The House of Cards in Afghanistan has fallen apart because of escalating internal divisions within the ranks of the Afghan Taliban. The ideological and pragmatic leadership of the Afghan Taliban are divided between Kandahar and Kabul groups. Since the fall of Kabul before the Afghan Taliban in August 2021, Afghanistan’s government, economy and society have been largely driven by the Kandahar group under the command of Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada who is known as a hardliner among Taliban ranks.
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of Afghanistan, has proven to be an exclusive, and isolationist leader; he was a vocal opponent of girl education and restricted women’s opportunities in an economic and educational realm which also drew criticism across the globe. However, it is worth noting that the pragmatic leadership of the Afghan Taliban are opponents of such measures of Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada but remain helpless to overturn his exclusive policy.
Many analysts falsely believe that Taliban leadership has provided much political stability in the country. But reality strikes the opposite as much of the stability comes from American humanitarian and economic support to the regime. For instance, during the Biden Administration, Afghanistan received around $40 million per week for running day-to-day government affairs. And when the incumbent American administration led by President Trump announced to suspension USAID program across the globe, including Afghanistan, the Taliban faced a strategic dilemma of how to run the administration without foreign assistance and aid. The natural outcome of the suspension of American aid is increasing infighting of the Afghan Taliban rank.
Moreover, the Taliban’s Afghanistan has strained relations with every neighboring country, especially with Pakistan. The relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have become fractured on the issue of Pakistan Taliban which has become the prime source of terrorism in the western part of Pakistan, mainly in KPK and Balochistan. Pakistan’s top civilian and military leadership officially blamed the Afghan Taliban for sponsoring logistic, financial and arms support to TTP as the country has faced 70pc increase in terrorist attacks in the year 2024 which claimed around 1000 lives. Meanwhile, Afghan Taliban leadership is calling TTP an internal matter of Pakistan and insists the peace talks with them instead of launching a military operation.
However, many international reports confirm that the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan Taliban have robust ideological, ethical and common goals as they are different sides of the same coin. Therefore, the deadlock remains between Pakistan’s leadership and the Afghanistan Taliban on the issue of TTP, which forces Pakistan to impose some harsh measures against the Afghan Taliban to exert pressure on the issue of the Afghan Taliban. Air strikes against TTP inside Afghanistan, economic restrictions and expulsion of Afghan Refugees are prime tactics used by Pakistan to mould the stubborn behaviour of the Afghan Taliban.
Meanwhile, the presence of transactional terrorist groups in Afghanistan and the ideological mindset of exclusive leadership of the Kandahar group would not go well off with establishing strategic and long-lasting relations with China and India. Therefore, all of these developments indicate that hard times are approaching for the Afghan Taliban in providing political and economic stability in the country because of their exclusive and rigid approach to handling domestic affairs and conducting foreign affairs of the country.
