ISLAMABAD: The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday celebrated the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul at a time when the country faces a variety of challenges, the foremost being the non-recognition of their government by every single country in the world.

Senior Taliban leaders, including Deputy Prime Min­ister Abdul Salam Hanafi, spoke at a gathering in Kabul and highlighted achievements over the past two years, but did not even hint at reopening educational institutions for girls.

Hanafi, whose speech was broadcast by the state media, did not directly mention the issue of education. However, he told the gathering that the “people’s dem­ands and suggestions should be heard and implemented”.

Hanafi is among the few Taliban leaders who support reopening of educational institutions for girls, but their supreme leader has not budged on the demand, which has been forcefully coming, both from within Afghanistan and abroad.

Kabul’s rigidity on issues such as women’s education means that foreign recognition remains a distant dream

The issue seems to be a divisive one of the leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, where some leaders believe contemporary education is not obligatory for women, while others have a different view.

In December last year, when Afghans were expecting reopening of girls’ high schools following international pressure, the Taliban leadership ordered an indefinite ban on university education for women. Then, at the beginning of this year, they banned girls from taking university entrance exams, which remains in force to this day.

Although no country has accorded recognition to the Taliban regime, the international community –including the US – continues to engage with Taliban leaders. Recently, US special envoy for Afghanistan Tom West held talks with a Taliban team led by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Qatar in July.

The US and the Taliban have two tracks of regular dialogue, one political and the second one more intelligence-based. The Taliban intelligence GDI’s chief Abdul Haq Wasiq is a frequent visitor of Doha, where the Taliban still have political headquarters.

Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is currently visiting Turkey, where he has held a series of meetings on bilateral cooperation with senior Turkish officials, according to the Taliban foreign ministry.

Russia has also invited the Taliban government to the upcoming ‘Moscow Format’ consultations on September 29, Taliban officials claimed. Pakistan is also an active member of this process started in 2017.

Consolidating power

Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada, who is based in Kandahar – the so-called birthplace of the Taliban – is said to have consolidated his control over nearly all affairs of the state and only consults close aides on key issues.

There has been no meeting of the leadership council ‘Rehbari Shura’ since the last one, held in Kandahar in the final week of August 2021, days after the Taliban took control of the country – with the exception of Panjshir, which fell in the first week of September 2021.

As the Taliban government enters its third year, the deposed government of Ashraf Ghani still holds the Afghan seat in the United Nations.

Speaking at a gathering in 2022, Akhundzada had ruled out any space from those who had been associated with the previous regimes of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani. There has been no change in this policy.

But former president Karzai, who is among the handful of Afghan leaders to remain in Kabul after the Taliban takeover, is said to be pressing the current leaders to first get recognition at home before asking the world for the same.

The Taliban’s rejection of the global community’s repeated calls for an inclusive set-up is seen as one of the major hurdles in the regime’s quest for recognition.

In a meeting in July this year, Taliban deputy spokesman Bilal Karimi told this scribe that their government was “inclusive and had representation of all ethnicities and tribes”.

“A gathering of over 5,000 religious scholars and influential personalities from across Afghanistan in July last year had pledged allegiance to the [Taliban chief] and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. That was an example of inclusivity,” the spokesman said.

In addition, the government also has at its disposal a 150,000-strong military force, composed mostly of Taliban fighters.

“The leadership of the Islamic Emirate has been able to take all required measures for the defence of Afghanistan. A national and organised army of more than 150,000 personnel, all are equipped with arms and are now in military uniform,” Major General Abdul Latif Hakimi told Dawn.

“Besides military resources, we have got equipment left by the US-NATO invading forces as booty, and also Emirate’s own resources which we had over the past 20 years during the war,” he said.

Strained relationship with Pakistan

Kabul’s relationship with Pakistan also seems to be in the doldrums. While there was a time that Pakistan’s former foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, would plead the case for saving Afghanistan from isolation, the bonhomie seems to have subsided in the wake of recriminations over militants using Afghan soil to stage attacks in Pakistan.

Despite Pakistan’s concerns at what officials call “safe havens” of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Afghanistan, Taliban officials reject Pakistan’s stance.

“We think the TTP problem is Pakistan’s internal issue. We hope Pakistan will be able to find a solution to their problem,” Mr Karimi said.

Islamabad, meanwhile, views the matter differently. Several statements in the recent past have stressed the importance of abiding by the Doha agreement, under which the Afghan Taliban agreed to not let their territory be used against any other country.

But even as the accusations and counter-accusations fly, the overwhelming message from Taliban officials, including Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani is one of “no animosity towards Pakistan”.

Mr Haqqani told this scribe that his regime wanted to help end violence in Pakistan, and admitted they had host talks between TTP and the state of Pakistan, which collapsed last year after reaching a stalemate.

In his view, the starting point for such cooperation has to be the facilitation of trade and improving border-crossing points.

Abdul Salam Jawad, spokesman for the Afghan Commerce Ministry, said Afghanistan is set to begin direct trade with China via the Wakhan Corridor that connects Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province with Xinjiang in China.

In a recent interview in Kabul, he said Afghanistan has completed a road to the border with China and the movement of goods between the two could start as early as this year.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2023