Legitimacy to insurgent groups, whether political or institutional, is often a last resort by states and almost never the first option.
In June 2013, the Taliban, waging a war in Afghanistan against the government of then President Hamid Karzai in Kabul and the United States and NATO military presence in the country, opened their first international office in Doha, Qatar. This outpost became a significant moment for a more robust, planned, and designed outreach by the Taliban to the world, in their attempts to end Afghanistan’s near two-decade long conflict and to bring the Taliban back into prominence in Kabul, the seat of power they lost to the US-led invasion after 9/11.
“Even if we don’t say that the US is defeated in Afghanistan, it is an open secret now that they’re defeated,” said Anas Haqqani of the Taliban’s Haqqani Network, after being released from prison in 2019 in exchange for two Western professors taken hostage by the Taliban in 2016.
Over the past years, the Taliban has used its political office in Doha to consolidate international narratives on the back of dwindling support for the US and NATO campaigns in Afghanistan, and an increased realisation in major Western capitals that defeating the Taliban wholesomely is not possible anymore. This led to an outreach by the US under President Donald Trump, spearheaded by his Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, to negotiate and end the Afghan War led by a US military withdrawal which is to be completed by 1st May.
It is critical to remember here that despite negotiations with what is at the end of the day an insurgency, the Taliban did control the Afghan political landscape and more importantly, controlled geography, for half a decade beginning 1996. So even within negotiations with what is a jihadist insurgency, the Taliban see themselves as the former government which was unseated by US military actions. This view can be seen as a major driving point behind the Taliban’s international diplomacy since 2015, under the guise of talks and peace negotiations.
The Taliban have since clocked up more commercial air miles than any other insurgency in memory, from 2015 when the group’s leaders travelled from Norway to China and more recently, now concentrated around Afghanistan’s neighbourhood including Iran and Pakistan (with the Pakistani establishment, of course, being the historical ideological and strategic parent of the Taliban movement). The recent visit of the Taliban to Turkmenistan, which shares a long border with the country, gave a good glimpse of how the Taliban are portraying themselves in the neighbourhood and vice versa. During their talks with the Turkmen leadership in Ashgabat, it was interesting to note that Turkmenistan sought discussions over the long languishing Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline. Taliban’s spokesperson Muhammad Suhail Shahin said, “Without a doubt, the early start on the construction of projects such as TAPI, TAP, and a railroad from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan will contribute to the achievement of peace.” Shaheen further added that the Taliban would ensure security of the TAPI pipeline, and all other economic and infrastructure projects in the country. The fact that the Taliban is discussing trade and economic policies as a parallel to Kabul highlights the legitimacy the Taliban is being awarded as the group playing a significant role in Afghanistan’s political future becomes a matter of acceptance globally.
However, all of the above advances made by the Taliban, from its roots as an insurgency against the invasion by the Soviet Union to mainstream rule and more palatable to the international community, the Taliban’s ‘victories’ in Afghanistan over the past years and as part of the US-Taliban deal and negotiations could push other such groups onto similar paths, specifically where they control geography and have other common variables. Some examples of such normalisation and shift towards moderate, or more acceptable, posturing have already been seen in places such as Lebanon where Hezbollah gained parliamentary representation through elections.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), one of Syria’s most prominent jihadist groups born out of erstwhile Al-Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra and as a former satellite of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh in Arabic), is one example that has in the recent past repositioned itself as a more ‘moderate’ jihadist group in a bit to secure their future. Declared a terror group by the US (and also Russia), the leader of HTS, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, appeared in a photo with American journalist, Martin Smith, who interviewed him for PBS in the restive Syrian region of Idlib. Jolani appeared next to Smith in a crisp suit and shirt, instead of the military fatigues he is often seen in and around battlefields. Idlib is a friction point between the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Turkey, and the US. In middle of this geopolitical hotpot, HTS has often played its card as a dealmaker and dealbreaker in Syria’s last major rebel stronghold. While Jolani was being interviewed, US State Department’s Rewards for Justice Arabic page on Twitter posted a reminder to Jolani that his name still carries a $10 million reward.
A year earlier, in February 2020, Jolani also gave an interview to the International Crisis Group, at a time when Russian pressure was mounting on Turkey to break HTS between moderates and extremists. In the interview, Jolani explained how HTS was now an exclusively localised group and had no interest in allowing Syria to be used to launch external attacks. To drive this point home, HTS has reportedly also arrested foreign fighters from Europe, and arrested leaders of groups such as Al-Qaeda affiliated Hurras al-Din to demarcate itself from other, more ideologically violent groups who have co-opted the Syrian struggle against Assad. Recently, the Taliban also released a statement asking their own cadre to “avoid” involving foreign fighters within their ranks, a deliverable the group had committed to as part of the US-Taliban agreement. Even here, the Taliban has conveniently positioned itself as the one holding up the deal, blaming the Ghani government and the US for faltering in keeping up with its commitments.
The opinions to HTS’s image change were also interesting to note. Scholar Elizabeth Tsurkov following the reactions to Jolani’s picture with the American journalist wrote, “After the photo with PBS journalist with the leader of HTS aroused criticism and wild speculation among Idlib residents, HTS explains that the interview with Jolani is part of an effort to break the isolation imposed on the area and reach foreign audiences.”
However, it is not just HTS looking to capitalise on what the Taliban has been achieving regarding its negotiations with the US and the intra-Afghan dialogue. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has also over the past few months taken branding and outreach a bit more seriously, bringing the group out in a more formal manner. While its own image has been a little more sophisticated, with social media and online propaganda outputs getting makeovers and a touch of professionalism, similar to what ISIS achieved, the likes of TTP have also looked to expand their influence beyond the regions in and around the Durand Line on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. According to scholar Tore Hamming, the TTP had also previously proposed to send a reconciliation delegation to Syria to mediate between warring jihadist groups.
For a country like India, the above examples that showcase the sort of mainstreaming of terror groups in attempts to bring them either more into the mainstream or offer them a level of legitimacy, both political and societal, as a method to end conflicts is one of the major reasons why New Delhi has not had a public outreach to the Taliban despite its interests in Afghanistan. If India does talk openly to the Taliban, the possibility of lending legitimacy to insurgencies and terror groups within its geography, especially in Kashmir, can also become an open argument. Legitimacy to insurgent groups, whether political or institutional, is often a last resort by states and almost never the first option. Ending conflict via mainstream insurgencies or terror groups often comes at a high price. The fact that the Taliban holds the stronger play of cards across the negotiating table with the US offers a glimpse of what this high price would look like, specifically for the geopolitical landscape of South Asia, which does not benefit from distance, unlike the US.
If and when the Taliban does manage to re-enter the Afghan parliament as a legitimised political actor, other entities with similar ideologies will celebrate the same as a historic victory for decades to come. The Taliban’s example should be made as an anomaly, a learning curve for states on the perils of bad foreign policies and even worse decisions to wage wars, and not a model to legitimise ideas and actions that should and need to be fought on political and societal fronts.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on Indias relations with West Asia specifically looking at the domestic political dynamics ...
Read More +
PREV
