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Ayman al-Zawahiri assassination: The Taliban’s biggest crisis

August 10, 2022

Michael Kugelman

Al Jazeera

Published On 5 Aug 2022

The drone attack that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has plunged the Taliban into an internal crisis. The group has been humiliated by a unilateral US military action and its relentless claims that it has denied space to “terrorists” have been exposed as lies.

This imperils two core, and contradictory, Taliban goals: Maintaining the legitimacy of the group’s rank and file, which includes hardened armed fighters and religious ideologues and securing badly needed financial assistance from an international community already reluctant to fund the Taliban because of concerns about its “terrorist” ties.

Initially, the Taliban are likely to respond to the raid on al-Zawahiri with defiance, insisting they were not harbouring a terrorist and hardening their resistance to addressing longstanding international demands, from letting older girls return to school to forming a more inclusive government. They may also take a harder line on sensitive negotiations with Washington on the delivery of humanitarian supplies and the unfreezing of Afghan Central Bank assets.

But over the longer term, al-Zawahiri’s killing could exacerbate existing fissures within the group. Such internal churn could provide openings for the emergence of factions espousing more conciliatory and practical views but it could also lead to dysfunction and danger that affect governance and raise questions about the viability of the Taliban’s future political control.

For nearly a year, the Taliban have celebrated their expulsion of foreign military forces and pledged to never let them return. That is why the drone raid was such an embarrassment for the Taliban leadership but also for the battlefield commanders and fighters that fought US forces for nearly 20 years. Since their takeover, the Taliban have made clear just how much they prioritise maintaining legitimacy from those constituencies: They have hosted ceremonies honouring the families of suicide bombers, and held military parades that showcase US weaponry, even while alienating common Afghans by limiting girls’ education and cracking down on journalists and activists. The group will need to appease an angry rank and file; simply shrugging off the raid and moving on will not cut it.

The Taliban could also face new threats from Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), if they do not take a hard line towards the US. ISKP, a Taliban and al-Qaeda rival, has already benefitted from the al-Zawahiri killing because one of its most senior nemeses has been eliminated. But it can also gain propaganda mileage by accusing the Taliban of failing to anticipate the raid, or even of being complicit in it. ISKP fighters are clearly galvanised; this week, they attempted attacks on Shia observing the Muharram holiday.

The raid on al-Zawahiri also risks alienating the Taliban’s other hardliner allies present in Afghanistan, from the Pakistani Taliban to Lashkar-e-Taiba, all of which are aligned with al-Qaeda. These groups are united in their hatred of US military forces, especially when deployed on the soil of Muslim countries. Ironically, new Taliban tensions with fighters could strengthen the group’s narrative that it is distancing itself from “terrorists” – but they also raise the risk of these groups turning their guns on the Taliban.

Furthermore, in the immediate term, Washington will not be keen to engage with the Taliban. It is furious that al-Zawahiri lived in central Kabul, and believes some Taliban leaders knew he was there. With the US taking a tough line on the Taliban, and in no mood to discuss expanding assistance or unfreezing Afghan bank funds, the Taliban have little incentive to contemplate a more conciliatory position. US-Taliban relations, awkward and uneasy before the al-Zawahiri raid, are poised to become downright toxic.

But relations within the Taliban could become toxic, too. The group’s internal divisions are well known: There are differences between the fighter ranks and the civilian representatives long based in the Taliban political office in Doha; between ideologically-driven mullahs and more practically minded leaders who support more international engagement; and between the Haqqani network faction and Taliban authorities from Kandahar, the group’s birthplace.

An individual close to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban interior minister, reportedly owns the home that sheltered al-Zawahiri. This is unsurprising, given the especially deep ties between the Haqqanis and al-Qaeda. According to scholars Don Rassler and Vahid Brown, the Haqqani network has functioned within al-Qaeda “as an interdependent system.”

Many Taliban leaders likely are not happy that al-Zawahiri took shelter in Kabul. Others are likely furious that his presence has subjected the group to deep humiliation and a potential internal legitimacy crisis. And others likely fear someone within the group’s ranks shared al-Zawahiri’s location with the CIA. Al-Zawahiri himself once reportedly confided to al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden that he did not trust Taliban leaders and they did not trust him.

The missile attack humiliated the Taliban. They also face the ire of the group’s rank and file. And they will now face even more difficulty in securing international support to address raging humanitarian and economic crises driven in great part by sanctions that prevent money from flowing into the country. This state of play means that those factions that support more pragmatic and conciliatory positions may have an opportunity to make a power play. And yet, the ideologues and hardliners will not bend. They hold some of the leadership’s top positions, and they embrace ideologies that reflect the Taliban’s fundamental identity.

In the past, the Taliban’s supreme leadership successfully suppressed internal revolts, often with force. That may happen this time, too. But that was easier to do when the group was an armed uprising, with much less stress, without the heavy responsibilities of governing and addressing immense policy challenges, without a galvanised rival like ISKP, and without an external event that could cause such dramatic internal shocks. Institutional divisions were previously casual distractions; today, they could become corrosive dangers. If these internal tensions become all consuming, governance and political control could face threats and provide openings for new armed opposition groups. This would mean the risk of renewed violence and civil war. In the most extreme scenario, the missile that tore through al-Zawahiri could tear apart the Taliban.

For now, the Taliban appear to be buying themselves time as they consider how to proceed: They refused to confirm al-Zawahiri was killed and instead promised an investigation. In the immediate term, the Taliban are likely to talk tough, condemn the raid, and double down on the same policies that have provoked international sanctions and prevented the inflow of much-needed overseas funding.

But eventually, the Taliban could face an inflexion point as they grapple with humiliation, a traumatised rank and file, more international opprobrium, and intensifying internal divisions – all of which will further tax their already-overwhelming governance responsibilities. Over their nearly 30 years of existence, the Taliban have never experienced such a serious crisis.

Michael Kugelman is deputy director and senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Ayman al-Zawahiri assassination: The Taliban’s biggest crisis
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One Year Later, Taliban Unable to Reverse Afghanistan’s Economic Decline

August 9, 2022

 William Byrd, Ph.D.

United States Institute of Peace

Monday, August 8, 2022

Afghanistan’s economy was already deteriorating before the Taliban takeover of the country on August 15, 2021, suffering from severe drought, the COVID-19 pandemic, declining confidence in the previous government, falling international military spending as U.S. and other foreign troops left, human and capital flight, and Taliban advances on the battlefield. Then came the abrupt cutoff of civilian and security aid (more than $8 billion per year, equivalent to 40% of Afghanistan’s GDP) immediately after the Taliban takeover. No country in the world could have absorbed such an enormous economic shock — exacerbated by sanctions, the freezing of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves and foreign banks’ reluctance to do business with the country.

Taliban fighters guard an aid site and give instructions to survivors of the earthquake, in the Gayan district of Afghanistan, June 24, 2022. (Kiana Hayeri/The New York Times)
USIP’s William Byrd discusses the economic situation in Afghanistan a year since the Taliban came to power; the Taliban’s economic management performance; the economic, humanitarian and aid outlook; and priorities for the United States and other countries.

What is the state of the Afghan economy today?

The economy has shrunk by 20% to 30% since August 2021, a great many people have lost jobs and livelihoods, social services have been decimated, poverty and hunger as well as the humanitarian crisis have greatly worsened, hundreds of thousands of people have left the country, government agencies have been denuded of managerial and professional staff, many Afghan businesses have closed or downsized and the bottom has dropped out of already low investment.

After a free fall that lasted many months, the Afghan economy is stabilizing but at a much lower equilibrium, leaving people poorer and more vulnerable to privation, hunger and disease. There is no prospect for the economy to resume high growth let alone recover to pre-2021 levels in the foreseeable future.

Externally, the Afghan currency’s exchange rate has bounced back and is no lower than a year ago. Imports have declined sharply (reflecting the economic collapse and lack of international aid to finance imports) while exports have doubled in recent months. A series of U.S. Treasury announcements, culminating in General License 20 in February 2022, belatedly clarified that existing sanctions do not apply to Afghanistan as a jurisdiction, the Afghan government or government agencies, and public and private banks or firms.

Internally, Afghan businesses appear to have stopped further job losses and closures (while not coming anywhere near restoring pre-2021 levels of activity), goods are generally available in markets and wages seem to have stopped declining. Inflation remains high but is now the result of rising global food and energy prices not exchange rate depreciation or other domestic factors as was the case earlier. Mining has been a bright spot, with coal output and exports (mainly to Pakistan) on track to double this year to some four million tons.

This is not to say the economic situation is at all good, just that the free fall has stopped. The new equilibrium leaves most of the Afghan population — up to 70%, according to a World Bank survey — unable to afford food and other necessities, a “famine equilibrium” where many people would starve in the absence of humanitarian help.

How have the Taliban handled economic management over the past year? What have they done well?

Revenue collection at border crossings has been remarkable despite the steep drop in imports. Total revenues are on track to fall but by far less than the decline in the economy.

Arguably, the Taliban have taken a more positive (albeit simplistic) approach to the Afghan private sector than the previous government. Private firms have sometimes negotiated successfully with the Taliban over tax rates and other business issues of direct concern to them.

Taliban actions have greatly reduced corruption in customs and at road checkpoints (most of which have been removed). As a result, the overall burden on the private sector has been reduced even while formal tax receipts have held up. Also helping are the much-reduced financial inflows into the country which had previously enabled enormous corruption and waste. However, there are signs of some petty corruption in Taliban-controlled government agencies, extortion of nongovernmental organizations and the like.

Less large-scale corruption and the aid cutoff mean the adverse impact of the economic shock and subsequent adjustment has been disproportionately felt at the upper end of the Afghan income scale which benefited most from corruption, with smaller percentage reductions in incomes at the lower end.

The Taliban administration has generally kept to a responsible macroeconomic and monetary stance, unable to print new Afghani banknotes or to flood the country with dollars (limited to the U.N. cash shipments), and with withdrawals from banks limited to prevent their collapse.

What have the Taliban done badly?

Their complete lack of transparency on budget expenditures is unacceptable and may mask irregularities or more likely allocation of large amounts of funds to the security sector and other Taliban priorities.

Efforts to control the foreign exchange market and edicts not to use foreign currencies — even though not effectively implemented — betray a lack of understanding of market functioning and the advantages Afghanistan gains from free markets.

The large increases in coal and other mineral exports may further damage Afghanistan’s crumbling roads, and it is not clear whether the Taliban will be able to maintain roads and other essential infrastructure better than the previous government, let alone oversee large new infrastructure investments. Not to speak of the problematic environmental and social consequences of mining.

Taliban ideology is getting in the way of sound economic management. Their recently announced ban on opium, if implemented, would further shock the Afghan economy and take away the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of rural people — an additional economic hit the country is simply unable to take. It remains to be seen whether the ban will be implemented.

Taliban restrictions on girls’ education and women’s roles in work would have disastrous longer-term economic consequences by limiting the participation of over half of the population in the economy.

What has been the impact of the economic situation and Taliban economic management on Afghans?

The improvement in security brought about by the Taliban victory and the end of major fighting has been favorable for the Afghan economy, benefiting many businesses and individuals. The same is true of the closure of most road checkpoints and much less corruption in customs.

In other respects, however, people are generally much worse off — though this is due primarily to the economic shock from the aid cutoff and should not be attributed solely or mostly to the Taliban’s management of the economy. Where the Taliban are more directly implicated is in the deterioration in social services (stoppage of female secondary education, less and lower-quality health care, especially for women and girls), the related loss of employment for a great many women and policy instability in certain areas such as foreign exchange and banking.

What is the outlook for the Afghan economy?

Unfortunately, Afghanistan is stuck in a low-level equilibrium trap with very slow economic growth (around or below the population growth rate — meaning the lives of most people will not improve anytime soon). Even this unattractive scenario is precarious and could be derailed by continuing drought, lower humanitarian aid, the Ukraine war’s impact on food prices or worsening security.

The continuing drought strikes at Afghanistan’s most precious natural resource — water — and will make it all the more difficult for agriculture to play its essential role in economic recovery and supporting livelihoods. Serious implementation of the opium ban would create a perfect storm for the rural economy, risking outright famine and large movements of people out of the country.

Though down sharply from pre-August 2021 levels, Afghanistan’s aid dependency remains high and is a continuing source of vulnerability. U.N. cash shipments, on the order of $1 billion to $1.5 billion per year, plus another perhaps roughly equal amount of non-cash humanitarian aid transfers, are essential both for human survival and for maintaining the degree of macroeconomic stability that has emerged. It is far from clear that this level of mainly humanitarian support can be sustained.

Other risks include the lingering effects of sanctions — really the fear of sanctions now that their scope has been clarified and narrowed, the weakness of the central bank partly reflecting its lack of access to frozen foreign exchange reserves and continuing problems with international financial transactions.

In the face of the current economic and humanitarian situation, what can the United States and other international donors do to help everyday Afghans?

Continuing current humanitarian aid is essential to avoid or mitigate a humanitarian catastrophe. But this is no long-term solution and would leave the country permanently dependent on such aid and vulnerable to any interruption. Humanitarian and other aid must be well-coordinated and cost-effective.

Donors will need to continue to strike a balance between maintaining food and other lifesaving assistance and providing some degree of support to basic services, livelihoods and modest economic growth, while not overly legitimizing or strengthening the Taliban regime. This is hard and will necessitate difficult trade-offs among these objectives.

The Taliban bear their own responsibility for the current economic situation. By ignoring and often openly flouting international priorities, they are making it more difficult for donors to sustain current aid let alone increase it (to compensate for rising food and other costs), and to restore normal international financial relations. They need to build on the more positive aspects of their economic management; appoint qualified, experienced officials to lead key economic agencies (the central bank and finance ministry); and become more responsive to international concerns not least in the economic field.

One Year Later, Taliban Unable to Reverse Afghanistan’s Economic Decline
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After al-Zawahiri’s Killing, What’s Next for the U.S. in Afghanistan?

August 5, 2022

Kate Bateman;  Asfandyar Mir, Ph.D.;  Andrew Watkins
United States Institute of Peace

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

On Monday, President Biden revealed that a U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida leader, and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri over the weekend. Al-Zawahiri was reportedly on the balcony of a safe house in Kabul, Afghanistan. Last week, the United States participated in a regional conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan focused on counterterrorism, where Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said his regime had followed through on commitments to not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for transnational terrorism. Al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul seemingly undercuts Muttaqi’s remarks and the Taliban’s supposed promise to cut ties with groups like al-Qaida. It also complicates discussions held last week between Taliban and U.S. officials on unfreezing Afghan Central Bank assets, which could help ease Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis.
USIP’s Asfandyar Mir, Andrew Watkins and Kate Bateman discuss al-Zawahiri’s legacy, what his killing tells us about the Taliban and the ramifications for U.S. counterterrorism and Afghanistan policy.

What is al-Zawahiri’s legacy?

Mir: Ayman al-Zawahiri was routinely downplayed as a terrorist threat by analysts and policymakers, especially compared to his charismatic predecessor Osama bin Laden. But a closer look at al-Qaida’s trajectory suggests that he managed to steer the group against the tide of American drone strikes and weathered the competition of a formidable rival jihadist group in ISIS. Today al-Qaida affiliates in East Africa and the Sahel region are on the march. Al-Zawahiri also managed to preserve al-Qaida’s historic strategic partnership with the Taliban despite enormous international and military pressure on the Taliban to break from the group — evidenced clearly in al-Zawahiri having sanctuary in the heart of Kabul under the protection of the Taliban’s senior most leadership.

So, al-Zawahiri leaves behind for his successor a stronger and arguably more dangerous organization for the rest of the world than the one Bin Laden left behind for him back in 2011.

What does al-Zawahiri’s killing tell us about the Taliban?

Watkins: Al-Zawahiri’s location in downtown Kabul strongly suggests some form of Taliban sanctuary, even if this may have been unofficial. U.S. officials quoted in the press have pointed to the notorious Haqqani network, long accused of close ties with al-Qaida, as al-Zawahiri’s hosts. In one sense, his killing only confirms the consensus view of the Haqqanis and their relationships with transnational terror groups.

Within the Taliban, it is difficult to gauge opinion regarding al-Qaida, or how their members feel about providing the group support even if it poses serious risks to their continued rule over Afghanistan. The elder generation, their current leadership, certainly remembers the hardships their group endured since the United States invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban in late 2001, prompted by al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks. However, the ensuing 20 years of U.S.-NATO intervention hardened many Taliban against Western nations and has driven many younger Taliban closer to the propaganda and online communities of global jihadism. What is almost certain is that the Taliban’s rank and file will view confirmation of the U.S. drone strike as a gross violation of the Taliban’s sovereignty and an embarrassing example of their group’s weakness.

In high-level meetings and diplomatic statements, the Taliban continue to refer to the U.S. obligations under the Doha Agreement (which they signed in February 2020 with the United States), which demands the Taliban withdraw support for any groups seeking to harm the U.S. or its allies — specifically naming al-Qaida. The circumstances of al-Zawahiri’s death reveal the Taliban to be in grave violation of the agreement they continue to press the United States to abide by. Moreover, acting Minister of Interior Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the eponymous network, has sought over the past year to persuade foreign diplomats of his stature as a reasonable, pragmatic interlocutor on a number of policy issues, including girls’ education. This revelation may make many donor nations uncomfortable with the idea of continued engagement with Haqqani. It will also reaffirm the concerns of Afghanistan’s neighbors and regional powers, that terrorism might begin to emanate from across the country’s borders.

What does this mean for U.S. policy on Afghanistan?

Bateman: In their approach to the de facto Taliban government, U.S. policymakers have sought to walk a thin line: engage the Taliban on humanitarian, rights and governance issues that matter to Washington, while seeking to mitigate the risk that this very engagement further legitimizes the still-reprehensible Taliban as a government.

But the United States has had to accept the fact that even this minimal diplomatic engagement has the effect of normalizing, to some degree, the Taliban government. The tradeoff was that engagement has facilitated U.S. assistance to alleviate the enormous humanitarian and economic crises, and kept a channel open to the Taliban, to push for respect for women’s and human rights, inclusive governance — and potentially in the future, some form of counterterrorism cooperation.

The al-Zawahiri strike — demonstrating Taliban leaders’ apparent ongoing willingness to harbor al-Qaida — puts that tradeoff in sharp relief. It will now be far more difficult for the United States and other countries to justify pragmatic engagement with the Taliban. If the Taliban’s abusive and repressive policies had already killed hopes that their second turn at governance would be any different from the first, now, their blatant violation of their counterterrorism commitments in the February 2020 Doha Agreement sets them on a course toward again becoming a pariah regime.

Most urgently, U.S. policymakers and counterterrorism analysts must revisit their assessments of the terrorist threat in Afghanistan. The successful U.S. strike vindicates those who’ve argued for an over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan. But al-Zawahiri finding harbor in Kabul may also point to a graver threat than was assumed.

Second, U.S. officials must urgently explore options for alleviating Afghan suffering that do not rely on engagement with or facilitation by the Taliban regime. Recent U.S. steps toward unfreezing Afghan Central Bank assets, which were meant to help ease Afghanistan’s cash liquidity crisis and support resumption of normal economic activity, now face even more uncertainty. Lessons from the delivery of humanitarian assistance during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 regime should be revisited.

What does this mean for U.S. counterterrorism policy?

Mir: While al-Zawahiri’s killing is an important counterterrorism operational success, the overall strategic picture emerging from enduring al-Qaida-Taliban association is bad news for the U.S. government, which has been wanting to pivot away from the fight against terrorism toward strategic competition with China and Russia. It appears the U.S. government still faces formidable terrorist adversaries who are able to exploit grievances, alliances and state support to recover from losses and stay in the fight. America can’t afford to take the eye off its terrorist adversaries. Confronting them before they metastasize is essential to preventing terrorist group provocations from materializing — and in turn remaining focused on strategic competition in the long run.

After al-Zawahiri’s Killing, What’s Next for the U.S. in Afghanistan?
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What Zawahri’s Death Tells Us About Afghanistan’s Future

August 5, 2022

By JONATHAN SCHRODEN

Politico

The killing is a valuable, if troubling, datapoint about a volatile nation.

The successful strike on Sunday against Ayman al-Zawahri —a man with no shortage of American blood on his hands — is a celebratory moment for President Joe Biden’s administration. For watchers of Afghanistan, it is also illuminating, like a flashbulb on the darkness that has enveloped Afghanistan since the American pullout a year ago.

According to initial reports, the Central Intelligence Agency used a drone to launch two Hellfire missiles at Zawahri after spotting him on the balcony of the Kabul safe house in which he was staying with his family. Even with the limited information now available, this assassination can tell us a great deal about the current security situation in the country, the state of U.S. capabilities to affect that situation and the future of Afghanistan and its people.

It also raises a host of questions that are yet to be answered.

Security is a growing worry

Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s nearly immediate takeover last August, the trend in security for the average Afghan has improved. Civilian casualties, for example, have declined as a result of the end of the long civil war waged by the Taliban against the U.S.-supported government.

However, the threat from terrorist groups of concern to the international community has steadily increased in the past year.

The most virulent of these is the Islamic State-Khorasan, an organization that was on the rebound even before the U.S. withdrew. Since then, IS-K has increased in size to between 1,500 and 4,000 fighters and is now one of the “most vigorous” regional networks of the Islamic State. The group, which routinely conducts attacks against Taliban security forces, has also engaged in horrific attacks against minority groups and rocket attacks against Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Al Qaeda is not as strong as IS-K in Afghanistan (likely numbering several hundred individuals). But unlike the adversarial relationship that IS-K has with the Taliban, al Qaeda enjoys close and abiding relations with the group that now governs the country. A recent United Nations report stated that since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, al Qaeda senior leaders had “enjoyed a more settled period” and had begun recruiting new members and funding in the country. That report further stated that the Taliban’s takeover had given Zawahri himself “increased comfort and ability to communicate” with al Qaeda’s followers.

The fact that Zawahri was killed in the middle of Kabul — in a neighborhood known to house senior Taliban figures — suggests that both he and the Taliban believed the country’s capital was an effective sanctuary for the world’s most wanted terrorist. Further, Zawahri’s habit of spending time on an open balcony, combined with reports that foreigners were detected in his neighborhood by local Afghans months ago, illustrates the increased sense of freedom that members of al Qaeda have enjoyed in Afghanistan over the past year.

‘Over-the-horizon’ counterterrorism is less effective — but it can work

Before the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, it was maintaining several thousand special operations forces in Afghanistan, accompanying counterterrorism strike platforms (e.g., drones), a CIA station and local partner forces such as the Afghan Army Commandos and the elite Ktah Khas. In the wake of the withdrawal, the U.S. lost all of those capabilities, and was left with no residual presence or partner forces in the country.

To mitigate those losses, the U.S. established an “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism cell in Qatar, intended to address threats in Afghanistan remotely. It has been flying routine drone sorties from its airbases there, through Pakistani airspace and over various regions of Afghanistan. Those drones provide the U.S. with some residual means of intelligence collection on terrorist activities in the country. But as of last December, according to the former commander of U.S. Central Command, the U.S. was “at about 1 percent or 2 percent of the capabilities we once had to look into Afghanistan.”

With a tiny fraction of the capabilities it once had, the U.S. has been far less effective at putting pressure on groups like IS-K or al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which accounts in large part for their expansion since last fall. And yet, the Zawahri strike illustrates that even with this small amount of capability, the U.S. remains able to find, fix and finish even the most elusive of terrorist targets there.

While the full details of Sunday’s strike have not yet been revealed, reports have emerged of the CIA having a “ground team” in place before and apparently after the strike was conducted. The infiltration or cultivation of such a team represents a notable expansion in U.S. intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan over the past six months and the successful strike will reignite the fears and reinvigorate the safety protocols of al Qaeda and IS-K leaders.

For Afghans, no good news

While Zawahri’s death is a victory for U.S. intelligence agencies and will likely hobble al Qaeda’s core cadre until a new leader is firmly at the helm, it nonetheless bodes ill for the average Afghan.

Over the past year, Afghanistan’s population of roughly 40 million people have suffered immensely. Financial aid to the country, which formed the predominance of its national budget before the U.S. withdrawal, has decreased precipitously and its economy has contracted by 30 to 40 percent since last August.

Prior to this strike, the U.S. had been engaged in regular talks with the Taliban on issues such as humanitarian aid, opening of secondary schools for girls and the possible release of Afghanistan’s sovereign wealth to a modified Central Bank. Through these talks, the U.S. aimed to inject more resources into the Afghan economy — without directly aiding the Taliban government — to ease the suffering of Afghans.

Now, with the news that Zawahri was not only in Kabul, but being sheltered there by the Taliban’s acting Minister of Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the relationship between the Taliban and the U.S. is likely to move into a cold, tense phase. The Taliban have already condemned the strike as a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and the sole formal agreement between the group and the U.S. that the two sides signed in Doha in 2020. The U.S., for its part, called the Taliban’s harboring of Zawahri a violation of the same agreement.

Negotiations were previously healthy enough that U.S. Special Representative Tom West was able to exchange proposals with the Taliban that were designed to jump-start macroeconomic assistance to the country. In this new atmosphere, it is doubtful that he will be given the same degree of latitude to meet with the Taliban, and it seems likely that no further progress on any of the issues he had been discussing with them will be made soon.

In the meantime, the one constant of the past four decades of Afghanistan’s history — the suffering of its average citizens — is likely to remain.

With new knowledge comes new questions

While the Zawahri attack illuminates a lot about the current situation in Afghanistan, it also raises a host of additional questions. For example, why did the Taliban allow Zawahri to come to Kabul? Was it to keep him safe from discovery and U.S. strikes elsewhere? Or was it to keep tabs on him and his activities, so as to prevent al Qaeda from attacking other countries from Afghanistan, as the Taliban has repeatedly pledged it would do?

Even more important, looking forward: If Zawahri was brought to Kabul and sheltered by the Taliban, who else are they hiding and protecting? Other leaders of al Qaeda? Leaders of other militant groups? And when will the Afghan people see relief from the cycle of terrorism, violence and suffering that they have endured for so long?

Yesterday’s announcement was a moment to celebrate. But it was only a moment. Today brings new knowledge, new questions, new targets, new challenges and new collateral damage in the unending war between the U.S. and al Qaeda.

Dr. Jonathan Schroden directs the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia. The views expressed here are his and do not necessarily represent those of CNA, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense. 

What Zawahri’s Death Tells Us About Afghanistan’s Future
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For the Taliban, a New Era of Isolation Has Arrived

August 4, 2022
By Christina Goldbaum and Thomas Gibbons-Neff

The New York Times

The group has promised moderation even while reinstituting its harsh rule of Afghanistan. Now, the revelation that the Taliban were sheltering Al Qaeda’s leader is likely to harden support for sanctions.

Hours after an American drone strike killed the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, in downtown Kabul, Taliban security forces rushed to seal off the site. Green tarps were thrown over destroyed windows. Checkpoints were put up, and shops were closed.

But there was no hiding the damage that had been done to the Taliban’s nascent government, which had tried to shelter the world’s most wanted terrorist from the eyes of the American government.

The strike early Sunday morning — and the public revelation that the Taliban had sheltered a key plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the heart of the Afghan capital — was a watershed moment for the group’s new government. And it underscored the reality of their rule: The Taliban have not fundamentally reformed from their first regime in the 1990s, when their hard-line policies and relationship with Al Qaeda turned the country into a pariah state.

Retaliation against Al Qaeda and the Taliban allies who sheltered the terrorist group drove the United States to invade Afghanistan in 2001, beginning a two-decade-long war that ravaged the country. Now, the Taliban seem to be once more treading the same path, fueling criticism that their government should never be internationally recognized, and raising questions about whether a new era of U.S. strikes in Afghanistan has begun.

A statement from the Taliban condemned the American strike, without specifically mentioning al-Zawahri or Al Qaeda. “It is an act against the interests of Afghanistan and the region,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban government. “Repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities.”

The strike comes at an already tenuous moment for the Taliban. Since seizing power, the group has promised to moderate as it seeks international recognition and aid from Western diplomats abroad, even while staying true to its hard-line ideological beliefs at home.

In recent months, the government has enacted increasingly oppressive policies, including restricting women’s rights to travel and work. And it has reneged on an early promise to allow girls to attend secondary school, a stark echo of its first rule.

Those measures have increasingly turned international attitudes against the government and have cost the country millions in foreign aid, worsening its dire economic crisis. Now, the strike against Al Qaeda’s leader in the heart of Kabul has opened a new chapter for the Taliban government, seemingly cementing its international isolation.

The strike highlights what many analysts and experts have warned for months: that the Taliban have allowed terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, to exist freely on Afghan soil since the takeover despite an agreement with the United States in which the group pledged to keep Afghan territory from becoming a haven for terrorist plotting.

“No one is terribly surprised that the Taliban is playing footsie with Al Qaeda, and no one is terribly surprised the U.S. hit him with a drone,” said Graeme Smith, a senior consultant for the International Crisis Group who focuses on Afghanistan.

“The risk now is a slippery slope of ‘over the horizon’ strikes being a viable option dealing with very complicated threats that are coming from Afghanistan,” he added. “There is a rich history of airstrikes not having their intended consequences in Afghanistan.”

Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, American officials have moved to reposition American forces in neighboring countries where they can launch strikes like the one on al-Zawahri. This strategy is still in its infancy, and talks about positioning forces in places like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan are still in their early stages.

It remains unclear whether the strike over the weekend will be the first of many, or a one-off.

“The strike doesn’t necessarily tell us much about the over-the-horizon strategy because it was clear that al-Zawahri was a big enough fish to go after regardless of the general policy,” Mr. Smith added.

For many Afghans in Kabul, news of the U.S. airstrike in the heart of the capital stirred deep-seated fears of a return to the era of American military intervention, after a relatively peaceful stretch over the past year since the U.S. troop withdrawal and end of the devastating two-decade war.

American officials insisted that no one other than al-Zawahri was killed or hurt in the strike over the weekend. But just a year ago, in the chaotic final days of its withdrawal in August 2021, the United States carried out a drone strike based on bad information that killed 10 civilians in Kabul — an error American officials acknowledged only after reporting by The New York Times.

Shafiq, 25, said he was arranging fruit at his stand in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood of Kabul when he heard a powerful explosion. For a moment he froze, he said, seized by the fear that once again hundreds of people had been killed in a deadly attack. In time, he came to fear that it could be the beginning of yet another bloody conflict.

“I am personally very worried about the future of our country,” said Shafiq, whose full name is being withheld for security reasons. “We want peace and security in our country after this, and we do not want war to start in our country again.”

The Taliban’s history with Al Qaeda stretches back decades. Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s first leader in the 1990s, was largely deferential to Al Qaeda’s expanding existence in the country’s east during those years. Some Taliban factions had a closer relationship with the terrorist organization than others — especially the Haqqani network, whose senior leadership fought alongside and aided Al Qaeda’s founder, Osama bin Laden, during the Soviet-Afghan war.

As its terrorist camps spread, Bin Laden issued a “declaration of jihad” in summer 1996 that called for attacks on the United States. Omar was at times clearly frustrated with the negative international attention that began focusing on his government, but he still refused to eject Bin Laden, even after Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks set the United States on the path to invasion.

Both Bin Laden and al-Zawahri pledged allegiance to the Taliban’s leaders over the years, though al-Zawahri’s most recent pledge — in 2016 after Haibatullah Akhundzada rose to become supreme leader of the Taliban — was never publicly accepted or rejected by the group.

Over the course of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, American forces periodically killed Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, despite the group’s having been mostly driven out of the country or into hiding in the mountainous border regions with Pakistan.

But a larger drift back into Afghanistan began in more recent years. In 2015, U.S. and Afghan commandos, backed by American air support, attacked an Al Qaeda training camp in the southern part of the country that military officials said was one of the largest ever discovered. One such camp sprawled over 30 square miles, and hundreds of Qaeda fighters were killed or injured in the battle, U.S. officials said at the time.

Less than a year before the United States left Afghanistan, and after U.S. and Taliban officials had signed the Doha agreement in 2020, Afghan government forces killed a senior Qaeda leader who was under the protection of the Taliban in southeastern Afghanistan. The raid was a clear indication that the Taliban had refused to sever ties with the terrorist group despite the commitments made in the Doha talks. Still, the American troop withdrawal continued.

Since the Taliban seized power, analysts and experts have warned that terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, have been able to operate more freely across Afghanistan.

Cross-border attacks launched by the Pakistani Taliban from Afghanistan more than doubled in the eight months after the Western-backed government collapsed, according to the Islamabad-based Pak Institute for Peace Studies. And this spring, United Nations monitors warned that the Taliban were providing “operating space for about 20 terrorist groups broadly aligned with Al-Qaida and Taliban objectives.”

The U.N. report added that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power and that al-Zawahri had been issuing regular video messages — a sign that he was feeling more comfortable since the Taliban’s takeover and his move back to Afghanistan.

Now, following al-Zawahri’s death at the hands of the United States, many are waiting to see how Al Qaeda and the Taliban will define their relationship.

“It’s interesting what happens next,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with Crisis Group’s Asia Program. “If Al Qaeda chooses a leader that’s present in Afghanistan, then it doesn’t solve the Taliban’s conundrum.”

Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting from Kabul and Eric Schmitt contributed from Washington.

For the Taliban, a New Era of Isolation Has Arrived
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Killing of Qaeda Leader Crystallizes Debate Over Biden’s Afghanistan Strategy

August 4, 2022
By Peter Baker

The New York Times

President Biden now confronts the question of what, if anything, he will do in response to the revelation that the Taliban were again sheltering a leader of Al Qaeda.

WASHINGTON — The sunrise missile strike that shredded the leader of Al Qaeda on the balcony of a house in Kabul finally validated President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. Or perhaps the strike discredited it. Or maybe some combination of both.

The coming anniversary of the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan was already sure to instigate a round of arguments about its wisdom, but the killing of Ayman al-Zawahri by a C.I.A. drone hovering over the Afghan capital has crystallized the debate in a visceral way.

To Mr. Biden and his allies, the precision operation that took out one of the patrons of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks without civilian deaths demonstrated that war can be waged against terrorists without large deployments of American troops on the ground. To his critics, though, the stunning realization that al-Zawahri had returned to Kabul evidently under the protection of the Taliban made clear that Afghanistan has again become a haven for America’s enemies.

“The successful U.S. strike vindicates those who’ve argued for an over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan,” Kate Bateman, who helped write reports for the American government on corruption, drugs, gender inequality and other issues in Afghanistan, said in a discussion hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace. “But Zawahri finding harbor in Kabul may also point to a graver threat than was assumed.”

The dual conclusions emerging from the strike complicated an otherwise heady moment for a president who just authorized the operation that took out one of the most wanted men in the world. Hunting down and killing al-Zawahri may not have resonated with the public in the same way the raid that dispatched Osama bin Laden did in 2011, but it was nonetheless seen across the board as a victory for the United States.

The implications of that victory, however, were still being sorted out the day after Mr. Biden’s nighttime address to the nation announcing the drone strike from over the weekend. The president now confronts the question of what, if anything, he will do in response to the revelation that the Taliban were once again sheltering the leader of a group dedicated to killing Americans.

The peace agreement that led to last year’s troop withdrawal, negotiated by President Donald J. Trump before he left office and then carried out by Mr. Biden, specified that the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to become a launching pad for future Al Qaeda violence against the United States as it was before the Sept. 11 attacks.

While the Biden administration called al-Zawahri’s presence a clear violation of that deal, known as the Doha Agreement for the capital of Qatar where it was sealed, some analysts said the Taliban could maintain that it was not out of compliance because sheltering the fugitive head of Al Qaeda was not the same as serving as a staging ground for new attacks.

The White House did not see it that way. “The Taliban have a choice,” John F. Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, told reporters on Tuesday. “They can comply with their agreement” to bar terrorists from their territory “or they can choose to keep going down a different path. If they go down a different path, it’s going to lead to consequences.”

But neither Mr. Kirby nor other officials would specify what kind of consequences Mr. Biden had in mind. There is no appetite in the White House, or for that matter most of Washington, for a return of significant military force to Afghanistan. And the Taliban leadership that swept into power in the wake of last year’s American withdrawal has successfully defied international pressure as it has reimposed a repressive regime, including a renewed crackdown on the rights of women and girls.

“We’re back to where we were before 9/11, and unfortunately that means the Taliban and Al Qaeda are back together,” said Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution, an adviser to multiple presidents on the Middle East and South Asia who conducted a review of Afghanistan policy for President Barack Obama when he came into office. “Twenty years of effort were wasted.”

Al-Zawahri returned to Afghanistan earlier this year, according to American intelligence reports, moving with his family into a house in one of the most exclusive enclaves of Kabul, where American and other foreign diplomats lived not too long ago only to surrender the neighborhood to Taliban figures. “He must have felt very safe, 100 percent confident that nothing could harm him,” Mr. Riedel said.

Indeed, the Taliban clearly knew al-Zawahri was there and safeguarded him. He was living in a house owned by a top aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban interior minister and part of the Haqqani terrorist network with close ties to Al Qaeda, according to two people with knowledge about the residence. After the strike, members of the Haqqani network tried to conceal that al-Zawahri had been at the house and restrict access to the site, senior American officials said.

Mr. Biden justified his decision to pull out last year on the grounds that Al Qaeda was no longer there. “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with Al Qaeda gone?” he said at the time. “We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as well as getting Osama bin Laden. And we did.”

Mr. Kirby argued on Tuesday that the president meant that Al Qaeda was no longer a significant force in Afghanistan by that point, noting that government assessments at the time concluded the group’s presence was “small and not incredibly powerful.” Mr. Kirby added, “We would still assess that to be the case.”

As a result, he and other officials said, the strike on al-Zawahri showed that even without the Taliban living up to its commitments, the United States retained the ability to take out threats in Afghanistan by employing military forces based elsewhere in the region, or over the horizon, as the strategy is called.

“It has proven the president right when he said one year ago that we did not need to keep thousands of American troops in Afghanistan fighting and dying in a 20-year war, to be able to hold terrorists at risk and to defeat threats to the United States,” Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Still, some counterterrorism experts expressed caution. “The strike proves that over-the-horizon” counterterrorism strategy “can work — emphasis on ‘can’ — but not that it will generally,” said Laurel Miller, a former acting special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan under Mr. Obama.

“Zawahri was a special case, for which all the stops would be pulled out in terms of resources and level of effort,” added Ms. Miller, who is now at the International Crisis Group. “This operation does not automatically erase the assessment that” operating from outside the country “has significant limitations.”

Daniel Byman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University who served on the staff of the bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, said the al-Zawahri strike proved that the United States could still wage war without troops on the ground and that without troops on the ground Afghanistan would become a sanctuary again for Al Qaeda.

“They’re both right,” he said of allies and critics of the president.

But what might be more concerning, he added, was that the flashy success of knocking off a marquee figure like al-Zawahri only goes so far in dismantling terror networks.

“From what has been reported, it does show impressive operational capacity,” he said. “However, much of the U.S. success against Al Qaeda and ISIS came from grinding decapitation campaigns that went after trainers, recruiters, planners and other lieutenants. Doing such a sustained campaign in Afghanistan seems quite difficult.”

At the same time, Mr. Byman said, whoever succeeds al-Zawahri will presumably be more cautious, limiting communications and meetings, making it harder to actually lead a global organization. “So even being able to threaten the very top,” he said, “does have some value.”

Killing of Qaeda Leader Crystallizes Debate Over Biden’s Afghanistan Strategy
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Al-Qaeda Leader Killed in Kabul: What might be the repercussions for the Taleban and Afghanistan?

August 4, 2022

Kate Clark

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President Joe Biden has announced the killing of the leader of al-Qaeda, Aiman al-Zawahri, in a drone strike. Zawahri was central to the founding of al-Qaeda, the intellectual and organisational force behind the group, key to the decision to attack US targets in east Africa, the Gulf, New York and Washington DC, and deputy and successor to Osama bin Laden. He was killed right in the centre of Kabul, in a house reported to belong to the Taleban’s acting interior minister, Serajuddin Haqqani. Hosting the al-Qaeda leader would appear a clear breach of Taleban commitments in its February 2020 Doha agreement with the US.

AAN’s Kate Clark looks at Zawahri’s life and the possible repercussions of his death.

Aiman Zawahri, an obituary for whom can be found at the end of this report, was killed by two hellfire missiles fired from a drone at 06:18 local time on Sunday, 31 July, according to US officials quoted by Reuters. One of the officials said Zawahri was targeted as he came onto the balcony of the mansion where he was living, in the Sherpur neighbourhood. US intelligence, the official said, had first identified Zawahri’s wife, daughter and her children as having been relocated to the house in Kabul, and later that Zawahri himself was living there as well.

Once Zawahiri arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house,” the official said. He was identified multiple times on the balcony, where he was ultimately struck. He continued to produce videos from the house and some may be released after his death…

US President Joe Biden announced the killing of Zawahri in a televised address to the American nation (transcript here). He said he hoped it would “bring one more measure of closure” to those who had lost family and friends in al-Qaeda’s attacks on New York and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. It appeared that Biden also wanted to compensate for the debacle of the chaotic and unconditional withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, which had paved the way for the Taleban takeover:

When I ended our military mission in Afghanistan almost a year ago, I made the decision that after 20 years of war, the United States no longer needed thousands of boots on the ground in Afghanistan to protect America from terrorists who seek to do us harm.

And I made a promise to the American people that we’d continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond.

Reports of some sort of strike emerged quickly on Sunday. The Taleban initially said a rocket had been fired and hit an empty house in Sherpur, leaving no casualties (see defence ministry spokesman quoted by Kharma Press). On Monday 1 August, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed tweeted that, after investigation, the authorities had confirmed the attack was by a US drone. He condemned the strike, arguing that, whatever the motivation, it was “a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement.” Yet, hosting Zawahri would seem to be a evident breach of that agreement, signed by the Taleban and the US on 29 February 2020, which committed the US to withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan and in return, the Taleban/Islamic Emirate to:

Prevent any group or individual, including al-Qa’ida, from using the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.

…will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qa’ida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.

…will send a clear message that those who pose a threat to the security of the United States and its allies have no place in Afghanistan, and will instruct members of the [Taleban] not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies.

…will prevent any group or individual in Afghanistan from threatening the security of the United States and its allies, and will prevent them from recruiting, training, and fundraising and will not host them in accordance with the commitments in this agreement.

Yet, the Taleban were hosting the leader of al-Qaeda in the centre of Kabul and also, US officials say Zawahri was making propaganda videos at the house. That may have included his most recent from April 2022 praising the Indian woman, Muskan Khan, for wearing hijab despite a ban in her home province and the jeers of Hindu extremists (see AP report on the video here).

Following Biden’s announcement, there have been no further statements from the Taleban, but one important allegation has emerged, as reported by Associated Press (AP): “The house Zawahiri was in when he was killed was owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior intelligence official.” The allegation has been repeated by “a Taleban official,” speaking to Radio Azadi on condition of anonymity: editor Frud Bezhan tweeted that the official said:

Security was tight around the house, located in #Kabul‘s Sherpur area…. Only two senior Taliban officials — Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob Mujahid — visited the house.

Whether or not Zawahri was living in a house owned – or probably more accurately – expropriated by Serajuddin Haqqani, it seems inconceivable that he was not in Kabul at the invitation and with the full knowledge of the Emirate. If other senior leaders did not know that Zawahri was living in the capital, that would signify a dysfunction at the heart of their administration and a failure of the intelligence agency, given the significance of the man and the threat his very presence posed to the Taleban state.

Possible consequences of the killing

The UN’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team had already alleged that the Taleban were harbouring violent jihadist organisations on Afghan soil (its sources are UN member states). Its latest report published on 11 July said that “International terrorist organizations based in the country view the victory of the Taliban as a motivating factor for disseminating their propaganda in the neighbouring regions of Central and South Asia, and globally.” At the Great Gathering of Afghanistan’s Ulema, which was held in Kabul from 30 June to 2 July, Taleban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada had also said the Taleban’s victory was a source of pride not only for Afghans but also for the faithful the world over. He declared his intention, with the good counsel of the Afghan ulema, to spread ‘our sharia’ to mujahedin everywhere.

As to al-Qaeda/Taleban relations, the Monitoring Team’s report said the leadership “reportedly plays an advisory role with the Taliban, and the groups remain close,” and Zawahri himself had “increased outreach to Al-Qaida supporters with a number of video and audio messages, including his own statement promising that Al-Qaida was equipped to compete with [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant], in a bid to be recognized again as the leader of a global movement.” The Monitoring Team said al-Qaeda “enjoys greater freedom in Afghanistan under Taliban rule but confines itself to advising and supporting the de facto authorities.”

Strangely, President Biden did not mention the Taleban in his address, not even to blame them for harbouring al-Qaeda. His Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, however, did accuse the Taleban of having “grossly violated” the Doha Agreement. Another official quoted by The New York Times also called Zawahri’s presence a “clear violation” of the agreement, but, said the newspaper, “it was not evident what action, if any, Mr. Biden would take against the Taliban as a result.” Biden did issue a warning:

And to those around the world who continue to seek to harm the United States, hear me now: We will always remain vigilant, and we will act.  And we will always do what is necessary to ensure the safety and security of Americans at home and around the globe.

From the Taleban came not so much a warning as an attempt to cast the drone strike as an attack on mutual interests. Such actions, spokesman Mujahed said in his Monday tweet, “are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the USA, Afghanistan and the region.” Repeating such actions, he said, “will damage the existing opportunities.”

Just how dangerous Zawahri was is argued over. A BBC biography described him as “a remote and marginal figure” in recent years, “only occasionally issuing messages” and with “relatively little sway as new groups and movements such as Islamic State have become increasingly influential.” US officials, however, have insisted that Zawahri was still a threat. After his killing, reported AP, the White House “underscored that al-Zawahri had continued to be a dangerous figure,” continuing to “’provide strategic direction’” including urging attacks on the US, even while in hiding, urging “members of the terror network that the United States remained al-Qaida’s ‘primary enemy’.”

The UN Monitoring Committee thought it unlikely that al-Qaeda and its affiliates would seek to mount direct attacks outside Afghanistan in the near term “owing to a lack of capability” and restraint by the Taleban. However, “Al-Qaida is considered a significant threat to international security over the long term, especially relative to [the Islamic State in Khorasan Province], which poses the greater threat in the short and medium term.” Moreover, al-Qaeda’s influence, it said, “depends on having a safe haven, improved communications and resources to distribute.” The Taleban’s victory in August 2021 must have boosted al-Qaeda morale, as well as hopes for a second period of glory. Sunday’s drone strike has suddenly made Afghanistan a much less safe haven for al-Qaeda and other groups and dented their prospects for regrouping and growing again in influence and activity.

Whether the leader of al-Qaeda was dangerous or might have become dangerous, the fact that he was killed on Afghan soil in the heart of Taleban-controlled Afghanistan in a house reportedly owned by the Emirate’s acting interior ministry will surely have consequences for the Taleban and for Afghanistan.

If the US had been looking for a partner after August 2021 that could just look after its most basic core interests in Afghanistan – which are not girls’ education or a free press or an inclusive government, but ensuring the country would not again be a base for internationally-minded terrorists threatening US security interests – it will just have concluded that the Taleban cannot be that partner. Instead, the Taleban appear to have decided once again to throw their lot in with people whom no American administration can stomach. If they had handed Zawahri over, they might now be on the road to international recognition. Instead, they have made the same choice as Mullah Omar did in the years up to 2001, of looking after their ‘guests’, or at least of only trying half-heartedly to get rid of them, or in this case (possibly) of not making a decision on what to do about this most dangerous of guests.

As well as international recognition now appearing to be absolutely off the table, there could be other consequences. In the wake of the now indisputable evidence that the Taleban have been harbouring al-Qaeda, it may become more difficult for the US and other donors to contemplate giving Taleban-controlled Afghanistan anything more than humanitarian aid. The current plan (details and analysis here) to funnel money via the World Bank, UN agencies and NGOs for healthcare and other development spending could falter. The drone strike on Zawahri comes off the back of the Taleban’s stony refusal to countenance other demands from western donors – as well as countries in the region and many of their own citizens – to let older girls go to school, women to work, and to form an inclusive government.

In turn, the Taleban will surely also be anxious about the willingness and ability of the US to conduct other armed strikes on Afghan soil. The threat from the air, which caused so many deaths to Taleban during the insurgency, is not over. “You know,” said Biden, “it [Afghanistan] can’t be a launching pad against the United States. We’re going to see to it that won’t happen.” Emirate officials may also be pondering the implications of this comment by a US official speaking to AP: “a CIA ground team and aerial reconnaissance conducted after the drone strike confirmed al-Zawahiri’s death.”

It is not a promising prospect for Afghan citizens contemplating their future. They were already living in a collapsed economy with borders that are difficult to cross and must now be wondering whether the Taleban have just managed to confirm to the West that their country should remain isolated and treated as a pariah. At the same time, they must also fear that their rulers will become more edgy, more suspicious and more dangerous.

A postscript: who lives where since August 2021

And finally, for those interested in where Afghan elites live, it is interesting that Serajuddin Haqqani appears to own a mansion in Sherpur, while other senior figures in the Emirate have been named during the reporting of the drone strike as living nearby, including the interior ministry’s chief of staff, Mawlawi Zainullah and Kabul chief of police Mawlawi Hamza (see this Twitter thread by Afghan journalist, Bilal Sarwary).

For centuries, we wrote in 2010, Sherpur “was part of the finely woven agricultural fabric surrounding Kabul. It was only in 2003, that the traditional mud houses, small pieces of farmland and a historical garden were all bulldozed.” The land was seized in September 2003 from poor Afghans by the Republic’s first defence minister, General Fahim Khan, the leader of the Shura-ye Nizar faction of the Northern Alliance which had captured Kabul after the Taleban fled. Fahim distributed the prime real estate to his cronies and fellow cabinet ministers, both commanders and civilians – then finance minister Ashraf Ghani was a notable exception in refusing a plot on principal, saying “when land is taken like it was in Kabul a few days ago, this creates a crisis of governance.” Fahim’s ally and Kabul chief of police, Abdul Basir Salangi, himself led the bulldozing and dispossession of the poor people’s mud-built homes in an unannounced operation which caused injuries and misery and destitution for its victims. Fahim argued the homes had been built illegally on Ministry of Defence land in defiance of the Kabul City master plan.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission bravely spoke out about the scandal. However, ISAF largely and diplomats almost entirely stood by, having decided it was an internal matter. The then UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, even reproved the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing and Land Rights, Miloon Kothari, for publishing the names of those who took plots. It was an early indication that corruption would thrive in the Republic and its international backers would do little to stop it or protect citizens from the abusive actions of those they had helped bring to power.[1]

Today, we see that senior Emirate officials have taken over the homes which had formerly been occupied by the previous elite. This is something of a tradition when Afghanistan changes hands: the mujahedin commanders who seized homes in the equally upmarket Wazir Akbar Khan district, which neighbours Sherpur, when they captured Kabul in 1992, saw their houses taken over by Taleban, Arab and Pakistani commanders when the Taleban, in turn, captured the capital in 1996, only to seize them once again in 2001. It would be interesting to see who is living in those homes now.

Annex: Obituary for Aiman al- Zawahri[2]

Aiman Muhammed Rabi Zawahri was born in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on 19 June 1951 into a prominent family; his grandfather had been the grand imam of al-Azhar, widely considered to be the centre of Sunni Islamic scholarship, while an uncle had served as the Arab League’s first secretary-general. His father was a university professor of medicine.

Zawahri was first arrested while still at school, for membership of the world’s oldest Islamist organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood. He went on to study to become a doctor and a surgeon and, in 1972, to join the more militant and more violent Islamist group, Islamic jihad. After the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, he was one of hundreds to be arrested and tortured by Egypt’s security services; like others before him, notably Sayed Qutb, the revolutionary theorist of violent jihad, Zawahri’s torture reportedly persuaded him of the need for even more extreme and violent action in the cause of establishing an ‘Islamic state’.

Zawahri left Egypt in 1985 after a spell in prison, travelling eventually to Pakistan and Afghanistan where he worked as a doctor during the mujahedin’s fight against the Soviet invasion. In 1993, he took over the leadership of Islamic Jihad and led a fresh violent campaign to topple the Egyptian government. It is thought, a BBC biography says, that he “travelled around the world during the 1990s in search of sanctuary and sources of funding.” Eventually, in 1997, he came to Jalalabad where he joined his old comrade from the 1980s, Osama bin Laden.

On 23 February 1998, Zawahri, bin Laden and three leaders of other violent jihadist groups issued a religious ruling, a fatwa, ordering all Muslims to take up armed jihad against “Jews and Crusaders,” asserting that “to kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible.” (Arabic text can be read here; translation here). Later that year, on 23 August, al-Qaeda carried out the bombings of two US embassies in east Africa. At that time, Zawahri and bin Laden were still being hosted by the mujahedin faction, Hezb-e Islami Khales, but from September 1998, after the Taleban captured Jalalabad, they became guests of the Islamic Emirate. Zawahri was later to be a key figure behind the planning of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon in 2001.

Aiman al-Zawahri was officially number two in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, second only to Osama bin Laden, but always very much a co-equal, key to al-Qaeda strategy and organisation and with his Islamic Jihad Egyptian followers having formed a core component of al-Qaeda. AP reported:

The 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon made bin Laden America’s Enemy No. 1. But he likely could never have carried it out without his deputy. Bin Laden provided al-Qaida with charisma and money, but al-Zawahri brought tactics and organizational skills needed to forge militants into a network of cells in countries around the world.

After the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda members fled or were killed or captured. According to AP, it was Zawahri who ensured the organisation’s survival:

He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions. He also reshaped the organization from a centralized planner of terror attacks into the head of a franchise chain. He led the assembling of a network of autonomous branches around the region, including in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Asia. Over the next decade, al-Qaida inspired or had a direct hand in attacks in all those areas as well as Europe, Pakistan and Turkey, including the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2005 transit bombings in London.

Zawahri became al-Qaeda leader after bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad in Pakistan on 2 May 2011. It was a natural succession, but AP says, Zawahri was a very different leader to bin Laden and always a more divisive figure:

Many militants described the soft-spoken bin Laden in adoring and almost spiritual terms. In contrast, al-Zawahri was notoriously prickly and pedantic. He picked ideological fights with critics within the jihadi camp, wagging his finger scoldingly in his videos. Even some key figures in al-Qaida’s central leadership were put off, calling him overly controlling, secretive and divisive.

As the centre of violent ‘jihad’ moved to the Middle East following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, after the Arab uprisings of the next decade, in which people demanded democracy and accountability, and especially after the emergence of the Islamic State and its slick, horror-filled propaganda, al-Qaeda lost ground in the struggle for pre-eminence among violent jihadists. The victory of the Taleban in Afghanistan in 2021 was a boost to al-Qaeda, a chance to flourish again. That is now in doubt, given the apparent US readiness to kill militants. As to who might take over the leadership, the UN sanctions committee commented in early July that al-Qaeda “currently does not appear to have a clear leadership succession plan.”

Edited by Roxanna Shapour

References

References
↑1 For more detail, see Joanna Nathan’s Land Grab in Sherpur: Monuments to Powerlessness, Impunity, and Inaction, excerpts from Special Rapporteur, Miloon Kothari’s about housing in Afghanistan after a visit to the country, 31 August-13 September 2003, and Huma Saeed and Stephan Parmentier’s When Rabbits are in Charge of Carrots: Land Grabbing, Transitional Justice and Economic-State Crime in Afghanistan.
↑2 Much of the information in this obituary is taken from reports by the BBC, “Ayman al-Zawahiri: Who was al-Qaeda leader killed by US?” and AP Biden: Killing of al-Qaida leader is long-sought ‘justice’.

REVISIONS:

This article was last updated on 4 Aug 2022

Al-Qaeda Leader Killed in Kabul: What might be the repercussions for the Taleban and Afghanistan?
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 Ignoring Afghan women and girls is to do the Taliban’s work for them

August 2, 2022

In Afghanistan, women now talk about their futures in the past tense. I was on a Zoom call recently with two young university graduates in Kabul when I asked them about their plans. “I hoped to go …,” they answered. “I planned to do …”

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But they won’t. They can’t. They have been judged and the verdict rendered: They are female, and for that, from the Taliban, there can be no mercy.

It’s been 11 months since the fall of Kabul, and the vanishing of women is nearly complete. The men who rule my country wield their control with a casual cruelty that can be breathtaking. Just this month, the Taliban told female employees of Afghanistan’s finance ministry — well-educated, well-qualified women barred from their workplace for these past 11 months — to send in male relatives to do their jobs because the ministry’s workload was becoming quite heavy.

Vanished. Just like the freedom to work in your chosen profession. The freedom to travel without a chaperone. The freedom to decide what you will wear in public. The freedom to go to school beyond sixth grade.

None of that will be necessary, the Taliban says. Not for Afghan women. The blue burqa awaits you. At puberty, your education ends, your autonomy ends. Your future is a memory you never had a chance to make.

Eleven months is all it took. The great vanishing of Afghan women is happening again before the eyes of the world, just the way it did in the 1990s when I was a child growing up under the Taliban’s first regime — a girl with no choice but to attend secret schools, walking frightened through Kabul’s streets among the blue shrouds of invisible women.

I am a woman now, in exile abroad, and I haven’t forgotten what those days felt like — just like I haven’t forgotten what I saw in the years after the Taliban’s retreat in 2001.

I haven’t forgotten the Afghan women who returned home, those educated exiles who had studied overseas and came back to take jobs in our public and private sectors and showed all of us that our futures were exactly that — our futures. Ours to shape.

In August, you’ll be seeing Afghanistan in the headlines again. It will be a year since the Taliban’s return and the U.S.-led evacuation of Kabul, an evacuation my students and I were part of. You’ll hear the stories of refugees scattered around the world, and of the immigration purgatory so many find themselves in, waiting for the chance to build new lives.

These refugees must have access to quality education — women and girls in particular. My school and I are committed to the effort, and the international community must make investment in these women and girls an aid priority, especially in those who will not soon leave the transit camps in which they live.

Many girls in these camps have not had schooling of any kind for a year or even longer. To ignore these girls is to do the Taliban’s job for them. The men who rule my nation fear what an educated girl can become and what an educated woman can create. I say, let them fear us.

They remember who led the way in reviving Afghanistan after the demise of their first regime. By investing in the education of Afghan refugees, we work to make that past prologue.

We are the women of Afghanistan. And our futures are ours.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh, a Washington Post Global Opinions contributing columnist, is co-founder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan.
 Ignoring Afghan women and girls is to do the Taliban’s work for them
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What Zawahri’s Death Tells Us About Afghanistan’s Future

August 2, 2022
By JONATHAN SCHRODEN
Politico

Dr. Jonathan Schroden directs the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and analysis organization based in Arlington, Virginia. The views expressed here are his and do not necessarily represent those of CNA, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense. 

The successful strike on Sunday against Ayman al-Zawahri —a man with no shortage of American blood on his hands — is a celebratory moment for President Joe Biden’s administration. For watchers of Afghanistan, it is also illuminating, like a flashbulb on the darkness that has enveloped Afghanistan since the American pullout a year ago.

According to initial reports, the Central Intelligence Agency used a drone to launch two Hellfire missiles at Zawahri after spotting him on the balcony of the Kabul safe house in which he was staying with his family. Even with the limited information now available, this assassination can tell us a great deal about the current security situation in the country, the state of U.S. capabilities to affect that situation and the future of Afghanistan and its people.

It also raises a host of questions that are yet to be answered.

Security is a growing worry

Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s nearly immediate takeover last August, the trend in security for the average Afghan has improved. Civilian casualties, for example, have declined as a result of the end of the long civil war waged by the Taliban against the U.S.-supported government.

However, the threat from terrorist groups of concern to the international community has steadily increased in the past year.

The most virulent of these is the Islamic State-Khorasan, an organization that was on the rebound even before the U.S. withdrew. Since then, IS-K has increased in size to between 1,500 and 4,000 fighters and is now one of the “most vigorous” regional networks of the Islamic State. The group, which routinely conducts attacks against Taliban security forces, has also engaged in horrific attacks against minority groups and rocket attacks against Afghanistan’s neighbors.

Al Qaeda is not as strong as IS-K in Afghanistan (likely numbering several hundred individuals). But unlike the adversarial relationship that IS-K has with the Taliban, al Qaeda enjoys close and abiding relations with the group that now governs the country. A recent United Nations report stated that since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, al Qaeda senior leaders had “enjoyed a more settled period” and had begun recruiting new members and funding in the country. That report further stated that the Taliban’s takeover had given Zawahri himself “increased comfort and ability to communicate” with al Qaeda’s followers.

The fact that Zawahri was killed in the middle of Kabul — in a neighborhood known to house senior Taliban figures — suggests that both he and the Taliban believed the country’s capital was an effective sanctuary for the world’s most wanted terrorist. Further, Zawahri’s habit of spending time on an open balcony, combined with reports that foreigners were detected in his neighborhood by local Afghans months ago, illustrates the increased sense of freedom that members of al Qaeda have enjoyed in Afghanistan over the past year.

‘Over-the-horizon’ counterterrorism is less effective — but it can work

Before the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, it was maintaining several thousand special operations forces in Afghanistan, accompanying counterterrorism strike platforms (e.g., drones), a CIA station and local partner forces such as the Afghan Army Commandos and the elite Ktah Khas. In the wake of the withdrawal, the U.S. lost all of those capabilities, and was left with no residual presence or partner forces in the country.

To mitigate those losses, the U.S. established an “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism cell in Qatar, intended to address threats in Afghanistan remotely. It has been flying routine drone sorties from its airbases there, through Pakistani airspace and over various regions of Afghanistan. Those drones provide the U.S. with some residual means of intelligence collection on terrorist activities in the country. But as of last December, according to the former commander of U.S. Central Command, the U.S. was “at about 1 percent or 2 percent of the capabilities we once had to look into Afghanistan.”

With a tiny fraction of the capabilities it once had, the U.S. has been far less effective at putting pressure on groups like IS-K or al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which accounts in large part for their expansion since last fall. And yet, the Zawahri strike illustrates that even with this small amount of capability, the U.S. remains able to find, fix and finish even the most elusive of terrorist targets there.

While the full details of Sunday’s strike have not yet been revealed, reports have emerged of the CIA having a “ground team” in place before and apparently after the strike was conducted. The infiltration or cultivation of such a team represents a notable expansion in U.S. intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan over the past six months and the successful strike will reignite the fears and reinvigorate the safety protocols of al Qaeda and IS-K leaders.

For Afghans, no good news

While Zawahri’s death is a victory for U.S. intelligence agencies and will likely hobble al Qaeda’s core cadre until a new leader is firmly at the helm, it nonetheless bodes ill for the average Afghan.

Over the past year, Afghanistan’s population of roughly 40 million people have suffered immensely. Financial aid to the country, which formed the predominance of its national budget before the U.S. withdrawal, has decreased precipitously and its economy has contracted by 30 to 40 percent since last August.

Prior to this strike, the U.S. had been engaged in regular talks with the Taliban on issues such as humanitarian aid, opening of secondary schools for girls and the possible release of Afghanistan’s sovereign wealth to a modified Central Bank. Through these talks, the U.S. aimed to inject more resources into the Afghan economy — without directly aiding the Taliban government — to ease the suffering of Afghans.

Now, with the news that Zawahri was not only in Kabul, but being sheltered there by the Taliban’s acting Minister of Interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the relationship between the Taliban and the U.S. is likely to move into a cold, tense phase. The Taliban have already condemned the strike as a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty and the sole formal agreement between the group and the U.S. that the two sides signed in Doha in 2020. The U.S., for its part, called the Taliban’s harboring of Zawahri a violation of the same agreement.

Negotiations were previously healthy enough that U.S. Special Representative Tom West was able to exchange proposals with the Taliban that were designed to jump-start macroeconomic assistance to the country. In this new atmosphere, it is doubtful that he will be given the same degree of latitude to meet with the Taliban, and it seems likely that no further progress on any of the issues he had been discussing with them will be made soon.

In the meantime, the one constant of the past four decades of Afghanistan’s history — the suffering of its average citizens — is likely to remain.

With new knowledge comes new questions

While the Zawahri attack illuminates a lot about the current situation in Afghanistan, it also raises a host of additional questions. For example, why did the Taliban allow Zawahri to come to Kabul? Was it to keep him safe from discovery and U.S. strikes elsewhere? Or was it to keep tabs on him and his activities, so as to prevent al Qaeda from attacking other countries from Afghanistan, as the Taliban has repeatedly pledged it would do?

Even more important, looking forward: If Zawahri was brought to Kabul and sheltered by the Taliban, who else are they hiding and protecting? Other leaders of al Qaeda? Leaders of other militant groups? And when will the Afghan people see relief from the cycle of terrorism, violence and suffering that they have endured for so long?

Yesterday’s announcement was a moment to celebrate. But it was only a moment. Today brings new knowledge, new questions, new targets, new challenges and new collateral damage in the unending war between the U.S. and al Qaeda.

What Zawahri’s Death Tells Us About Afghanistan’s Future
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A New Platform for Afghan Women and Civil Society

August 2, 2022

Anthony Navone

United States Institute of Peace

Monday, August 1, 2022

As Taliban reinstates repressive policies, a new initiative directly connects Afghan women and civil society to U.S. policymakers.

When the Taliban returned to power last August, many wondered if the previous two decades of progress and change in Afghanistan would temper the group’s previously draconian policies. But despite some initial rhetoric that hinted in the direction of reform, the Taliban have recommitted — rather than reconsidered — their repressive approach to governance. Over the last 11 months, the group has instituted massive rollbacks for women’s rights, as well as pushed marginalized groups further to the periphery in a country mired in economic and humanitarian crises.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking at USIP about the launch of the new U.S.-Afghan Consultative Mechanism.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking at USIP about the launch of the new U.S.-Afghan Consultative Mechanism.
However, “the women and girls of Afghanistan and other vulnerable targeted people have simply refused to back down,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.What these groups need now is a venue that elevates their voices. “They have lost their platform in Afghanistan,” said Rina Amiri, the U.S. special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights. “They are seeking a place, a platform, to bring their voices together” now that women leaders and activists “are scattered all over the world.”To help coordinate and deepen Afghan engagement with U.S. government officials, the State Department has launched the U.S.-Afghan Consultative Mechanism (USACM). Comprised of various Afghan women’s coalitions, as well as civil society leaders, journalists, academics and religious scholars from inside and outside Afghanistan, the USACM will inform U.S. policy on issues ranging from documentation of human rights violations to the role of women in Islam.

“What we want to do is to make our partnerships with Afghan civil society more effective, more rigorous, more productive, more purposeful,” said Blinken as he introduced the USACM at a USIP event.

Constricting Women’s Role in Afghan Society

The launch of the USACM comes as the situation on the ground for Afghan women and girls continues to worsen. Prior to the fall of the former government, women and girls had expanded their access to education and economic mobility. Women comprised 38 percent of teachers, and 3,000 licensed and 54,000 unlicensed small-to-medium Afghan businesses were run by women. Women and girls “didn’t just study at schools, they ran them,” said Blinken.

But since August 2021, the Taliban have rapidly constricted women’s and girl’s freedoms, leading to a 75 percent drop in women’s employment compared to pre-takeover levels. Additionally, the Taliban have reinstated requirements for face coverings and drastically reduced women’s ability to travel freely or alone.

On the education front, the Taliban have ordered universities to enforce gender-segregated classrooms. And after originally assuring both Afghan girls and the West that girls’ education would reopen in March, the Taliban abruptly reversed course and the ban for girls in grades seven and up remained in place. The decrees have wrought havoc and often come without warning — many girls learned of the education ban as they arrived for their first day of classes.

The results have been devastating. Domestic violence is on the rise as women are further confined to their homes, with little agency to venture beyond their neighborhood. Some women, hit particularly hard by the economic crisis, have been cut off from accessing humanitarian aid as each Taliban decree constricts their movements more and more.

A Devastated Afghan Economy

Meanwhile, the sudden removal of women from the workforce has only worsened Afghanistan’s economic woes. The per capita income in Afghanistan in 2022 is expected to drop by 50 percent compared to a decade prior. This will be disproportionately devastating for women, “because as we all know, the last penny is spent on women in any household,” said Naheed Sarabi, the former deputy minister for policy at the Afghan Ministry of Finance.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s GDP is expected to fall by 5 percent, equivalent to roughly $1 billion. Sarabi says the rollback of women’s rights can be seen as one of the main drivers: “You’re losing the economic contribution of half of the population of Afghanistan … half the human capital of the country.”

For a country on the verge of famine and economic collapse, the Taliban’s decision to revert to the oppressive policies of decades past could prove catastrophic — not just for women and girls, but for all of Afghanistan’s future stability.

“Walking away is not a choice that any of us have,” said Amiri. “Not only from a moral imperative, but also from a strategic imperative,” as a fragile Afghanistan poses security risks to the region and international community at large.

The Taliban are Not the Only Reality

Afghanistan is a notably diverse country, with a wide range of cultural and ethnic groups that call it home. But many Afghan women worry that the international focus on the Taliban has drowned out that fact — especially given the Taliban’s unwillingness to reform.

Whether to engage with the Taliban — and how much — has been a difficult needle to thread for U.S. officials. “I continue to maintain that engagement with the Taliban is necessary, particularly to address the situation of Afghans inside the country that are facing a desperate situation,” said Amiri. But at the same time, she said, “I don’t want to give them space to present to the world that they’re engaging in good faith on these issues” when they continue to rollback progress and backtrack on prior assurances.

The troubling reality is that the Taliban control Afghanistan’s government. However, “the Taliban are the reality of the country, but they are not the only reality,” said Asila Wardak, a senior fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a founding member of the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan.Even with the crackdown on civil society, women’s groups are still making things possible “from very scratch, from nothing,” said Palwasha Hassan, a founding member of the Afghan Women’s Network and a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security. “In those places that have been affected by the earthquake, woman have gone there not only to bring services, but also to try to engage with the local Taliban” on women’s and girl’s issues.

A New Consultative Mechanism

The persistence of these women and civil society groups has shown diverse voices still resonate throughout Afghanistan despite the Taliban’s best attempts to tamp them down. But in the face of a repressive regime, these voices need assistance to ensure they are heard.

“It’s very important that the international community doesn’t speak for Afghans,” said Hassan. Instead, the United States and others should “help Afghan themselves to be part of their own solution.”

In a hopeful development, forums offering this kind of platform have popped up around the world. But as these venues propagate, there’s concern that Afghan women and civil society leaders could end up “having separate, repetitive conversations,” said Amiri.

To help alleviate this propensity for repetition, the USACM combines the efforts of forums hosted by USIP; the Atlantic Council; the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security; and the Sisterhood is Global Institute.

“We are building on the feedback we’ve received,” said Amiri, adding that the United States doesn’t have to “start from zero,” but can instead partner with “platforms that have been engaging Afghans for decades.”

The consolidation is “shaping all these informal discussions into a formal discussion and shows the commitment of the U.S. government,” said Wardak. “We would like to be kind of a bridge between the woman inside Afghanistan and the woman in the diaspora and exile.”

Where Afghanistan Goes from Here

“Afghan women have told me it’s not just the Taliban that’s hurting women right now,” added Amiri. “It is the fact that donor funding has dried up and has left Afghan women in a very desperate situation.”

For Sarabi, the immediate solution is rather straightforward: “Political, social and economic empowerment go hand in hand … What woman need right now, short term, is access to finance in cash. Cash distribution could be a way to uplift them from the current poverty level, quickly.”

Hassan agreed that human rights and economic realities are intertwined for women in Afghanistan. “They are also concerned how to feed [their] children,” she said, noting that child marriage is on the rise because there is “no alternative” for some people.

While straightforward, this solution faces a major hurdle: With the Taliban in charge, most donors no longer have a presence on the ground in Afghanistan, leaving them unable to monitor or administer programs.To circumvent this issue, Afghan women suggest that mechanisms like the USACM connect international donors with local organizations to divvy up responsibilities. “There is room for … local organizations to be direct implementers” while “international organization can play the role of monitoring, evaluations and even capacity building,” said Hassan.Beyond immediate economic needs, Hassan said that as long as the Taliban continue to block girls’ education, “It’s important that we have alternatives for girls in Afghanistan that they can benefit from.” NGOs and other organizations have orchestrated peer-to-peer learning, online education, scholarships and home-schooling initiatives, “but they should not be considered a substitute for an education sector in Afghanistan or formal education,” added Hassan.

Because while international donors and local Afghan organizations can find ways to work around the Taliban’s harsh restrictions, women and girls won’t be able to fully regain their livelihoods and rights without the Taliban sanctioning their official return.

“[The international community] has the the financial leverage, the political leverage, the economic leverage to pressure the Taliban on behalf of the women’s movement, girls, education and protection of civil society organizations,” said Wardak.

Secretary Blinken acknowledged this, saying the United States continues “to urge the Taliban to reverse their decision on girls’ education, to make good on their commitment to the Afghan people, to allow girls to learn.”

But rather than incentivize the Taliban solely through punitive measures from international actors, Blinken added that the Taliban should reverse course because it’s the will of the people they govern —and the Taliban’s tactics to suppress it aren’t working: “In the face of threats, violence, [and] intimidation, the women and girls of Afghanistan and other vulnerable, targeted people … have never stopped believing in a brighter future for their country. They are determined to do all they can to make that future real.”

A New Platform for Afghan Women and Civil Society
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