Afghanistan: Weakening Regime – Analysis

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:24:34 +0000
World

By Ajit Kumar Singh

The ‘political landscape’ of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is in increasing turmoil. A deep divide has emerged between the Kandahari group led by Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the Haqqani Group led by Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. The Haqqani Group also includes Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar and Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai. These three – Haqqani, Baradar and Stanikzai – are among the most prominent Taliban leaders after Akhundzada.

Indeed, at the time of writing two of these three top leaders of the Haqqani Group – Sirajuddin Haqqani and Abbas Stanikzai – have left the country and are currently residing in United Arab Emirate (UAE). There were rumours of disaffection around Baradar’s absence as well, since it overlapped with Haqqani and Stanikzai’s, but he has returned to Kabul.

The first to leave the country was Stanikzai who openly challenged Akhundzada, calling his decision to ban girls' education and other restrictions on women his "personal choice". He stated on January 18, 2025,

Today, we are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a total population of 40 million. We have stripped them of all their rights by closing the doors to schools and universities for them, giving them away as compensation in personal disputes, and preventing them from choosing their husbands. Are we truly following Sharia? … The path we are currently following is guided by personal choice, not Sharia... We call on the leadership of the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] to make education accessible to everyone.

He added,

Follow him [Akhundzada], but not to the extent that, God forbid, you grant him the rank of prophethood or divinity. If you [Akhundzada] deviate even a step from God's path, then you are no longer my leader, I do not recognize you.

Stanikzai went on to add that the world was critical of the Taliban's curbs on women and "this is precisely the problem" that they have with the Afghan government, which has not been officially recognized by any country, primarily because of the regime's treatment of the female population.

Stanikzai has been opposing the policy of restricting women rights for long, but this was the first time that he openly challenged Akhundzada. Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with Crisis Group’s South Asia program, noted that Stanikzai had periodically made statements calling girls’ education a right of all Afghan women. Bahiss added, “However, this latest statement seems to go further in the sense that he is publicly calling for a change in policy and questioned the legitimacy of the current approach.”

Days later Stanikzai fled the country to escape an arrest warrant and travel ban imposed by Akhundzada. Stanikzai who was to be arrested and tried in a military court, managed to escape as Afghanistan Defence Minister, Mullah Yaqoob, a key Stanikzai ally, had intervened to facilitate his safe departure and arranged for his travel to Dubai. Stanikzai claimed, however, that he was travelling to the UAE because of health issues.

Sirajuddin Haqqani is also in the UAE. According to a United Nations Security Council statement issued on January 22, 2025, Haqqani was granted a travel exemption to perform Umrah in Saudi Arabia between January 23 and February 3. However, sources indicate that he has not returned, despite the expiration of the United Nations travel exemption. Haqqani left the country amid reports that Akhundzada had curtailed his powers, leading to a deep divide between the two. Akhundzada had stripped the Ministries of Defence, Interior and the General Directorate of Intelligence of the powers to distribute weapons, ammunition and military equipment. As per the directives, Akhundzada, was to decide on all distribution of military equipment. It was claimed that Akhundzada made this decision after Sirajuddin Haqqani distributed quantities of weapons among his supporters in the eastern provinces. Confirming the new decree, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid stated on November 8, 2024, that the decree was issued with the aim of "proper management and security of weapons” and to prevent the "misuse" of military equipment.

More importantly, Khalil Rahman Haqqani, a senior Afghan Taliban figure and Acting Minister of Refugees and Repatriation and his three bodyguards were killed in a suicide blast in the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation compound in Kabul on December 11, 2024. Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani was the brother of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Haqqani network, and was the uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the current leader of the Haqqani network and the Taliban Interior Minister. Privately, most Haqqani supporters accused his rivals in the Taliban of ordering his assassination.

Haqqani’s visit to the UAE was publicized by the Taliban on January 22, but little was disclosed about its purpose. However, Jilani Zwak, an Afghan journalist, noted that the UAE had been playing a unique intermediary role in Taliban-United States (US) relations. Zwak argued, “I don’t think this trip was about Afghanistan’s relations with the UAE. It was more about Afghanistan’s relations with the United States – and more specifically, the Haqqani network’s ties with Washington. The UAE has served as a mediator between the Taliban and the US.”

Significantly, Mohammad Asif Siddiqui, a former deputy chairman of Afghanistan’s Senate, had earlier claimed that senior Taliban figures currently outside Afghanistan were working to undermine Akhundzada’s authority: “These figures – Haqqani, Baradar, and Stanikzai – are all in the UAE and Qatar… Qatar, which played a key role in bringing the Taliban to power, is now pressuring foreign powers to push for a leadership change within the Taliban.”

It is not a coincidence that Stanikzai, on January 4, 2025, had praised the then US President-elect Donald Trump as a "decisive and courageous" person. He had stated, “One or two weeks from now, he [Trump] will come to power. He should change his policy, abandon Biden’s policy, and create a new approach. From Afghanistan and the Islamic Emirate’s side, the path is open for them. If they intend friendship, we will extend a hand of friendship as well. An enemy does not remain an enemy forever, and a friend does not remain a friend forever."

Meanwhile, the third prominent leader of the group Abdul Ghani Baradar Abdul Ghani Baradar, returned to Kabul ahead of schedule, cutting short a UN-approved travel exemption that allowed him to stay in Qatar till March 3, 2025, for medical treatment. He had left Afghanistan on February 9, but attended a ceremony in Kabul on February 20, to inaugurate several development projects.

Indeed, the Kandahari faction’s *rigidity* on the strict implementation of regressive Sharia laws across the country has created a deep divide within the Taliban. The Ultra-conservative Kandahari group and the ‘moderate’ Haqqani group have been at loggerhead, and speculation is rife that the Haqqani Group is trying to remove Akhundzada.

Moreover, the Akhundzada group’s policies have pushed a large proportion of the population away from the regime. On July 24, 2024, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) survey report, based on interviews of 888 women in 33 provinces and 64 men in 14 provinces, noted that only four per cent of Afghans want the Taliban government to be internationally recognized. The survey also found that only two per cent of women reported having "good" or "full" influence over decision-making processes in their communities, compared to 18 per cent of men. 64 per cent of women said they "never" felt safe when alone at home, while only two per cent of men felt secure when leaving home with a female family member.

These developments have enormously compounded the Taliban’s problems. Overall fatalities which had fallen from 1,653 in 2022 to 501 in 2023, increased to 856 in 2024, an increase of 70.85 per cent. 2025 has already recorded at least 137 fatalities (data till March 2).

Two of the principal challengers to the Taliban regime – the resistance forces and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (IS-KP) – remain potent threats.

The National Resistance Front's military activities started in August 2021 when the Taliban attacked us in the Panjshir Valley [in northern Afghanistan]. Since then, we have been resisting them. We started from two provinces in the north, yet now we have networks and operations in almost 20 provinces after three years of expansion. Our operations at the moment are unconventional and mostly guerrilla operations. Yet, the military wing of the National Resistance Front is based inside Afghanistan, our bases, and our commando units are all in the country, and… we are increasing our recruitment and operational capacity.

The National Resistance Front (NRF) which initiated the onslaught against the Taliban regime in August 2021 itself - the Taliban returned to power on August 15, 2021 - still remains the biggest challenge for the Taliban regime. According to Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) data, NRF has killed 36 Taliban fighters in the current year, so far, without losing a single fighter of its own. In 2024, NRF killed 444 Taliban fighters, losing six of its own. Since August 2021, NRF has killed a total of 1,777 Taliban fighters and has lost 236 cadres (data till March 2, 2025). Earlier, as reported on September 1, 2024, Ahamd Massoud, the exiled leader of NRF, asserted,

The second most lethal resistance force, the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) has killed 52 Taliban fighters in the current year, so far (data till March 2, 2025). No AFF fighter has been killed in these incidents. Through 2024, AFF had killed 230 Taliban fighters, and lost just three of its own.

On February 27, 2025, AFF claimed on X that, over the preceding three years (the group was formed in 2022), the Front had executed a total of 330 successful operations, resulting in the elimination of 821 Taliban fighters and injuries to another 868, and had lost 13 of its own. These operations included 87 targeted attacks in the preceding year alone, on Taliban bases, checkpoints, and gathering points, killing 229 Taliban militants and injuring 166. AFF asserted that it had expanded its military operations to 31 provinces across Afghanistan (out of a total of 34 provinces in the country); enhanced its organizational structure and operational capabilities; and improved strategic communications, intelligence, and field operations.

There are several other resistance forces, including the Afghanistan Liberation Movement, the Afghanistan Liberation Front, the National Mobilization Front, and the Afghanistan Islamic National and Liberation Movement, which are fighting against the Taliban regime. There have been numerous attempts to bring all these resistance forces together to put more pressure on the Taliban. For instance, in a first meeting in April 2024, the NRF and AFF discussed the possibilities of unity and coordination between. However, no further developments have been reported in this regard.

These groups pose a critical challenge for the Taliban regime in its efforts to consolidate its position as the legitimate government and true representative of Afghanistan.

Engaged in territorial battle with these resistance forces, the Taliban is also finding it difficult to control the unabated terrorist activities of the IS-KP, which has undermined security and is a constant threat to the civilian population. ICM data indicates that there was a total of 247 civilian fatalities in 2024, with the IS-KP alone responsible for at least 135 of these. While perpetrators of 76 civilian killings remained unidentified, the Taliban killed 36 civilians. 11 civilians have already been killed in 2025, two of them by IS-KP in two separate incidents:

January 21: A Chinese national named Li, who was working in the mining sector, was killed while travelling with his Afghan translator, in an attack along the Dasht-e-Qala road, which connects the Taluqan and Khwaja Bahauddin Districts in Takhar Province. On January 22, IS-KP took responsibility for the killing stating: "Yesterday, the soldiers of the Caliphate targeted a vehicle carrying a Chinese communist in the village of Katakjar, Takhar, using a machine gun, resulting in his death and damage to his vehicle."January 7: Abdul Razaq, an imam and teacher at a local seminary, was killed, and Hamdullah Mohammadi, a preacher at the New City Mosque, was injured in an attack orchestrated by IS-KP in the Baghlan-e-Jadid District of Baghlan Province.

Though the Taliban has repeatedly claimed that it has ended the presence of IS-KP in Afghanistan, it is abundantly clear that the IS-KP remains a potent threat. Indeed, on June 5, 2024, a report issued by the Afghanistan United Front (AUF), led by Sami Sadat, former commander of Afghanistan's Special Forces, stated that IS-KP had a current strength of 9,000 fighters in Afghanistan and could conduct attacks "throughout the region". AUF further noted, “The IS-KP group has the ideological, human resources, and recruitment capacity to carry out attacks in Europe and the United States, and they have demonstrated this capability in Afghanistan and Iran as well.” Most recently, on December 12, in its propaganda poster regarding the suicide attack on Khalil Rahman Haqqani, IS-KP’s Al-Azaim media criticized the remarks of the Taliban's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who had previously stated that anyone claiming IS-KP's presence in Afghanistan should provide evidence; the post queried, "Do you still deny our existence?"

Meanwhile, as mentioned above the Taliban killed 36 civilians in 2024, and at least nine of the 11 civilians killed in 2025. The incidents in the current year include:

February 23: A young man, identified as Hamed Agha, was shot dead in Parwan Province after spending a week in Taliban detention. Agha was a resident of Bagram District.January 27: Eight civilians were detained and subsequently killed by the Taliban in separate incidents across Afghanistan. They were charged with collaborating with armed opposition groups.

Since its return to power, the Taliban has particularly targeted civilians who it believed were still loyal to the former government, or those who were opposing its socio-religious diktats.

In addition to IS-KP, other terrorist groups also continued to maintain a strong presence on Afghan soil, prominently including Al-Qaeda and Tehreek-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), among others.

The volatility at the international borders with Pakistan and Iran adds to the Taliban’s mounting problems. Most recently, heavy shelling between the Pakistan Army and the Taliban forces started on February 22, 2025, at the Torkham border, one of the most important routes for trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The heavy firing started as Pakistan sought to prevent the Taliban from building a checkpoint near the Torkham border. The Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has seen a succession of two types of violent incidents: attacks by infiltrating militants on Security Forces (SFs) check posts/camps and exchanges of fire between the SFs of both sides over the issues of border fencing and construction of security posts. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), since April 2007, when the first such clash was reported, there have been at least 26 incidents of clashes between SFs on both sides, in which 59 persons, including 40 SF personnel and 19 civilians, have been killed on the Pakistani side (data till March 2, 2025). Afghanistan rarely confirms its own casualties. Further, according to the SATP database, 415 persons (including 314 Pakistani SF personnel and 101 civilians) were killed in 179 attacks by terrorists from across the border since April 2007.

As SAIR has noted *earlier* the international border Afghanistan and Pakistan has remained a bone of contention since the beginning. Not surprisingly, while Afghanistan continued to oppose Pakistani efforts to fence the Durand Line, which would give it permanent legitimacy, Pakistan continued to obstruct Afghan efforts even to erect check-posts along the border.

The humanitarian crisis in the country, meanwhile, remains critical. According to the latest World Food Programme (WFP) data, over a quarter (14.8 million) of the Afghan population of 43.4 million were facing acute food insecurity. One in three Afghans do not know where their next meal will come from. WFP has noted that “these figures sadly keep the country squarely amongst other severe global hunger crises. 1.4 million mothers and children are no longer receiving specialized nutritious food to prevent malnutrition, while malnutrition rates remain critically high.”

The Taliban has failed comprehensively to address economic distress in the country. According to the World Bank's update released on February 5, 2025,

The economic recovery has been uneven, with rural centers benefiting more than urban areas. The lack of job opportunities, coupled with ongoing displacement of population, has exacerbated regional disparities. Moreover, high levels of informal labor and the limited formalization of businesses restricts access to secure livelihoods and social safety nets, further deepening poverty for millions of Afghans. Afghanistan's economic outlook remains highly fragile with a very limited revenue base. The country's high trade deficit, dependence on imports, and shrinking fiscal space present formidable challenges to sustainable recovery, and key sectors such as agriculture remain vulnerable to the effects of climate change, insecurity and a lack of investment, further complicating the recovery process.

Meanwhile, which began soon after the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan, have further complicated Afghanistan's problems. External powers, prominently including China, are trying to make inroads into the country, in an effort to capture and control its significant natural resources. Afghanistan has extraordinary deposits of rare earth elements, including metals that play a critical role in the modern manufacturing sector, such as tellurium, cobalt, iron, copper, Tungsten, Manganese, and possibly the world's largest deposits of Lithium, among others. In addition, there are also significant deposits of gold, precious stones, coal, oil and gas. On February 26, 2025, US President Donald Trump, outlining the policy of his first presidency, declared,

We were going to get out, but we were going to keep Bagram, not because of Afghanistan but because of China, because it's exactly one hour away from where China makes its nuclear missiles. And you know who's occupying it right now? China. Biden gave it up.

Reacting to Trump's statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, denied the claim and cautioned, "They should refrain from making emotional statements based on unsubstantiated information… Bagram is controlled by the Islamic Emirate, not China. Chinese troops are not present here, nor do we have any such pact with any country."

Despite being in power for over three years, the Taliban has failed to win the confidence and support, either of the Afghan population, or of the international community. International recognition for its regime remains elusive, despite the engagement of several countries and international agencies with the regime, both for the provision of humanitarian relief and for commercial interests, particularly for the exploitation of Afghanistan's abundant natural resources. There is very little possibility of Hibatullah Akhundzada making any changes in the prevailing regressive policies followed by his government. Absent such changes, international recognition for the Taliban remains unlikely. The internal churning within the Taliban leadership can only lead to further turbulence within the country.

· Ajit Kumar Singh
Senior Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management