Taliban hard hit by defections after signing deal with US

Mustafa Kamel

Some of the members of the Taliban movement have defected from the movement in protest against the agreement the Taliban signed with the United States in Qatar in February 2020.

The agreement is not final. Nevertheless, it seems to have dealt a deadly blow to confidence between the Taliban leadership and the movement’s members.

This is particularly true with the lack of clarity on whether the Taliban is ready to deal with the Americans in the future. A détente between the Taliban and the Americans will pit the Afghan movement against other terrorist and militant groups in Afghanistan.

Defections

Some of the members of the Taliban have defected from the movement and joined the branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Afghanistan.

There is apparently belief inside the Taliban command that the movement needs to give priority to fighting disgruntled former members who had joined ISIS.

ISIS is now, meanwhile, following a strategy that aims at ensuring its survival in the face of the changes happening in Afghanistan.

The Taliban is afraid that its former members will pose threats to its presence in the coming period.

The movement had to kick some of its members out in the past period against the background of their cooperation with ISIS.

Agreement

American and Afghan officials said NATO would pull its troops out of Afghanistan within 14 months.

They said this pullout plan would be executed, especially if the Taliban honored its commitments to the agreement it signed with the United States in Doha in February 2020.