The Haqqani Afghanistan: Year 4 (Part 1)
However, before addressing these issues, there has been a momentous event that could shape the international agenda of the interim Taliban government, namely its official recognition by Russia, the first country to do so.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that investment and the fight against terrorism were part of this recognition, as international investment needs a safe space in which to operate.
Economic investment has once again been one of the main issues to consider for the fragile stability of the Taliban regime. The regime's authorities have been busy making international contacts to seek investment and financial incentives, given the mistrust surrounding their restrictive domestic policies on fundamental rights.
Security has been another issue of vital importance, put to the test by the terrorist organisation Daesh, particularly in December 2024, when a suicide bomber managed to enter the Ministry of Refugees as a visitor and detonated the bomb he was carrying just a few metres from Minister Khalil Haqqani, uncle of Anas and Sirajuddin Haqqani, killing him and several of his advisers.
Internal cohesion is another key factor for stability. Disagreements between the two factions of the government, that of Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and that of supreme leader Haibatullah Akhunzada, have been ongoing. Akhunzada's exercise of power from Kandahar has been criticised by several ministers, mainly by Sirajuddin, who, during 2023, already harshly criticised the leader's methods, but it was at the end of April this year, in a violent meeting, according to witnesses, with the supreme leader in Kandahar, when tensions rose a notch, with Sirajuddin warning of possible rifts among Taliban leaders with regard to Akhunzada's line (1), who had already commented days before this meeting, in an audio message celebrating the end of Ramadan, that if he was not obeyed, there could be a civil war.
All of the above will be discussed in the first part of this article. Finally, in the second part of this article, we will discuss how the regime's authorities have continued to destroy women's rights, with no end in sight to misogynistic apartheid.
Year 4
The Afghan economy has been a matter of vital importance for the interim government, especially since Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual GDP per capita of €378 (2). The country's dependence on international economic support and foreign investment is significant, as the government is immersed in a subsistence economy focused on agriculture, which provides a livelihood for around 75% of the Afghan population, most of whom live in rural areas.
On the financial front, during its fourth year in power, the interim government has maintained numerous contacts with, among others, its neighbour Uzbekistan and three powerful countries in the Arabian Peninsula: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Uzbekistan has signed investment and trade agreements with Afghanistan worth $2.5 billion, exceeding the 2024 trade volume between the two countries, which exceeded $1 billion. (3).
As for contacts with the Gulf countries, Qatar is not only one of the richest countries in the world, but it has also been the country with which the Taliban authorities have had the most intense diplomatic contacts in the last five years. the most intense diplomatic contacts. In fact, it was the host country for the Doha agreements, signed in 2020 between the Taliban and the US government, for the definitive withdrawal of the latter from Afghanistan. Similarly, in February 2025, Deputy Prime Minister Baradar Akhund met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohamed Bin Al Thani in Doha to reach economic and investment agreements (4).
With regard to Saudi Arabia, this country gave the green light to the reopening of its embassy in Kabul in December 2024 and, taking advantage of this event, the Taliban foreign minister met with the Saudi envoy in Kabul to strengthen cooperation with Afghanistan and essential humanitarian aid (5).
Contacts with the United Arab Emirates have been regular since the arrival of the Taliban, with one of the most recent meetings taking place in Abu Dhabi in 2024 between Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who was accompanied by his Director General of Intelligence, Abdul Haq Wasiq. Both sides discussed the need to consolidate economic and development areas in order to support reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan (6) and, given the presence of Haqqani's head of intelligence, it is likely that they also addressed issues related to terrorism.
Economic investment is crucial to overcoming the tremendous economic and humanitarian crisis afflicting Afghanistan, in which powerful international organisations are also involved, including the European Union, the World Bank and, until February 2025, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which halted development aid in some areas due to the change of administration in the US government. However, the continuous obstacles placed by the Taliban regime to the development of human rights, especially with regard to women's rights, have led to economic contributions being frozen or reduced to a minimum. The World Bank, following the Taliban's takeover in 2021, froze aid to Afghanistan, although in 2024 it approved initial aid of $300 million to cover the basic needs of the population, but outside the control of the Taliban regime (7).
NGOs on the ground have been fighting against the obstacles imposed on them by the regime's authorities, who have already ordered NGOs not to hire Afghan women. However, many continue their difficult work. In fact, the gap left by USAID has been filled by the NGO Action Against Hunger, with financial and logistical support from the European Union, which also approved humanitarian aid for 2025 of €161 million (8), with projects focused on emergency food aid, health, education, hygiene facilities, access to clean water, shelters, etc.
In terms of security, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index, which measures the security of countries based on violence, conflict and crime, and published by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), Afghanistan is the most unsafe country in the world. The Taliban authorities, aware of the importance of conveying a sense of security to foreign investors, installed more than 80,000 cameras (9) to monitor the capital in order to combat crime and terrorism. As for crime, Afghans perceive that it has decreased, as has the intensity of terrorism, although the Afghan Daesh remains the main internal threat to the Taliban regime.
In December 2024, Refugee Minister Khalil Haqqani was killed in an attack inside the ministry (10) when a member of the Daesh terrorist organisation approached the minister as a visitor and detonated a device he was carrying, killing six other people and bypassing the security checkpoint to access the minister. During one of his last public appearances, coinciding with a graduation ceremony in Patkia at the end of October 2024, he made one of his last statements, in which he said: "Today, the world is spreading propaganda about us and trying to destroy the Islamic system. You have witnessed that, thanks to jihad, we defeated the world, and the whole world is amazed by it" (11).
But Daesh continued its harassment of the regime, carrying out a massacre in February this year in Kunduz province (12), in which an explosion at a bank branch killed more than 20 people, according to local media. A week later, the Taliban spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, Abdul Mateen Qani, was quick to say that Daesh has no presence in Afghanistan and that the attacks were planned outside the country.
While the Daesh terrorist organisation was carrying out attacks in Afghanistan, the US withdrew the ten million dollar reward for information on Sirajuddin Haqqani (13) and two of his relatives, his brother Abdul Aziz Haqqani and his cousin Yahya Haqqani, both with a reward of five million dollars. Anas Haqqani was quick to claim that the withdrawal of the reward for his family was a major achievement and that his country posed no threat to anyone.
The truth is that the terrorist organisation's activity in the country has declined compared to previous years. Once again, according to the Global Terrorism Index, Afghanistan has been among the four countries most affected by terrorism in the world since 2011, ranking first from 2019 to 2022 (14), dropping to sixth place in 2023 and ninth place in 2024. During 2022, the terrorist organisation Daesh killed 422 people. In 2023, there were 73 deaths, a drop of 81% compared to the previous year. A year later, in 2024, the number of deaths caused by the terrorist organisation was 64, lower than the previous year. As can be seen, the intensity of terrorism in recent years has been declining.
However, the Taliban regime has not only suffered from the direct presence of the Daesh terrorist organisation, but there has been another issue that has had a significant impact, namely the Pakistani terrorist organisation Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. Pakistan, a country historically allied with the Afghan Taliban, has suffered numerous attacks by the TTP, which has caused serious tensions between the two countries, with the Pakistani authorities accusing the Kabul regime of harbouring TTP terrorists after they carried out attacks on Pakistani soil, particularly in the border province of North Waziristan (15), where Sirajuddin Haqqani grew up.
If there is one thing that both Taliban movements have in common, it is not only their religious fundamentalism, but also their Pashtun ethnicity. The Pashtun ethnic group, which formed a single entity during the 19th century, was divided in 1893 by the so-called Durand Line, a borderline of more than 2,600 km separating Pakistan from Afghanistan, drawn by the British Empire in 1893 to separate what was then India and Afghanistan. This separation meant that the Pashtun ethnic group remain divided on both sides of the border, mainly in the Afghan border provinces of Paktika, Khost and Paktia and in the Pakistani provinces of Waziristan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, whose capital, Peshawar, is considered the cultural and economic capital of the Pashtuns.
Since then, relations between the Pashtun ethnic group and the Pakistani authorities have not been easy, as the Pashtuns have considered themselves marginalised by the Pakistani government, which, in October 2024, outlawed the Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) for activities against Pakistan's security.
While the TTP was attacking Pakistani military forces, the Pakistani regime accused the Kabul regime of harbouring terrorists. This led Pakistan to carry out an operation in the Afghan province of Paktika at the end of December 2024 to destroy a TTP insurgent training centre, killing 46 people (16), which prompted a response from the Kabul regime days later on the Pakistani Durand line, killing 19 Pakistani soldiers and three Afghan civilians, according to pro-Taliban media (17).
The United Nations Security Council itself distributed a document dated 6 February 2025 on the permissiveness of the Kabul authorities towards members of the TTP, particularly in terms of logistical and operational support in the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika (18).
With regard to international recognition, it took four years for the Taliban government to be officially recognised by the first country. It was Russia that, in early July this year, following a meeting at its embassy in Kabul, finally officially recognised the Taliban government as the legitimate government (19). A preliminary step was taken on 17 April, when the Russian Supreme Court removed the Taliban movement from its list of terrorist groups. With all of the above, Russia would seek collaboration mainly in the fight against terrorism with a common enemy, the Afghan Daesh, while also seeking investment in energy and transport, as well as in agriculture and infrastructure.
As for whether other countries intend to follow suit with international recognition, China has welcomed Russia's decision (20) and, given its fluid trade relationship with the interim government, it would not be surprising if, within a certain timeframe, it were to consider official recognition, although China is currently cautious on this issue, demonstrating the prudence that characterises its strategic decisions.
China has sought to facilitate Afghanistan's economic development, and meetings with the Taliban authorities have been frequent, one of the most important taking place in late May in Beijing with a view to extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan. The corridor project would involve an investment of $60 billion, integrating the country into China's New Silk Road infrastructure initiative (21).
China, without losing sight of the corridor issue and aware that relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are not easy at present, brought about a meeting between the two countries with a view to reducing border tensions and restoring diplomatic relations and trust between the two former allies (22), particularly if the three countries are to be part of the CPEC project.
Conclusions
The Taliban regime is not divided into hawks and doves; they are all hawks. They all agree on the particular and arbitrary application of Sharia law, although it is in the ways in which the supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, exercises power that most of the disagreements have arisen.
On the other hand, Sirajuddin Haqqani, despite the attack on his uncle, has continued to try to convey that Afghanistan is a safe country against terrorism for foreign investment. He knows that without security, investment suffers, and this is one of the fundamental pillars of his government.
In terms of foreign relations, the interim Taliban government needs to rebuild its relations with Pakistan, and the obstacle separating them is the TTP. The Taliban, historically linked to Pakistan, have seen their relationship with their neighbour go through a rough patch due to terrorism by the TTP, an organisation that carries out attacks in Pakistan and, according to Pakistani intelligence, retreats to safe areas on the border with Afghanistan. This has provoked a Pakistani response throughout the year, with the bombing of Afghan areas where the terrorists were apparently taking refuge, prompting a reaction from Taliban regime militias, who attacked Pakistani military units on the Durand border, causing numerous deaths during these clashes.
The Taliban government has held numerous international meetings to secure investment in the country, many of which have been successful. However, the Afghan economic situation remains precarious, with heavy dependence on international funds. The truth is that the regime could partly improve its economic situation if it listened to the demands of international organisations to facilitate an inclusive government and respect human rights in general and women's rights in particular. In the absence of a constitution, all this clashes with the regime's arbitrary interpretation of Sharia law, which hinders the demands and suggestions for openness made by neighbouring countries.
For another year, the regime has consolidated its position, with no external threat to its stability, although it faces the internal threat of Afghan Daesh, which is incapable of overthrowing the Taliban government but is capable of carrying out attacks against the security forces and striking at the very heart of the government by killing its Minister for Refugees.
Finally, although internal cohesion does not appear to have been easy between the two factions of the government, they have now been in power for four years. If the rope is stretched and breaks, this would likely lead to the implosion of the regime.
Luis Montero Molina, political scientist and Master's degree in International Geostrategy and Jihadist Terrorism.
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