Taliban’s fate and Afghanistan’s future: Tyranny and terrorism hasten the end of the movement’s rule

Mostafa Kamel

An unknown fate awaits the Taliban in the coming days due to the internal divisions and failures caused by the movement by not fulfilling the promises it made upon coming to power in Afghanistan, as its rule has become even more tyrannical and strict than before, in addition to the intransigence that it has used frequently towards the Afghan people, which confirms the international community’s delay in recognizing the movement as the actual authority of Afghanistan, since the movement cannot fulfill its promises and has become incapable of managing the state and getting out of the collapsing economic situation, which makes it fail to dismantle the complex impasse in the country.

Uncertain fate

The Taliban has returned to how it was in the 1990s, becoming more stern, authoritarian, and strict than it was when it first seized the reins of power, as it continues to harden its stance against women with strict rules, against the wishes of the local masses and the provinces that supported the movement’s return to power, in addition to the inability of the movement’s government to control the increasing bombings or curb the increasing terrorist attacks at home and on the borders by ISIS Khorasan, which continues to increase its presence in some remote areas of Afghanistan.

According to a report, Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, who still maintains his firm grip on all decision-making processes in Afghanistan as well as the Taliban, continues with his team in the continuous escalation of differences with the movement’s moderate leaders such as Abdul Ghani Baradar Sultan Shaheen, stressing that the Taliban will lose control of power in Afghanistan because it is now trapped between ISIS Khorasan and the United States and its allies, according to Afghan political analysts.

According to the report, the numerous visits of US and UN officials to Kabul and Doha play a role in this file, as it is seen as a bridge between the ruling Afghan regime and the United States, so there is an urgent need to achieve more fundamental changes.

Administrative incapacity

Hesham El-Naggar, a researcher in the affairs of Islamist groups, pointed out that the Afghan Taliban movement is living in a major and complex dilemma, as it cannot fulfill its promises that it previously made when it came to rule Afghanistan under the American administration at the time of the conclusion of the peace agreement regarding various files, not only related to women’s rights, freedoms, and the rights of minorities, but also the movement’s relations with terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda.

Regarding the fate of the movement and its resolution during the coming days, Naggar confirmed in exclusive statements to the Reference that the ruling movement of Afghanistan is incapable of managing the state and getting out of the collapsing economic situation that put Afghanistan in the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world, where hunger, poverty and homelessness prevail, in addition to the fact that the Taliban is facing armed threats to its authority, as ISIS Khorasan is growing its influence, in addition to the presence of the National Resistance Front led by Ahmad Shah Massoud in the north, which is making remarkable progress, as it carried out an operation during which it captured 13 members of the Taliban.

Complicated predicament

With regard to dismantling the complex impasse inside Afghanistan, Naggar noted that it is unlikely that the movement will succeed in dismantling this impasse for several considerations, the most important of which is the internal divisions, as the movement is not one wing and is not unified. There is the influential and extremist Haqqani faction in the movement, which controls important ministries and institutions, including security, intelligence and passports, as well as a large part of the wealth, and it is the faction that maintains the movement’s relations with al-Qaeda and adopts a hard line on most files. This is in addition to the inability of the movement’s diplomacy to make any tangible progress in ending its international isolation.

Terrorist activity

This coincides with a time when another terrorist faction lurking on the Afghan border seeks to strengthen its position in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries. Farzad Ramezani Bonesh, an Iranian expert and researcher on Afghan affairs, confirmed in an article entitled “Why Taliban Rule in Afghanistan Could Strengthen the Islamic State” that the current Taliban moves in the security, political, diplomatic and economic fields play a pivotal role in the defeat or rise of the ISIS Khorasan Province in Afghanistan.