Brian M Downing
Maps of Taliban control showed dramatic gains over all Afghanistan but they may be misleading. The absence of government troops and control does not mean Taliban control. The Taliban may see their military forces weaken markedly in coming months and face warlord reisistance in the north.
Taliban levies
The Taliban military is not a unified organization as are Western armies, governments, and corporations. It’s an umbrella organization comprising scores or hundreds of tribal levies cobbled together by lengthy parleys, common hostility to foreign troops, and perhaps by steady cash payments.
They have fought hard and long and successfully. The ANA has vanished and foreign personnel are heading out – quickly and ignobly. Many fighters and even whole bands may decide to go home now – mission accomplished, one might mordantly observe.
That was the case with many mujahideen bands after the Soviet Union left in 1988. Thousands of soldiers felt they had done their jobs and went home to resume regular lives. Some bands disintegrated. Others seized mines and crossroads and power stations to pay their troops and remain intact. This led to the postwar chaos that the Taliban arose from and ended through force and parley.
The Taliban today may be more unified than the mujahideen resistance but it’s still far from unified and susceptible to partial dissolution. The Taliban may fare better owing to money from the opium trade and from Pakistan, Russia, China, and Iran. That has been key to sustaining the effort for twenty years.
Steady pay will go a long way as the economy is poor and four decades of war has made soldiering more appealing than farming or herding for many young men. This may be offset by new orders to repress and kill fellow Afghans as the Taliban leadership consolidates power.
Warlords
The chaos of the post-Soviet years led also to enduring regional power holders, especially in the north. Taliban parleys worked better with fellow Pashtuns in the south while northern groups long resented Pashtun kings and presidents. Tajiks rallied to Ismail Kahn and Ahmad Shah Massoud, Uzbeks to Abdul Dostum. Combined they formed the Northern Alliance which beat back repeated Taliban attacks in the mountainous Panjshir Valley.
In recent years, as the Taliban expanded and Kabul remained mired in corruption, Tajiks and Uzbeks rebuilt their militias. Their operational status is unclear. Ismail Khan was taken prisoner in Herat. Dostum high-tailed it for Uzbekistan. Tajik forces are in the Panjshir Valley led Massoud’s son, whose uncanny resemblance to his father lends charismatic authority, and Amrullah Saleh, whose position as Vice President of Afghanistan adds formal legitimacy. Abdullah Abdullah, a co-president and former foreign minister in the Northern Alliance, is meeting with the Taliban to negotiate autonomy.
Saleh has been warning of the Taliban threat in foreign capitals for many years. He is presently trying to rally troops and gain foreign support.There are probably thousands of able and embittered Tajik and Uzbek soldiers who are hying for the north to form a resistance. Urban dwellers may do the same as Taliban repression intensifies.
The resistance in the 1990s was able to win support from Iran and Russia who loathed the Taliban. But those states are presently aligned with China which hopes to use the Taliban to extract Afghan resources and form a Central Asian development sphere. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are more interested in that prize than in the plight of their kin in northern redoubts.
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.