that they won a great and historic military victory over the world’s superpower, a victory ordained by God, and they are not likely to be moved by US leverage or enticed by promises of financial investment, if this would require them to compromise the values that underpinned their triumph.

One problem with Abbas’s argument about engagement is that it is too narrow. Afghanistan is not only the Taliban. The Afghan diaspora includes politically active women flown out of the country by the US and European governments for their protection. They and many thousands of younger people seek a voice in their country’s future, judging by their social media postings. For the US and Europe, engagement with this other Afghanistan—supporting the diaspora’s new and unexpected lives as refugees and empowering them to argue about Afghanistan’s direction—is surely as important as engagement with Hibatullah’s regime. The Biden administration—led by Thomas West and Rina Amiri, the US special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights—has done this by continuing to fund Afghan civil society groups since the withdrawal, even if they must work from exile. Yet the US and its major allies have developed no meaningful political strategy to challenge the Taliban’s monopoly on power in Kabul or nurture credible alternatives to them.

The Biden administration allowed the Afghan embassy in Washington to close in March 2022, depriving both the Taliban and their opponents of access to the building—a telling sign of the administration’s caution. Infuriatingly, it has botched the one part of Afghan policy it has the greatest power to control—clearing the enormous backlog of visa applications by the tens of thousands of eligible Afghans who served the US after 2001 but were left behind in the 2021 evacuation. These people remain at risk of Taliban persecution. The administration insists that it is speeding up visa paperwork, but its record to date is indefensible.

How, exactly, to support Afghan exiles who seek to end or change Taliban rule is a fraught subject. The Soviet invasion of 1979 ignited more than four decades of civil war exacerbated by outsiders—not least the US—who have fostered violence in the name of Afghanistan’s “liberation.” Neither the Biden administration nor any other government currently advocates arming the Taliban’s opposition. But there are unsettled debates over how severely to sanction Taliban leaders and whether to more actively support a political opposition—for instance, by setting up a political office in Qatar similar to the one the Taliban enjoyed. If Hibatullah’s policies on women’s education and work do not change, international human rights advocates and exiled Afghan women, buoyed by global public opinion, will surely challenge the status quo in American and European political strategy—as they already have since 2021, by pushing the Biden administration to empower Amiri’s role at the State Department and by helping to place gender rights consistently at the top of the UN and EU agendas. The Taliban are a fact of life in global politics, but so are international law and the worldwide movement to improve the status of women and girls.

There is something repetitive, performative, and self-deluding in America’s search for leverage over the second Islamic Emirate. Yet abandoning Afghanistan to its fate is not a moral or self-interested choice for either the US or Europe. A further collapse of the government might cause another wave of mass migration toward Europe, which would strengthen the continent’s nativist and far-right political parties. Ignoring groups like ISIS-K and al-Qaeda would risk repeating the policy errors of the 1990s, which helped set the stage for September 11. For the foreseeable future, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan will present a nightmarish diplomatic challenge: to deliver emergency aid under acceptable conditions while pressing for an end to the Taliban’s practices of gender discrimination. In early May UN Secretary-General António Guterres met with international envoys to Qatar to “reinvigorate the international engagement” and find a “durable way forward,” as a UN spokesman put it. Guterres did not invite the Taliban, saying that it was not the right time to include them. If the experience of the 1990s is any guide, UN aid agencies will manage the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s work by muddling through. Meantime, the Afghan population finds itself in the familiar position of being victimized by a conflict in which every party claims to be fighting on the people’s behalf.

Steve Coll is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (June 2023)

Who Are the Taliban Now?
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The West has a golden opportunity to engage the Taliban

May 31, 2023

Sultan Barakat
Al Jazeera
Published On 30 May 2023
The appointment of a new prime minister in Kabul signals the Taliban’s openness to dialogue. Western leaders should not miss this chance.

On May 18, the interim Taliban administration in Afghanistan announced that it has replaced caretaker Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund with his deputy, Maulvi Abdul Kabir. Akhund had been ill for a while and was unable to carry out his duties.

The appointment of Kabir, who hails from the Pashtun Zadran tribe and who played a key role in negotiating the 2020 Doha agreement with the US, is said to be a routine process, but the timing of it is significant and must be read very carefully, particularly by the West.

The announcement came following growing international dismay at the Taliban’s edicts limiting girls’ education and preventing women from working. This change in leadership can be seen as a positive development and an indication of willingness on the part of the Taliban to open up.

Pride may stay in the way of a drastic reversal of policy, but a desire to alter course can be read in the Taliban making small but important steps towards incremental change.

For example, the recent decision by the authorities in Herat to allow several middle and high schools for girls to reopen is one such step. Kabir may well make another soon by lifting the ban on women working in the humanitarian field, considering that there already are exemptions in the health sector and for certain key NGOs.

In the past, when the Taliban showed a willingness to engage with the international community, foreign leaders failed to seize the opportunity. They should not make the same mistake again.

In considering a response to this strategic move by the Taliban, the international community would be well advised to consider a few points.

First, from a Taliban perspective, the appointment of Akhund as an acting prime minister in 2021 was inevitable. It was meant to symbolise continuity with the previous Taliban regime of 1996-2001, in which he occupied different ministerial positions.

Also, as one of the most conservative among the Taliban leaders, Akhund no doubt played a role in reassuring its rank and file, particularly those coming from rural areas, that the movement would not abandon its values now that the war was over.

Feeling more confident on the domestic front and in their ability to govern without serious opposition, the Taliban appears ready for a greater degree of openness and dialogue with the outside world. Kabir’s appointment is a reflection of this openness.

Second, the Taliban must have learned a thing or two as a result of its isolation over the past two years. Most importantly, its leaders have certainly observed that in our interconnected world, the concept of absolute sovereignty is hard to apply, particularly in a country on the verge of a major humanitarian crisis.

Adopting rigid attitudes in the name of protecting sovereignty antagonises the international community, including those countries that are willing to help Afghanistan. A case in point is the Taliban’s position on the management of Kabul Airport.

The Taliban government, led by Akhund, was determined to have complete control over the airport’s commercial affairs and security, and hence, ended up accepting an offer from the UAE, which agreed to its demands. A year later, regional and international airlines, including those owned by the UAE, have not resumed flights to Kabul, and the airport continues to be in bad shape, as the Taliban authorities have failed to manage it properly.

Third, the appointment of Kabir reflects a significant shift from the traditional rigid Taliban decision-making to a more contemporary “Taliban 2.0” that is more open to dialogue.

It also shows the importance that the Doha Agreement holds for the Taliban as a point of reference for future talks with the international community on issues of security and inclusivity. Although on the face of it, the Taliban has refused any form of dialogue with other Afghans, the group has not ceased to engage.

One initiative that has sought to promote dialogue with the Taliban is the Afghanistan Future Thought Forum (AFTF), chaired by Ms Fatima Gailani, an Afghan politician and former negotiator. It has convened six times, bringing together leading Afghan figures from various ethnoreligious communities, professions and political persuasions. Away from the media spotlight, the forum has been quietly changing attitudes among Taliban and opposition participants.

Thus, the international community should not waste this opportunity, debating whether a change in the premiership is a sufficient indicator that the Taliban is willing to shift its domestic and foreign policy. It is, indeed, a clear signal that there is space for engagement.

The West should reach out to the Taliban and demonstrate readiness to negotiate the lifting of sanctions and the gradual reintroduction of development aid. Such engagement is crucial to prevent one of the worst humanitarian crises of the past decades and a new conflict destabilising the region.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

  • Sultan Barakat is a Professor in Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an Honorary Professor of the University of York. He is a world-renowned scholar known for pioneering the study of war-torn societies and their recovery. Professor Barakat founded the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and directed it between 2016 and 2022. Previously he served as Director of Research at the Brookings Institution’s center in Doha (between 2014 and 2016). At the University of York, he founded and led the Post-war Reconstruction and Development Unit between 1993 and 2019
The West has a golden opportunity to engage the Taliban
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What caused deadly Afghan-Iran border clashes? What happens next?

May 30, 2023

Al Jazeera

Published On 30 May 2023

The two countries call to de-escalate the situation after deadly clashes erupt apparently over river water-sharing dispute.

Last week, deadly clashes broke out between Afghan and Iranian guards at their border raising fears of a new conflict.

Both sides have accused each other of initiating the shooting in which at least two Iranian and one Afghan guard were killed. However, they have issued measured statements aimed at de-escalating the situation.

Following the border violence, Iranian authorities closed the Milak-Zaranj border post, an important commercial crossing – and not the site of the clash – until further notice, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported.

Despite a treaty in place since 1973 on the sharing of Helmand River waters, the two sides have wrangled for decades. The river flows from Afghanistan towards eastern Iran.

What caused the fighting?

The reasons for the clashes are still unknown but the shooting at the border post between the Afghan province of Nimroz and Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi earlier this month accused Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers of restricting the flow of water to Iran’s eastern regions in violation of the 1973 treaty.

“We will not allow the rights of our people to be violated,” Raisi said on May 18.

The Taliban, which has denied the accusation, called on to “solve the problem” in accordance with the treaty. The Taliban, which remains diplomatically isolated since it came to power in August 2021, said it wanted “good relations” with Tehran.

According to Sina Toossi, a senior non-resident fellow at the US-based think tank Center for International Policy (CIP), there is a “lack of clear demarcation and understanding of border boundaries and rules” on both sides.

Interactive_Afghanistan-Iran borderclashes
(Al Jazeera)

Iranian officials have repeatedly blamed the Taliban for its disregard for international laws and border protocols since its takeover of Afghanistan two years ago. Clashes have erupted on multiple occasions, but have rarely led to casualties and have been routinely blamed on “misunderstanding”.

A day before the border clashes, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian called on the Taliban to “follow legal framework” to resolve the water dispute.

“In recent years, this treaty has not been adhered to by Afghanistan’s rulers, including the Taliban,” CIP’s Toossi told Al Jazeera, adding that Kabul has delivered only “a fraction of the agreed amount”.

“It has been exacerbated by Iran’s worsening drought conditions, making the water issue increasingly critical,” he said.

The Taliban issued a statement saying it did not want to “fight with its neighbours”.

What is the Afghan-Iran water dispute?

The Helmand River, which is more than 1,000km (621-mile) long and flows across the border, is being dammed on the Afghan side to generate electricity and irrigate agricultural land.

Drought has been a problem in Iran for some 30 years, which has worsened over the past decade, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The Iran Meteorological Organization says that an estimated 97 percent of the country now faces some level of drought.

According to the Helmand Water Treaty signed by Afghanistan and Iran half a century ago, Afghanistan should annually share 850 million cubic metres of water from Helmand with Iran.

It also calls on both sides to address their differences via diplomatic channels and, if that fails, through an advisory board headed by a mutually chosen arbitrator.

Iran has accused Afghanistan of failing to adhere to the treaty on several occasions and has opposed its decision to construct dams on the river.

How have both countries reacted to the clashes?

The Taliban leadership has called for the resolution of such issues “through diplomatic channels”.

“We don’t want relations with our neighbouring countries to deteriorate. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is never in favour of escalation,” Hafiz Zia Ahmad, deputy spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News on Monday.

Analyst Toossi believes the border clashes have prompted both sides to de-escalate the situation and “reaffirm their commitment to dialogue and cooperation”.

He said there is an indication that Iran is open to dialogue, given that the Taliban’s acting foreign minister met an Iranian envoy to discuss the Helmand River water rights on the day of the clash.

Iran Afghanistan Map
Hirmand county along the Iran-Afghanistan border [Al Jazeera]

Where does the Afghan-Iran relationship stand?

As Kabul and Tehran are “trying to balance their interests and concerns”, according to Toossi, their relationship remains in a state of “uncertainty”.

“It is not clear whether the Taliban have pulled back their fighters from the border or whether they will abide by the agreement in the future,” he said after videos showed large numbers of Taliban fighters approaching the border with Iran last week.

Additionally, while Iran has held a dialogue with the Taliban, it has not officially recognised them as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.

The Shia-majority country has called for the formation of an inclusive government that represents all ethnic and religious groups in Afghanistan.

“Iran has expressed concerns about the security and welfare of the Afghan people, especially the Shia Hazara minority, who have faced persecution and violence from the Taliban in the past,” said Toossi.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
What caused deadly Afghan-Iran border clashes? What happens next?
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Gender Persecution in Afghanistan: Could it come under the ICC’s Afghanistan investigation?

May 26, 2023

Ehsan Qaane

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Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taleban have enacted successive laws and orders which apply to women and girls, but not to men and boys. Earlier this month, United Nations experts reported their assessment that these measures violated women and girls’ rights to education, work, freedom of movement, health, bodily autonomy and decision-making, peaceful assembly and association, and access to justice and amounted to ‘gender persecution’. One of the experts has also asked the International Criminal Court to consider whether the crime against humanity of gender persecution was taking place in Afghanistan. In this Q&A, Ehsan Qaane* unpacks the term as it exists in international law, and in that light, analyses whether the court might consider Taleban restrictions on women as amounting to gender prosecution and whether an investigation could lie within its mandate.

Introduction

Since the Taleban regained power in Afghanistan in August 2021, they have imposed multiple orders and regulations on Afghan women and girls that do not apply to men and boys. [1]Two United Nations independent experts, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennet and Chair of the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, have concluded that these restrictions, which they say are “violating girls’ and women’s rights to education, work, freedom of movement, health, bodily autonomy and decision-making, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, and access to justice,” amount to “gender persecution.” In a statement, published on 5 May 2023 at the end of an eight-day joint visit to Afghanistan, they also shared their concerns that these measures have:

…decimated the system of protection and support for those fleeing domestic violence, leaving women and girls with absolutely no recourse. They have imposed extreme modesty rules and detained women and girls for alleged “moral crimes”. These measures have reportedly contributed to a surge in the rates of child and forced marriage, as well as the proliferation of gender-based violence perpetrated with impunity. We are also particularly concerned by the fact that women who peacefully protest against these oppressive measures encounter threats, harassment, arbitrary detentions and torture…. We are alarmed about widespread mental health issues and accounts of escalating suicides among women and girls.

Earlier, Bennett asked the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose office has been looking into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan since 2006, to consider whether the “crime of gender persecution” was taking place there (see Bennett’s report to the UN Human Rights Council, published on 6 February 2023, and AAN’s analysis of it.)

This report first unpacks the legal basis for the experts’ use of the term ‘gender persecution’, [2] before delving into whether and on what grounds the ICC could prosecute the Taleban for allegedly perpetrating it.

1. What is gender persecution?

‘Gender persecution’, as a crime against humanity, was first criminalised by the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) and which was adopted in 1998 and came into force in 2002. The term refers to “any crime within the jurisdiction” of the ICC perpetrated on the basis of the gender of the affected individual or individuals. The crimes falling under ICC jurisdiction are genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression (see articles 5 to 8 of the Rome Statute). Furthermore, article 7 outlaws the “persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, [3] or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law” (article 7(1)(h)) [4] and ‘persecution’ as the “intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity” (article 7(2)(g)).

An act, considered a crime within ICC jurisdiction and which violated the fundamental rights of women and girls as a collectivity, could therefore amount to gender persecution if it reached ICC thresholds: the act or acts would need to be “systematic or widespread,” “intentional” and involve the “severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law.”

Some of the criminal acts under ICC jurisdiction and considered crimes against humanity when “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack” are listed in paragraph (1) of article 7 of the Rome Statute:

[M]urder; extermination, enslavement; deportation or forcible transfer of population; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; torture; rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; enforced disappearance of persons; the crime of apartheid; other inhumane acts of similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

There is one ongoing case in front of the ICC, which includes some of the acts listed above. The Malian, Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz, is standing trial for various war crimes and the crimes against humanity of torture, rape, sexual slavery and other inhumane acts, including, inter alia, forced marriages and persecution. It is alleged he perpetrated these acts as a member of the armed group, Ansar Eddine, and the “de facto chief of Islamic police” at a time when the city of Timbuktu fell under the control of his group and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in 2012 and 2013 (see ICC notes on the case here). The trial has been described as ‘ground-breaking’, for example by The Guardian when it was launched in 2018, because it was the first to go to ICC trial with charges that included “the crime of persecution on the grounds of gender.” The judges of the ICC are currently deliberating their verdict.

Any case against the Taleban would be somewhat different, centring on their alleged deprivation of fundamental rights of women and girls. This term is not defined in the Rome Statute, but examples of these rights have now been listed in a new policy on the crime of gender persecution published by the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor in December 2022 (paragraph 24):

[T]he right: to life; to be free from torture or other inhumane or degrading treatment or punishments; to be free from slavery or the slave trade, servitude and retroactive application of penal law; to freedom of assembly, opinion, expression, movement and religion, including the right to be free from religion; rights to equality, dignity, bodily integrity, family, privacy, security, education, employment, property, political or cultural participation, to access to justice or health care. Human rights violations can constitute a severe deprivation of fundamental rights on their own or when considered cumulatively.

The phrase ‘fundamental rights’ and the Office of the Prosecutor’s explanation of what this term means has expanded the scope of gender persecution beyond the acts mentioned in articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute to violations of social, political, economic and civil rights. These are preserved in international human rights documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other human rights conventions. However, to be addressed by the ICC, the violations must pass the court’s high thresholds of being “systematic or widespread,” “intentional” and involving the “severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason” of gender.

The Office of the Prosecutor’s policy says that gender persecution could be “enforced by means of violence or destruction, or occur via the imposition of regulations,” and significantly, that it cannot be “ignored, dismissed or justified on the basis of culture.” [5] Under international law, crimes against humanity are jus cogens, ie the principles which form the norms of international law that cannot be set aside or made ‘legal’ through domestic legislation. Another example would be torture, which is also illegal in all circumstances. [6]

Whether this new policy was brought in because of the Islamic Emirate’s restrictions on women and girls and the need to address them is not known. [7] However, it does represent a major development in the understanding of the law.

2. Is there a legal formula for analysing whether the Taleban’s policy on Afghan women and girls amounts to gender persecution?

To argue whether the Taleban’s discriminatory bans against Afghan women and girls amount to the crime against humanity of persecution on the basis of gender or not, Taleban policy must be assessed in accordance with article 7 of the Rome Statute and other relevant documents like the Office of the Prosecutor’s “Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution” and the ICC’s “Elements of Crimes”. The formula these documents provide is that the crimes must be:

  • intentional (referred to as the ‘mental element’);
  • involve the severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law on the basis of gender (the ‘actual element’) and are;
  • carried out in a systematic or widespread manner (the ‘contextual element’).

This paper uses this formula to analyse whether the Taleban have intentionally, systematically and in a widespread manner deprived Afghan women and girls of their fundamental rights to employment and political participation because of their gender.

The choice to scrutinise these rights complements another recent report which examined the Taleban’s alleged deprivation of Afghan women and girls’ rights to education, freedom of movement and assembly. That analysis, by professor of law and special advisor on gender persecution to the Office of the Prosecutor, Lisa Davis, used a somewhat different method of legal argument and was published by the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law in March 2023.

3. What does international law say about the right to work and to political participation?

Political participation as a fundamental right, including specifically for women, has been secured in several international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and, more importantly, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) of which Afghanistan is a signatory. For example, article 7 of CEDAW declares:

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country and, in particular, shall ensure to women, on equal terms with men, the right: (a) To vote in all elections and public referenda and to be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies; (b) To participate in the formulation of government policy and the implementation thereof and to hold public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government; (c) To participate in non-governmental organizations and associations concerned with the public and political life of the country.

Additionally, article 8 of CEDAW obliges states to ensure women have “the opportunity to represent their government at the international level and to participate in the work of international organisations,” like the UN. [8]

Article 11 of CEDAW defines the right to work as the ‘inalienable right of all human beings.” It obliges states to “eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment” and to provide, among many other rights, equal opportunities and benefits for women and men. [9]

Violating rights mentioned in these paragraphs could amount to the crime against humanity of gender persecution if they fit the formula mentioned earlier.

Analysis of Taleban policy vis-à-vis Afghan women’s political participation and their access to work

a. The actual element: Have women been severely deprived of their fundamental rights to political participation and work, contrary to international law

The Taleban’s Islamic Emirate consists of one executive and one judicial body. It has no independent legislative branch (the Taleban formally dissolved Afghanistan parliament on 17 May 2022). The highest authority, policymaker and lawgiver in the land is the Emirate’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, known by the title of Amir ul-Mu’minin (the leader of the believers). He sits in Kandahar and is advised by a 20-member ulema shura (council of Islamic scholars), but ultimately, all decisions are his. Under his supervision and at the top of the executive branch, an acting all-male cabinet is chaired by a prime minister and has a membership of around two dozen acting ministers (on the initial cabinet appointments, see this AAN report and this BBC report).

The highest judiciary body is a high council of six senior male judges, chaired by Sheikh Abdul Hakim Haqqani under the command of Hibatullah (on the Taleban’s judiciary structure, see this video on the Taleban Supreme Court’s website). All female judges were fired after the Taleban came to power.

No women have been appointed, nor allowed to remain in post, to any position involved in policymaking, administrative rule or judicial in any organ of the Taleban government or state institution.

Under the previous administration, the Islamic Republic, although representation was far from equal, women were appointed to policymaking positions as cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and ambassadors to other countries and international organisations like the United Nations. An Inter-Parliamentary Union report, published in January 2021 and quoted by CNN, noted that 6.5 per cent of ministerial positions were held by women in President Ashraf Ghani’s administration. Such positions were both political and administrative. Women had the right to vote and to nominate themselves for any elected position, including the presidency (there were female candidates for both president and deputy president). There were also no legal restrictions on their membership in the High Council of the Supreme Court, although no female judges were ever appointed.

The 2004 constitution, which the Taleban suspended during the first days of their return to power, guaranteed the vote for both men and women and a quarter of the seats of the lower house (wolesi jirga) of the parliament were reserved for women (see article 83) (on the suspension of the constitution, see this ToloNews report). According to CNN, women occupied 27 per cent of parliament seats. Female lawmakers were also members of the upper house (meshrano jirga) and provincial councils.

Since the Taleban takeover, women were also blocked from attending the only national-level jirga called. Such gatherings are forums for discussion and were attended by both men and women during the Republic. In June 2022, the Taleban organised an ulema jirga, attended by more than 3,500 ‘representatives’ from Afghanistan’s 400 plus districts. Most were ulema, although traders, businessmen and elders were also invited – but no women. At the end of the jirga, which discussed the most serious political affairs of the country, the participants pledged loyalty to the Taleban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and opposed armed resistance against the his government (see Etilaatroz reporting). When asked about the absence of women, Deputy Prime Minister Mawlawi Abdul Salam Hanafi said they were not necessary – they were “somehow involved” because “their sons will be part of the gathering” (see Radio Liberty’s report).

Under the Republic’s constitution, women and men were, in principle, equal (see article 22), albeit the personal status law, concerning marriage, guardianship of children and inheritance, was discriminatory. Discrimination against women in practice in government, civil service, the courts and other institutions was rife (the United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s 2020 ‘lessons learned’ report on US support for gender equality has lots of interesting detail and data on this). At the same time, there was a space for women to try to occupy. Struggle was a given, but they might also see success. Institutions were also established to support women’s political participation and promote gender equality, for example, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. There were also special courts, police and prosecutorial units, especially when it came to the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) Law, adopted by presidential decree in 2009 by President Hamid Karzai (see HRW’s report on special courts and units, AAN’s reports on EVAW Law) and gender units in each ministry and independent directorates. The Taleban dissolved all these entities when they came to power (for detail, see the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan’s first report to the UN Human Rights Council published in September 2022.)

Women used to work in all branches of the state (civil servants, military personnel, judges and prosecutors and also as defence lawyers), although forming a higher proportion in the middle and lower posts. With the exception of health workers and teachers of primary-aged girls, women who worked in the public sector have been asked to stay at home because they are women. Most are required to come in regularly to sign their hazeri (timesheet) and are still paid. However, in some sectors, all women were fired, for instance, judges and journalists working in state-own media outlets. (For more on this and salary payments in general since the Taleban returned to power, see AAN’s March 2023 report, What Do The Taleban Spend Afghanistan’s Money On? Government expenditure under the Islamic Emirate.)

Afghan women have also been banned from working in NGOs, UN agencies and embassies. Female defence lawyers are not allowed to practice law (see the International Law Assistance Consortium’s report on the justice sector). Women cannot be actresses.

The Taleban have not outlawed women working in the private sector, including private media outlets, but discriminatory conditions apply, for example, compulsory dress code (hijab), segregation of the workplace and the need for a mahram, a close male relative acting as a chaperone. A mahramis not required according to the Taleban’s own rules unless a woman travels more than 78 kilometres from her home, but women may be targeted by the Vice and Virtue police if outside and alone (see AAN reporting of a recent UN report on corporal punishment and the death penalty, available here).

Women who protested these discriminatory measures have been subjected to arbitrary threats, harassment, arrests and torture, according to this Human Rights Watch report and this report by the UN Special Rapporteur from September 2022. Male political opponents have also been subject to arbitrary arrest and torture (see this report by Amnesty International).

Mental element; perpetrating of the actual element by knowledge and intent

The ‘mental element’ means that the authorities issuing discriminatory orders and regulations know their content and intend to implement them. Furthermore, the authorities must know that these fundamental rights are persevered in international law and, therefore, that their decisions and/or actions violate international law and norms.

The Taleban’s intent, indeed their core belief that, women should be treated differently from men and, specifically, that it is against divine law for them to act as political or religious leaders, and that their place is in the home (by implication not in paid employment) can be drawn out from a book authored by their chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani. He is an influential figure who was a teacher to many Taleban’s senior members including their Supreme Leader, Hibatullah. He wrote a forward to the book, thereby endorsing its contents.

The book, written in Arabic with the title, “Al-Emarah al-Islamiah wa Nedhamuha” (the Islamic Emirate and its System), and published in April 2022, argues that under sharia: women should stay at home as their homes are their ‘cover’ (al-satr); they should stay with their children and parent them; women are weak and; their intellect and religion are deficient (naqes al-aql wa al-din). Thus, they cannot be imams (leaders) or judges. Haqqani further elaborated his argument as to why women cannot become leaders. First, they would have to go out in public and meet men other than close relatives, which he said was forbidden in sharia. Second, ruling is difficult, and women are weak: a weak person cannot rule over others. Third, women are not permitted to rule over men. Here, he cited a hadith (the words of the Prophet Muhammad) – “A people which has a woman as a leader will never prosper” [10] – and a text from the Quran, “Men are the guardians of women.” [11] A woman, he said, could neither be an imam al-kubra (big leader), managing both religious and worldly affairs, nor an imam al-suqra (small leader) leading congregational prayers.

It could be argued that when it comes to political participation, neither men nor women currently enjoy that right in today’s Afghanistan. Therefore, the question of gender persecution does not apply to this right. There are no elections, and senior appointments are skewed heavily on the basis, not only of gender, but also ethnicity (most senior figures are Pashtun) and background (most are clerics) (see AAN analysis of the cabinet from autumn 2021). Nevertheless, no man is barred from holding posts in the Emirate because he is a man. Women have no such opportunities, neither in principle nor practice, because of the Taleban’s belief that their place is in the home and they cannot have a leadership role.

Since before the Taleban’s return to power, the accusation that the Emirate violates women’s fundamental rights has been one of the primary sources of international criticism, including from Islamic countries, directed against it. That their intention to deal with women differently from men, knowing this is contrary to international law, can also be seen in the explicit distinction the Taleban draw between sharia and international law and norms. They argue that the latter are ‘human-made’ and where contrary to Islamic law, as they perceive it, are irrelevant and may even be harmful to human wellbeing. Their supreme leader Hibatullah, for example, has ordered his provincial governors to put aside human-made law and implement sharia (see this BBC Persian report from 28 June 2022). A similar argument was made in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ response to the May 2023 UNAMA report, “Corporal Punishment and the Death Penalty in Afghanistan” (published in an annex to the report):

[I]t should be stated that 99 per cent of the people of Afghanistan follow the holy religion of Islam and Islamic principle, therefore, the laws are determined in accordance with Islamic rules and guidelines, in the event of a conflict between international human rights law and Islamic law, the government is obliged to follow the Islamic law.

b. Contextual element: has the deprivation of the fundamental right to work and to political participation been systematic or widespread?

Intentionally perpetrating a criminal act is classed as a crime against humanity if the act is committed systematically or in a widespread manner. ‘Systematic’ here means the act must be pre-planned or be continued or repeated over an amount of time which leaves an organised nature of a pattern. In other words, it must not result from coincidence, randomness or human error.

‘Widespread’ here means the act and/or its consequence must be grave in scale. The measurement of gravity itself is complex: how many persons need to be affected, and how badly must these persons be affected to count a criminal act as ‘grave’? The interesting point about gender persecution is that article 7 of the Rome Statute acknowledges that there could be just one victim if they were severely deprived of their fundamental rights based on their gender. ‘Gravity’, here, is measured according to the quality or severity of the criminal act and/or its consequences rather than the number of victims.

The deprivation of Afghan women of their fundamental right to work and to political participation is systematic. It has been enforced by orders issued and executed, with rights increasingly restricted, creating a pattern of gender persecution since the Taleban’s return to power. A final point to make when considering the ‘mental element’, whether acts were perpetrated with knowledge and intent, is to look at how orders and regulations have successively and systemically chipped away at women’s rights to employment and political participation (see a detailed timeline in footnote [12]).

The Taleban’s policy of depriving women of political participation and work is widespread. Afghan women have lost any role in political-administrative public institutions (see this UN Women’s report from July 2022). The instruments and mechanisms supporting women’s political participation and employment had been dissolved. Afghan women are generally prohibited from working in government jobs and with NGOs and UN agencies outside the healthcare sector and girls primary education. Where women can work, they face additional discriminatory conditions imposed on them, like compulsory dress code, segregation from their male colleagues, restricted movements and censorship, as reports have detailed (for example, see this UN experts’ statement and this Crisis Group’s report).

How might the ICC act on the Taleban’s alleged gender discrimination?

It is a principle of criminal law that individuals, not institutions, have criminal liabilities. International criminal law is no exception. Perpetrators of crimes against humanity cannot enjoy impunity under international law, but should be brought to justice either in domestic or international courts. The ICC could be one of those courts with jurisdiction and an obligation to respond, if it considered the Taleban’s actions to amount to the crime of gender persecution.

This report has focused on two fundamental rights – the right to work and to political participation. However, Lisa Davis’s conclusion on whether the Taleban have deprived Afghan women and girls of their rights to education, freedom of movement and assembly is strong. According to her, “These and other acts likely amount to the crime against humanity on the basis of gender (gender persecution) under the Rome Statute.” She argues that gender persecution is “the only holistic charge that recognizes crimes committed on the basis of gender,” and that it is “a vital tool for holding perpetrators accountable.”

The Taleban orders restricting women and girls’ rights, including to work, education, and political participation, have been issued by specific individuals, including but not limited to the Supreme Leader, the Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice, the Minister of Economy, Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education. Although in the Emirate, the Supreme Leader has supreme power and bears ultimate responsibility for all law, policy and practice, when it comes to the execution of the bans, almost all senior members of the Taleban have been involved. Each of them, as an alleged perpetrator, could have criminal responsibility.

The ICC, as a permanent international criminal court, has a responsibility to end impunity for international crimes, including the crime against humanity of gender persecution if perpetrated on the territory of a member state or on the territory of any state which has accepted the court’s jurisdiction. Afghanistan has been a state member since May 2003 (see AAN’s dossier on the ICC-Afghanistan).

The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC has been mandated to investigate any alleged crimes within the court’s jurisdiction perpetrated on Afghanistan soil since May 2003. The alleged gender persecution perpetrated by the Taleban could lie under the investigatory mandate of the Office of the Prosecutor. Gender persecution is within the ICC’s subject-matter jurisdiction as a crime against humanity. The alleged gender persecution by the Taleban has been perpetrated on Afghanistan’s territory, at least since August 2021.

The alleged ongoing gender persecution in Afghanistan could be a relatively easy and quick case for the Office of the Prosecutor to build. Evidence to prove the necessary elements (actual, mental and contextual) are publicly available. The alleged perpetrators are known and victims and eyewitnesses accessible. However, it would be one of just many crimes, some ongoing, dating back to May 2003, which the ICC has examined or is investigating. These include the use of torture by US military forces and the CIA, and by the forces of the Republic, and for the Taleban and the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), among other allegations, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, humanitarian personnel and protected objects.

The ICC Prosecutor, Karim Khan, has already stirred up controversy over his desire to prioritise the investigation of the Taleban and ISKP and deprioritise US and Republic forces’ alleged crimes (see AAN’s October 2021 report, Creating a Hierarchy of Victims? ICC may drop investigations into US forces to focus on Taleban and ISKP for more on this). Given what Khan has said are the scarce resources at his disposal, choosing to focus on gender persecution, if it were at the expense of investigating other crimes, would need to be carefully backed up and argued.

* Ehsan Qaane worked for AAN from 2012 to 2022, including as Country Director, and is now a research fellow with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI), based in Lund, Sweden.

Edited by Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour

References

References
↑1 For example, the orders that ban women and/or girls from secondary schools, universities, gyms, parks and from working for NGOs and UN agencies.
↑2 The experts also spoke of “gender apartheid” and “femicide,” terms also used by advocacy groups and activists, including, most recently, the leading African humanitarian and women’s rights activist Graça Machel (media coverage here). ‘Apartheid’ has a legal definition, but relates to racial discrimination only: it is the implementation and maintenance of a system of legalised racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights and is considered is a crime against humanity. ‘Gender apartheid’ has no legal definition. Nor does ‘femicide’, although the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the killing of a woman or girl, in particular by a man and on account of her gender.” There are no legal national or international institutions which could address any act which these terms might describe. 

Another term used by the experts was “systemic gender-based discrimination,” which they said was “unparalleled anywhere in the world.” ‘Gender discrimination’ is used in international human rights instruments like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

This paper prefers to use the term ‘gender persecution’ for its legal analysis. It is the strongest existing term providing legal grounds for criminal accountability mechanisms to address severe systemic or widespread gender-based violence or discrimination. As it is in accordance with the ICC legal system, it is also a crime that the ICC has jurisdiction over and which it has an obligation to investigate.
↑3 The Rome Statute defines gender as “refer[ing] to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society.”
↑4 Article 7(1)(h) of the ICC’s Elements of Crimes on the crime against humanity of persecution says: 

(1) The perpetrator severely deprived, contrary to international law, one or more person of fundamental rights. (2) The perpetrator targeted such persons by reason of the identity of a group or collectivity or targeted the group or collectivity as such. (3) Such targeting was based on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in article 7, paragraph 3, of the Rome Statute, or other grounds that are universally recognised as impermissible under international law. (4) The conduct was committed in connection with any act referred to in article 7, paragraph 1, of the Rome Statute or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court. (5) The conduct was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directly against a civilian population. (6) The perpetrator knew that the conduct was part of or intended the conduct to be part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against civilian population.
↑5 See paragraphs 24 and 27 of the Policy on the Crime of Gender Persecution. Paragraph 27 says: “The Office recognises that human rights violations prohibited under international law are not culturally determinative. Breaches of fundamental rights cannot be ignored, dismissed or justified on the basis of culture.”
↑6 For more details on jus cogens see this document published on the UN’s website.
↑7 The author saw a draft copy of the policy in which measures taken by the Taleban and ISIS against women were named as examples of gender persecution as a crime against humanity. The author, in a side event with ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and his deputies, asked about these examples. Two days later, the final version of the policy was published on the court’s website giving only ISIS as an example.
↑8 Article 8 of CEDAW says; “State Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure to women, on equal terms with men and without any discrimination, the opportunity to represent their government at the international level and to participate in the work of international organisations.”
↑9 Article 11 of CEDAW states: 

1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, the same rights, in particular: (a) The right to work as an inalienable right of all human beings; (b) The right to the same employment opportunities, including the application of the same criteria for selection in matters of employment; (c) The right to free choice of profession and employment, the right to promotion, job security and all benefits and conditions of service and the right to receive vocational training and retraining, including apprenticeships, advanced vocational training and recurrent training; (d) The right to equal remuneration, including benefits, and to equal treatment in respect of work of equal value, as well as equality of treatment in the evaluation of the quality of work; (e) The right to social security, particularly in cases of retirement, unemployment, sickness, invalidity and old age and other incapacity to work, as well as the right to paid leave; (f) The right to protection of health and to safety in working conditions, including the safeguarding of the function of reproduction. 2. In order to prevent discrimination against women on the grounds of marriage or maternity and to ensure their effective right to work, States Parties shall take appropriate measures: (a) To prohibit, subject to the imposition of sanctions, dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy or of maternity leave and discrimination in dismissals on the basis of marital status; (b) To introduce maternity leave with pay or with comparable social benefits without loss of former employment, seniority or social allowances; (c) To encourage the provision of the necessary supporting social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities and participation in public life, in particular through promoting the establishment and development of a network of child-care facilities; (d) To provide special protection to women during pregnancy in types of work proved to be harmful to them. 3. Protective legislation relating to matters covered in this article shall be reviewed periodically in the light of scientific and technological knowledge and shall be revised, repealed or extended as necessary.
↑10 لن یفلح قوم ولوا امرهم امرا (lan yufleha qawmun wa law amrahum amarahu)
↑11 الرجال قومون علی النساء (Al-rujala qawamuna ala al-nisa)
↑12 A detailed timeline of various orders and announcements is: 

  • On 17 August 2021, two days after capturing Kabul, Taleban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahed, in his first press conference, mentioned four times that women would have the right to work and study ‘within an Islamic framework’ and according to Taleban regulations. He gave the education, health and criminal justice prosecution sectors as examples of where women could work. He made no mention of politics or senior appointments. Nor did he explain what an Islamic framework or Taleban regulations might be, but when asked, he told reporters to wait for a future announcement about regulations and laws (for a full press conference transcript, see this Al-Jazeera report).
  • On 24 August 2021, Mujahed told working women to stay home, calling the order “a very temporary procedure.” Taleban security forces, he said, were “not trained (in) how to deal with women – how to speak to women. Until we have full security in place… we ask women to stay home” (see this BBC report).
  • On 27 August 2021, Mujahed announced that the Ministry of Public Health had told “all women employees in the centre and provinces that they should attend work regularly,” as this Reuters reported. Reuters also mentioned that “women have been discouraged from going to work and even turned away from their offices.”
  • This has remained the situation for most female government workers ever since. They have been blocked from returning to work, except for health workers, teachers in girls’ primary schools and a few other minor exceptions, such as women in the security services needed to deal with, guard or search other women.
  • On 23 August, the Taleban’s Education Commission announced to its “dear compatriots” that following the closure of schools because of coronavirus and the postponement of their reopening “due to the takeover of provincial capitals and Kabul,” all primary schools should reopen for lessons on 28 August. As to the start-back date for secondary schools, it said: “Instructions will be given later.” When the announcement came on 17 September 2021, the Ministry of Education asked schoolboys and male teachers only to return to school, but made no mention of girls or female teachers (see AAN reporting). After secondary schools for girls were briefly allowed to open in March 2022, they were shut again by order of Hibatullah. Female teachers who had taught boys in primary or secondary schools were also blocked from doing so. The only female teachers legally allowed to work are those in girls’ primary schools (grades 1 to 6).
  •  In September and early October 2021, Supreme Leader Hibatullah appointed an all-male acting cabinet (see AAN reporting).
  • On 21 November 2021, the Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice issued guidelines for the media, which imposed compulsory ‘Islamic hijab’ on female journalists and media staff and banned the broadcasting of dramas and films with women appearing in them.
  • On 7 May 2022, the Virtue and Vice minister ordered women to wear ‘sharia hijab’, defined as loose clothing covering the body, head and face, except for the eyes, either a burqa (best) or black abaya and shawl (permitted) (see AAN’s report and BBC’s report). “Not venturing out without cause,” the order also said, was “the first and best type of adherence to Sharia hijab.”
  • On 21 May 2022, the Virtue and Vice minister banned female anchors and other women from any on-screen television presence unless they fully covered their faces, except for their eyes (see Human Rights Watch’s report).
  • On 29 June 2022, the Taleban organised a grand ulema jirga, a gathering of Muslim clerics from Afghanistan’s provinces and districts to discuss major political, economic and social concerns in Kabul. Politicians, traders and businessmen were also invited, but women were not invited.
  • On 24 December 2022, the Minister of Economy banned women from working for domestic and international NGOs (see BBC and AAN reporting). In an interview with BBC Pashto on 30 December, Mujahed said the Emirate wanted to preserve Afghan women’s “dignity and chastity” and that because NGOs were not under the control of the government, the risk to women was high (reported by BBC Persian). The ban has also hit some embassies (see AAN reporting).
  • On 4 April 2023, the Taleban banned Afghan women from working with UN agencies in Afghanistan.

Gender Persecution in Afghanistan: Could it come under the ICC’s Afghanistan investigation?
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The uncounted: how millions died unseen in America’s post-9/11 wars

May 21, 2023

Simon Tisdall

The Guardian

Sun 21 May 2023

A new report puts the loss of life from Afghanistan to Yemen at 4.5 million – the bulk of them poor women and children who are victims of economic collapse and continuing trauma

Abdoulaye is a lost child of the post-9/11 world – one among millions. Born into a village community displaced by Islamist violence, he and his family found refuge in an abandoned school near Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. Weakened by malnutrition and anaemia, Abdoulaye, 3, contracted malaria. Despite frantic efforts to save him, he died, unremarked and unknown to the world at large.

“Abdoulaye is doubly uncounted: as a displaced person and as a war death,” writes Stephanie Savell, a cultural anthropologist, recalling his brief life in a disturbing new report that reveals the vast, unacknowledged human costs of contemporary global warfare. “Though he is mourned by his family and his community, officially, he never existed. His story is emblematic of how this kind of death, and its omission in counts of the dead, happens in any number of conflicts.”

Savell’s report, How Death Outlives War: The Reverberating Impact of the Post-9/11 Wars on Human Health, published by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, focuses on what she terms “indirect deaths” – caused not by outright violence but by consequent, ensuing economic collapse, loss of livelihoods, food insecurity, destruction of public health services, environmental contamination and continuing trauma, including mental health problems, domestic and sexual abuse and displacement.

Calculated this way, the total number of deaths that occurred as a result of post-9/11 warfare in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia rises dramatically from an upper estimate of 937,000 to at least 4.5 million, of which up to 3.6 million were “indirect deaths”. Such deaths grow in scale over time. In Afghanistan, where the war ignited by the 2001 US-led invasion ended in 2021, the indirect death toll and related health problems are still rising.

Experts suggest “a reasonable, conservative average estimate for any contemporary conflict is a ratio of four indirect deaths for every one direct death”, Savell says. The poorer the population, the higher the resulting indirect mortality when conflict erupts. “Indirect deaths are devastating, not least because so many of them could be prevented, were it not for war,” she writes. Generally speaking, men are more likely to die in combat. Women and children are disproportionately affected indirectly.

Savell does not attempt to apportion blame between various actors, although the US, which launched the “global war on terror” in 2001, bears heavy responsibility. She concedes that establishing definitive figures for war deaths of any kind is problematic and politically contested. Using the best available sources and data, her aim, she says, is to expand awareness of the fuller human costs of these wars and support calls for governments to alleviate continuing harms.

“The mental health effects of war reverberate through generations, impacting parents and children, and then their children after that. Estimates [suggest] … anxiety and depression are two to four times greater among conflict-affected populations than the global average,” she writes. “Women tend to suffer [these effects] more acutely due to gender-based violence, which is heightened in wartime. In Iraq, rape and sexual violence increased sharply after 2003 [when the US and UK invaded] … Children are also particularly vulnerable. [Those] who experience high levels of collective violence are twice as likely to develop chronic diseases.”

Levels of child malnutrition are indicators of the scale of war-related damage. “More than 7.6 million children under five are suffering from acute malnutrition, or wasting, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia,” the report estimates. “‘Wasting’ means not getting enough food, literally wasting to skin and bones, putting these children at greater risk of death, including from … weakened immune systems.”

In Afghanistan specifically, where the economy has collapsed after the Taliban takeover, more than half the population now lives in extreme poverty. Tens of thousands of children under five are dying of preventable diseases such as cholera and measles, of acute malnutrition and neonatal complications. “As much as anyone killed by an airstrike or a gunshot wound, their deaths must be counted among the costs of war,” the report says.

This scrupulously compiled examination of war’s unconsidered, long-term lethal impacts has great power to shock. In Pakistan, for example, between 2004 and 2010, the US conducted “double-tap” drone strikes, mostly on Pashtun villages in Waziristan, along the Afghan border, in which a second strike targeted people rushing to help victims of an initial bombing.

“Reports document that residents of these regions suffered from PTSD, chronic anxiety and constant fear,” Savell writes. “A local resident explained: ‘God knows whether they’ll strike us again or not. But they’re always surveying us, they’re always over us, and you never know when they’re going to strike.’” Untreated, such trauma is debilitating and unceasing.

In many conflict zones, deliberate attacks on healthcare facilities are a favoured tactic. Both direct and indirect deaths result. At one point in Syria’s civil war, according to a 2019 study quoted in the report, “each attack on a healthcare facility corresponded to an estimated 260 reported civilian casualties in the same month”, because of the resulting non-availability of medical assistance.

Displacement is another big driver of indirect deaths, caused by physical insecurity, heightened mental stress, and abuse, exploitation and indifference suffered during attempted flights to safety. An estimated 38 million people have been displaced since 2001. Britain fought in many of these wars. As it debates tougher anti-migrant regulations, the UK must acknowledge its part in causing this crisis.

The report details many additional, lingering deathtraps, including environmental contamination, unexploded ordnance, landmines, and damage to water, sanitation and aid and food distribution systems. More research data is badly needed, Savell writes, but it’s already evident governments must do more to mend what they broke – and that “reparations … are imperative”.

Those who have died are beyond help. But for millions of adults and children still suffering the consequences of the post-9/11 conflicts, the need is urgent. They are condemned to war without end.

The uncounted: how millions died unseen in America’s post-9/11 wars
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Afghanistan’s Crisis Requires a Coherent, Coordinated International Response

May 20, 2023

BY: William Byrd, Ph.D.

United States Institute of Peace

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

The Taliban’s missteps are harming their own interests but are even worse for Afghans. Here’s what the international community can do

Over the past year, especially in recent months, the Taliban have made several missteps. The consequences are not a threat to their power in the short run but will damage their ability to govern as well as, potentially, their longer-term cohesion. Unfortunately, these missteps will harm the Afghan people much more, both directly and through their adverse impact on humanitarian aid.

Already expected to decline in the coming years, aid to Afghanistan is likely to drop more sharply in response to the Taliban’s actions against women and girls. So far, except for blanket condemnations and an important diplomatic consensus on nonrecognition of the Taliban regime, the international response has been reactive and disjointed.

Social Restrictions

The Taliban’s bans on female education and Afghan women working in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations are causing immediate suffering for immense numbers of Afghans, and if maintained over time will be extremely damaging to Afghanistan’s longer-term economic and social development. Female labor force participation has major economic benefits for growth and development, and countries cannot rise from deep poverty and low per capita incomes to higher-income status without it. (Women have not yet been banned from working in the private sector, but the overall environment is not conducive for that, and Afghan companies have lost female employees.) Worldwide experience also demonstrates that girls’ secondary education is key for improving a country’s health outcomes.

The Taliban bans have also inflicted harm on their regime. The girls’ secondary education ban exposed fissures within the Taliban, leading to further doubling down and a strong diktat from the Taliban emir, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada. While there is no sign that the bans will threaten the Taliban’s overall cohesion and power, they undermine the regime’s projection of a picture of complete unity to the outside world and to Afghan society. If in other respects the Taliban’s image erodes and gets tarnished over time, for example by worsening corruption, the combined effect could become more serious.

The bans will also harm the Taliban government by reducing humanitarian aid. The ban on Afghan women working in NGOs inevitably will hinder delivery of some aid, even if most programs appear able to continue for now, albeit at somewhat lower levels of activity. Moreover, donors’ enthusiasm and ability to keep up a high level of humanitarian support (around $3 billion last year) is eroding fast, spurred by the bans. The response to this year’s U.N. humanitarian appeal has been very poor so far, and early indications are that aid may fall by 30-50 percent in 2023. World Bank projections suggest that declining aid will tip the economy into negative growth, meaning a significant drop in per capita incomes and worsening poverty and deprivation, potentially leading to famine-like conditions for many people.

The Taliban profess not to care about humanitarian aid and will put the blame for a sharp drop in assistance on the international community, but such a decline will hurt their regime in several ways.

First, as rulers of the country, the Taliban cannot escape some responsibility for economic deterioration and worsening poverty, deprivation and hunger, which will create headaches for the regime.

Second, lower aid will mean a reduction in U.N. cash shipments to Afghanistan (averaging $40 million per week in 2022). These inflows helped stabilize the economy, shoring up the exchange rate and controlling inflation. Loss of this money will complicate the Taliban’s task of macroeconomic management.

Third, humanitarian aid inevitably brings some concrete benefits to the Taliban and associated interests. These range from at least partial ability to direct the distribution of food aid and other relief goods to favored beneficiaries (who, even if deserving, get to the front of the line), to getting paid for providing security for U.N. traveling missions, to patronage (employment opportunities) and potentially corruption. A drop in aid will correspondingly reduce these benefits.

Economic Missteps

The Taliban’s economic missteps have not garnered as much public attention but also are damaging. Most striking, they are actually implementing the opium ban announced last year, albeit unevenly across the country and over time. This follows their implementation of a ban on ephedra and processed products (ultimately crystal meth). These bans and opium poppy eradication go against the regime’s economic interests and may to some extent undermine its cohesion. The effective Taliban opium ban in 2000-2001 was limited to poppy cultivation, whereas the current ban also encompasses trade and processing.

Widespread dissatisfaction with and varying degrees of bypassing or resisting the opium ban are evident. Moreover, the crackdown inevitably will give rise to corruption. And the opium ban will further damage the already weak Afghan economy, reducing rural incomes by as much as hundreds of millions of dollars yearly. Phasing out the drug economy will be essential over the longer term — not least to contain widespread addiction — but this ban lacking any development strategy is not the way to start on that path.

During its first year, the Taliban regime exploited the budget systems and taxes of the previous Islamic Republic government, arguably performing better in key areas like raising revenue. However, budget practices may be weakening under pressure from the emir and his circle. Beyond continuing high spending on the security sector — around the same as a share of total expenditure as under the Islamic Republic — there has been very high spending in the emir and prime minister’s offices and of funds allocated for unforeseen contingencies. There are, reportedly, examples of the leadership bypassing budget procedures and directing the Ministry of Finance to give funds directly to designated persons, sometimes in cash. According to some reports, such interference led to complaints by then acting Finance Minister Mullah Hidayatullah Badri, who the emir later shifted to the lower-ranking position of governor of Da Afghanistan Bank (the central bank). Whereas during the first Taliban regime in the 1990s there was little money in government coffers and then Taliban leader Mullah Omar reputedly made cash payments himself, that is no way to operate the $2 billion per year national budget the Taliban now control.

Finally, the positive revenue trends and the modest degree of macroeconomic stability seen during the past year may not be sustainable. Much of the impressive revenue collection reflects bringing more international trade into the tax net, collecting other taxes that the previous Ghani administration was unable to collect and imposing some new levies. These factors only provide a onetime boost, not sustained revenue growth. Moreover, the Taliban’s aggressive revenue collection efforts risk dampening business incentives in an already very weak economy. So, with the Afghan economy at best continuing to grow slowly in the future, revenue growth also will be low. This will put added pressure on the Taliban government, particularly if there is increasing diversion of budget funds by the leadership.

Triumph of Ideology over Pragmatism or Political Power Dynamics?

Both the opium ban and the Taliban’s actions against women and girls do not make sense from a practical governance perspective, nor at least superficially do they appear to be in the regime’s best interest. Ideological extremism, combined with a perception that female education and women working in NGOs and the U.N. further foreign-driven agendas, may be trumping pragmatic concerns. Another explanation could be that these actions reflect the emir’s efforts to centralize power under himself. A third factor might be that the Taliban “base” of fighters and lower-level commanders was so indoctrinated during the insurgency that it is wedded to the cultural hard line the emir is adopting. However, the idea that the Taliban base is pressuring the leadership in all the areas where they have made mistakes, including the economic sphere (e.g., the opium ban), seems far-fetched. Irrespective of the motivations, these actions arise from internal Taliban dynamics, not their response to external pressures and incentives. This contrasts with the previous Taliban regime’s ban on opium poppy cultivation in 2000, which was intended to facilitate international recognition of the regime.

Self-harming overreach by victorious new regimes is a common pattern in Afghan history. This happened after the “accidental” April 1978 coup, which unexpectedly brought Marxist-Leninist ideologues and pro-Soviet army officers into power. Hasty and ill-thought-out land reforms and social policies stirred up resistance, while executions and widespread imprisonment of political opponents started cycles of violence and revenge that continue to this day. It also happened after the surprisingly rapid defeat of the Taliban in late 2001, which precipitated revenge killings, ostracization, counterterrorism actions against them and — taking the victory for granted — failure to conclude an early peace agreement with the defeated Taliban. In past episodes the blowback was swift (1978) or the seeds were sown for setbacks a few years later (2001). The situation now is somewhat different: There is no substantial, organized armed opposition to the current regime, let alone one supported by other countries. So the adverse fallout for the government may be delayed and is likely to depend on how internal Taliban dynamics play out.

International Response

The international response to the Taliban’s actions against women and girls has included unanimous, strong condemnation by the U.N. Security Council and a diplomatic consensus that now is not the time to move toward official recognition of the Taliban regime. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, while echoing the condemnations, has not engaged in a more robust response. There appear to be no plans to stop any major aid programs, let alone for any U.N. agency to withdraw from the country. This follows a similar response by NGOs after the Taliban ban on Afghan women working in NGOs; it appears that ongoing programs are continuing generally at 70-80 percent levels of activity. And the international response has not addressed the Taliban’s economic mistakes or, more generally, their management of the Afghan economy.

What are the least-bad strategic options to pursue in this bleak situation for a more effective response? Here are some suggestions, mostly focused on aid and the economy.

First, the international response can be grounded in the consensus on nonrecognition of the Taliban regime, pending significant changes in the Taliban’s social policies — unlikely in the short run. But practical, results-oriented engagement can and should be pursued in a range of economic and other areas.

Second, responses must be strategic, not just reactive to Taliban actions. The international community faces a “humanitarian dilemma” dealing with a regime that does not care about the material welfare of its own people. Nevertheless, sensible principles and approaches can be pursued, for example:

  • “Do no harm” or, more realistically, limit the damage to Afghans from international actions.
  • Be aware of the benefits accruing to the Taliban from aid and take concrete actions to limit them.
  • Develop a holistic aid strategy instead of stovepiping similar programs (e.g., humanitarian versus “basic needs”).
  • Focus on economic stability and the Afghan private sector, which will benefit Afghans.

Third, the inevitable declining trend in aid to Afghanistan needs to be managed and mitigated to minimize further damage and avoid another shock like that precipitated by the abrupt stoppage of aid following the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover. Some options include:

  • Cushioning the aid decline with modest support from the World Bank/Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund and Asian Development Bank, focused on small-scale infrastructure, financial transfers to households and income generation projects (which lie in the fuzzy area between humanitarian and basic needs development activities); and
  • Utilizing some of the $3.5 billion of Afghan central bank reserves in the Swiss fund to support economic adjustment (not for humanitarian aid), including, inter alia, providing Afghan banks liquidity, supporting exchange rate stability, facilitating trade finance and servicing Afghanistan’s sovereign debts.

Fourth, aid effectiveness must be improved to minimize the harm to Afghans from falling international assistance. Programs should be prioritized according to their cost-effectiveness. This requires changes from humanitarian business as usual. For example, cash transfers are generally better than in-kind aid.

Fifth, urgently explore and implement innovative aid delivery modalities — for example, digital transfers to recipients’ mobile phone accounts — which will over time reduce the risky dependence on high-cost U.N. cash shipments that benefit the Taliban. Make greater use of the Afghan private sector for aid delivery.

Finally, better coordinate aid and pursue proactive nonfinancial engagement on the Afghan economy. These aspects are best led by a multilateral agency not hindered by sometimes inconsistent political and humanitarian mandates. If so authorized and appropriately reoriented and retooled, the World Bank could productively play such roles.

Afghanistan’s Crisis Requires a Coherent, Coordinated International Response
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I am finally reunited with my family after 13 years. But the threat for Hazaras in Afghanistan remains

May 17, 2023

Sajjad Askary

The Guardian

Tue 16 May 2023 22.28 EDT

Joy flooded my heart as I finally welcomed my mother, sister and niece in Melbourne last week after 13 years of family separation as a refugee in Australia.

But I feel deep pain when I remember the day Islamist extremists killed my father, who was working as a labourer on a construction site. He was killed because of his ethnic identity as a Hazara.

Despite her immense grief, my mother became our family’s anchor. She raised us with unwavering strength amid the constant struggles and pain that came our way. Her love and determination fuelled my passion, leading me to become an aspiring lawyer and advocate for human rights, refugees and minorities.

Arif Nabizada near his home in Guildford, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
‘Taliban sharpening their knives’: Hazara community in Australia terrified for relatives in Afghanistan

After arriving in Australia by boat, I spent 13 years separated from my family, facing travel restrictions and a life of limbo with little hope. However, we are finally reunited after enduring unbearable pain and countless tears. Stepping on to Australian soil, my family found hope and the promise of a new home, despite leaving everything behind.

My two brothers came as refugees and have lived in Australia for over a decade. They pay taxes, have built transport and restaurant businesses and have created jobs through their entrepreneurship.

Australia has become a beacon of hope for Hazaras, where we can rebuild our lives and make a new home. In our short history in Australia, the rising generation of Australian Hazaras – thriving professionals, doctors, figures in academia, construction workers, social workers, lawyers and advocates for human rights, democracy and social justice such as myself – have found creative ways to contribute and give back to our communities. With the freedom to live without fear of being killed, Hazaras can help to “rejuvenate and transform” Australia’s economy and communities.

However, the situation remains devastating for the Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hazaras started migrating to Australia in the late 1990s, fleeing decades of what some have called relentless and genocidal violence. Since the return of the Taliban to power in August 2021, Hazaras have been subjected to systematic violence while attacks continue unabated. Hazaras have been suppressed in all aspects of their lives in Afghanistan and further pushed into marginalisation.

It has become increasingly difficult for the Hazaras to mobilise due to heightened security threats and continuous attacks. They have therefore used cyberspace and social media to raise awareness through demonstrations and advocacy for their safety, justice and human rights.

While my mother and sister are lucky to now live safely in Melbourne, women in Afghanistan are more at risk, facing multiple layers of vulnerability due to their gender, ethnic identity, religion and liberal values and for their support for democracy, inclusivity and human rights, making them particularly susceptible to discrimination and violence.

As an Australian Hazara, I am indebted to Australia for its generosity to my family. From personal experience, I am familiar with the systematic violence Hazaras are facing. This is why we, the Australian Hazaras, through the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Hazaras (PFH), are urging parliament to pass a motion to recognise the ongoing escalating systemic violence, discrimination, dispossession and what we deem genocidal threats against the Hazara people and other highly vulnerable groups.

We ask our government to work with the Australian Hazara community to ensure aid is delivered equitably and non-discriminately, pressure the Taliban to protect the Hazaras and provide continued asylum places for Hazaras and other persecuted and marginalised groups. Doing so will uphold our Australian values.

In the meantime, my mum, sister and niece have found a welcoming home in Australia, settling in smoothly and already embracing their new life. They have been warmly received by the Australian Hazara community, who are showing immense support and offering to help them with integration.

With access to education and healthcare, my family will gradually adapt to their new surroundings. Through their resilience and our support, their new life in Australia is filled with hope, opportunity and the promise of a brighter future.

 Sajjad Askary is an Australian Hazara and a juris doctor student at Monash University. He writes on refugees, human rights, Hazara people and Afghanistan

I am finally reunited with my family after 13 years. But the threat for Hazaras in Afghanistan remains
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The Other ‘Peace Process’ on Afghanistan: Geneva Talks 1982-1988

May 16, 2023

By 

PRIO

Posted 

In the past three years, the US government’s role in the Doha Talks (2010-2020) has attracted scrutiny and criticism within the United States and abroad.

Zalmay Khalilzad (USA) and Taliban representative Abdul Ghani Baradar sign the agreement in Doha, Qatar in 2020. State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain

Starting in November 2010, the Doha Talks was a process of intermittent negotiations between the United States and the Afghan Taliban. The culmination of this process was the Doha Agreement, signed in February 2020. The agreement facilitated the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan.

The Geneva talks

However, about three decades earlier, the US government had also played a pivotal role in another peace process on Afghanistan — Geneva Talks. The outcome of the latter talks was the Geneva Accords which facilitated the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989.

The Geneva Talks took place in the background of a military occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. In late December 1979, tens of thousands of Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to prop up a client regime in Kabul. The regime — also known as the Afghan Communist regime — had been established a year earlier following a military coup in April 1978. Ever since its establishment the Communist regime faced an armed resistance from anti-Communist resistance fighters — Mujahideen. At the time, the United States along with neighboring Pakistan supported the Mujahideen.

The Soviet Union claimed that it had deployed its forces in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government to fend off the threat from the Mujahideen. The United States refuted the Soviet claim. According to American President Jimmy Carter, the Soviet Union had occupied Afghanistan as part of an expansionist policy to acquire warmwater ports on the Indian Ocean — which implied further expansion into neighboring Pakistan. Hence, the United States claimed that the rationale behind its support for the Afghan Mujahideen was to stop the claimed Soviet expansion into the Persian Gulf.

Indirect negotiations for six years

Brokered by the United Nations, the Geneva Talks was a series of twelve rounds of indirect negotiations that ran for six years starting from June 1982 to April 1988. The talks nominally took place between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the key actors behind the scenes were the Soviet Union and the United States. The outcome of this process was the Geneva Accords which was a set of four interrelated agreements signed on 14 April 1988 by the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan and by the US Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union as the international guarantors.

At the heart of the Geneva talks was an effort by the United Nations to help the parties find a negotiated solution for the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The Soviet Union and the Afghan Communist regime reasoned that the Soviet troops would leave Afghanistan once the threat from the Mujahideen was removed. To remove the threat from the Mujahideen, they demanded the United States and Pakistan to halt their support for the Mujahideen first and then the Soviet forces would withdraw. However, the United States and Pakistan contended that the Mujahideen was not the cause but the consequence of the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and therefore the Soviet troops must withdraw without any preconditions.

Seeking regime change

In addition to the issue of the Soviet troops, there was another issue at stake which was not overtly part of the negotiations in Geneva but important to both the Soviet Union and the United States. Besides a withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the United States and Pakistan sought a regime change in Kabul. The removal of the Communist regime in Kabul was one of the main objectives behind the US involvement in the Afghan conflict. For that reason the US government, under Jimmy Carter, had supplied covert financial assistance to the Mujahideen about six months prior to the Soviet invasion. However, for the Soviet Union the survival of the regime in Kabul was of paramount importance because according to the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, the primary reason for the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was to prevent the fall of the regime.

Withdrawal and noninterference

Hence, the two main issues in the Geneva Talks were withdrawal of the Soviet troops and noninterference. Noninterference referred to a cessation of the US and Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Mujahideen. By implication it also meant that the United States and Pakistan would not pursue a regime change in Kabul.

Differences over who would rule Afghanistan after a withdrawal of the Soviet forces withheld progress in the Geneva Talks for several years. In June 1985, following the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev as the leader of the Soviet Union, the US and Soviet governments launched bilateral negotiations over regional issues, including Afghanistan.

The new Soviet leader was determined to withdraw from Afghanistan — calling it a bleeding wound for the Soviet Union. However, the commencement of bilateral US-Soviet negotiations on Afghanistan meant that the Geneva Talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan was merely a proforma exercise. This meant that substantive negotiations took place between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, and their outcomes manifested in the Geneva format which was nominally taking place between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In November 1985, Premier Gorbachev and President Reagan met in Geneva. Afghanistan was part of the agenda, and once again, a main point of contention between the two leaders was about the status of the Afghan government. Gorbachev proposed declaring Afghanistan a nonaligned state followed by a withdrawal of the Soviet troops. Reagan, however, demurred. He pointed out that the president of Afghanistan — Babrak Karmal — was a Soviet client and therefore implied that it was not feasible to establish Afghanistan’s nonalignment without a replacement of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul.

The Soviet Union, however, aimed to preserve the regime in Kabul. In early 1987, the Afghan Communist regime launched a National Reconciliation Program. The program — funded by the Soviet Union — was designed, in addition to offering a share of power to Mujahideen leaders, to lure individual Mujahideen commanders to reconcile with the regime by offering them financial and economic incentives. In other words, the objective of the National Reconciliation Program was to integrate the Mujahideen within the existing political structure in Kabul. Nonetheless, the Mujahideen rejected the program, as they vowed to continue the fight until the destruction of the Communist regime. In Washington, President Reagan also dismissed the Soviet-funded reconciliation program as a “sham.”

Failed reconciliation and intensifying conflict

The failure of the National Reconciliation Program and an intensifying conflict in Afghanistan prompted the Soviet Union to shift its policy from seeking to preserve the Communist regime to preventing a government led by the Mujahideen. In early December 1987, Soviet officials informed their American counterparts that the Soviet Union had made a decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. They urged the Americans to consider mutual interests. A Mujahideen-led government, the Soviet officials said, would also complicate American interests in the region.

Around the same time, Gorbachev and Reagan held another meeting in Washington. On 9 and 10 December 1987, the two leaders discussed the issue of Afghanistan. Reflecting the change in the Soviet position, Gorbachev said that Afghanistan was not a socialist country but a “semi-feudal pluralistic” country. The Soviet Union, he added, was no more concerned about how the people of Afghanistan chose to live. He invited Reagan to “think together in a businesslike approach” to establish a neutral government in the context of a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The US position, however, was that a neutral government could not be established without the removal of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. Hence, Reagan proposed disbanding the military structures of the Afghan Communist regime in the context of a Soviet withdrawal. In other words, Reagan wanted to dismantle the ruling regime and then “start from scratch.”

Breaking the deadlock

Two months after the Washington Summit, Gorbachev announced on 9 February 1988 that the Soviet Union was ready to start the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan on 15 May 1988 and to complete it within ten months. He added that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was no more conditional on an agreement about the future government of Afghanistan. That, he said, is “none of our business.”

The unilateral announcement by Gorbachev broke the insistent deadlock in the Geneva Talks which had been taking place between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan but without substantial progress. However, two months after Gorbachev’s announcement, the Geneva Talks concluded in April 1988 with the signing of the Geneva Accords which, among other elements, set a nine-month timeframe for the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

Letting the conflict take its course

Following the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in February 1989, the two superpowers allowed the conflict between the Mujahideen and the Afghan Communist regime to take its course. The expression of this policy was best exemplified in a conversation between Gorbachev and the US Secretary of State, James Baker, in February 1990. Referring to the ongoing war in Afghanistan, Gorbachev said: “Let them boil in their own juices over there.” To which, Baker responded: “When you said, ‘Let them boil,’ I thought we have the same feeling.”

***

The Other ‘Peace Process’ on Afghanistan: Geneva Talks 1982-1988
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