Taliban Face Choice Between Survival and a Bad Deal Amid Tensions with Pakistan
Yesterday, Pakistan targeted Kandahar just hours after limited Taliban attacks on its border posts. However, the attack on Kandahar caused no serious harm to the Taliban, indicating that the parties involved are not engaged in a real war, as was also the case in the attack on Kabul where the Taliban remained unharmed.
The current conflict between the Taliban and Pakistan is not a genuine war. In a real war, each side would initially try to target key figures of the opposing side; however, so far, neither party has inflicted significant damage on the other.
It appears that Pakistan’s current aim is merely to undermine the Taliban’s authority. Otherwise, eliminating prominent Taliban leaders — whose locations and details are known to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — would not be very difficult.
An important question arises: Why has Pakistan chosen this moment to weaken the Taliban, and what objectives does it seek through this action?
According to some reports, in meetings held last week in Kandahar, Mullah Hebatullah discussed and pursued two major plans with group members.
The first plan involves managing dissatisfied officials by reshuffling and changing key positions within the Taliban. This may explain why three important figures — Mullah Baradar, Mullah Yaqoub, and Sirajuddin Haqqani — abstained from attending the Kandahar meetings. Some of these changes have Pakistan’s support; for example, the Pakistanis are displeased that Mullah Baradar controls the Taliban’s economic affairs. Disputes between Mullah Baradar and Pakistan could negatively affect Pakistan’s economic interests.
Therefore, if high-level changes occur soon within the Taliban ranks, it should not come as a surprise.
The second plan concerns the consultation on the potential return of U.S. forces to Bagram Airfield.
Experts classify the Taliban as a political Salafi group. Political Salafis are a branch of Salafi movements that are, firstly, products of intelligence agencies and, secondly, when faced with the threat of collapse, prefer survival by accepting a bad deal over any other option.
Jolani, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Syria, adopted this very logic by fundamentally changing his tactics, and similar behavior can be observed in Saudi officials.
Now, the Taliban, as a political Salafi faction, must choose between what they perceive as a bad deal with Trump’s administration and the potential risk of falling and being destroyed.
It seems that Mullah Hebatullah is trying to shift the responsibility for any agreement with the United States onto group members, especially religious scholars.
The Taliban prefer to stay in power and avoid repeating the mistakes made by Mullah Omar during the group’s initial governance. Hence, it is unlikely that Pakistan’s pressures on the Taliban — possibly in coordination with U.S. proposals — will not make accepting a deal with America seem more tolerable than facing collapse.
