which faction has the say |
According to experts, the killing of al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Kabul on July 31 could be a turning point for the Taliban.
It has been a year since the Taliban militant group overthrew the internationally recognized government in Afghanistan and seized power.
In the last year, the extremist group has monopolized the power, numerous ethnic and political excluded groups. to the Taliban’s strict bans on women’s rights and freedom of the press protest journalists and human rights defenders imprisonment was done, beaten.
The militants have waged a bloody war against the rival Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-X) extremist group. The group has not been able to be defeated, and continues to carry out deadly explosions in major cities.
Experts see the biggest threat to the Taliban in the growing contradictions within the group. Rival factions political As they fight for power and economic resources, the divide deepens.
A regime that controls the entire country
No country has recognized the Taliban. However, Western countries, which want to soften the harsh policy and prevent a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, continue the dialogue with the extremist group. USAAllegations that the Taliban gave shelter to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed by a drone strike in Kabul, created a threat to the group’s goals of gaining international legitimacy, observers agree.
“For the Taliban, it is a big deal that in the last 40 years of Afghanistan’s history, it is the only regime that controls the entire country,” – a veteran afghan journalist who has followed the Taliban since its inception in the 1990s Sami Yusifzai he says.
According to him, the territorial superiority of the Taliban will prevent a civil war in the 1990s. At that time, neighboring countries were arming rival factions that controlled different parts of Afghanistan.
Not a threat, but a joke
Although a small number of small armed groups oppose the Taliban rule in different regions of the country, they are weak, fragmented, and have no shelter or outside help.
“They are not a threat to the Taliban regime, they create a scandal”, – Director of Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington Marvin Weinbaum says
As the strongest anti-Taliban group ever National The Resistance Front has appeared. His boss Ahmed Masoud former Mujahideen commander Ahmed Shah Massoudis his son. The latter fought Soviet forces from the Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the Taliban in the 1990s.
Although this group has carried out deadly, isolated attacks against the Taliban, it has not been able to take full control of the valley. The Taliban suppressed the resistance with brutality, killing the resisting fighters, torture saw reports of peaceful residents being detained and beaten.
The West needs stability
Weinbaum says Afghanistan’s neighbors and foreign powers are not interested in fomenting a wider civil war through armed resistance groups.
“They would prefer that they remain in power in Kabul and maintain stability to facilitate international efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis,” – the analyst emphasizes that the international community wants to curb the threat posed by armed groups like IS-X.
However, the Taliban also suppresses peaceful opposition with violence.
Human rights groups accuse the Taliban of unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests, mandatory They accuse him of disappearances and torture. Gunmen target human rights defenders, women’s activists, journalists, intellectuals. Peaceful protests demanding women’s basic rights are suppressed with violence. Afghan media was also silenced by intimidation, detention and beating of journalists.
Intrigues
Experts see the biggest threat to the Taliban in the deepening of internal conflicts. Disputes over the division of power and economic resources sometimes result in violence. The Taliban killed a dissident commander in the north of the country in June military carried out a campaign. Observers say there is a battle for control of the attractive coal mines.
According to experts, the Taliban, which consists mainly of Pashtuns, is divided along ethnic, regional and tribal lines. There are also said to be contradictions in politics within the flu.
Rivalry is believed to be growing between the Haqqani faction in the east and the Taliban founder faction in the south.
The faction of ethnic Tajik and Uzbek commanders in the north of the country is considered relatively smaller and less powerful.