Return of Taliban: The Doha deal

(Link on Daily Trust)

As expected, the Taliban’s dramatic and largely unresisted advance has culminated in their return to power in Afghanistan 20 years after they were overthrown by the US invading army in pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida members who it believes were behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in Washington and New York. 

Interestingly, contrary to the general assumption, the United States has never designated the Taliban as a terrorist organization; it only accuses the group of cooperating with some of the most dangerous groups on its terror list i.e. Al-Qaida and its affiliates; an inconsistency that can best be described as “ba cinya ba, kafar baya”. 

Just like every other country, the US only designates a group or individual as a terrorist based on its interests. The lack of absolute unanimity on the definition of terrorism explains why a terrorist in the eyes some may be a freedom fighter according to others. 

Now, as much as the return of the Taliban to power has generated all sorts of explanations, it left many people wondering what explains the circumstances surrounding the development as a whole. 

Though the US overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001, it soon began to realize that the country was too complex for a mere regime change to change it. Also, after pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the country over two decades to create and nurture a reasonably stable US-allied state with adequately equipped and well-trained security personnel, the country’s underlying ethno-cultural and socio-political peculiarities, which the US couldn’t take into consideration, undermined and eventually frustrated its efforts. 

Following their defeat in 2001, the Taliban turned to guerilla warfare tactics killing more than 2,000 US military and security personnel over the two decades, and, of course, exhausting the Afghan army and security personnel.

The US began to grow increasingly frustrated as it was spending massive resources and losing its military personnel to the Taliban attacks in an impoverished and landlocked country with neither instantly exploitable resources nor or any strategic importance to it. Besides, the country had ceased to pose any significant threat to the US following its elimination of Al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters in the country. 

Also, the largely apathetic Afghan military personnel were still incapable of tackling the Taliban unaided. Equally, the largely corrupt Afghan military and political elite were neck-deep in systematic misappropriation of the country’s already meagre and mostly US-provided resources. They also couldn't grow beyond their respective, tribal, regional affiliations and other deep-seated prejudices. 

Therefore, and clearly with prior approval, if not an order, from Washington, Qatar reached out to the Taliban to broker a deal between it and the United States. 

Interestingly, Qatar is a tiny but superfluously rich Arab Gulf state hugely obsessed with geopolitical influence disproportionate to its size. It pursues its agenda by investing massively in sponsoring anti-establishment political groups and non-state actors in various countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region). It equally provides them with media platforms on its influential Aljazeera satellite television network, which it also uses to glorify them and demonize their respective governments thereby constantly putting itself at loggerheads with various governments in the region.   

Anyway, around the beginning of 2010, Qatar effectively adopted the Taliban, following which the group’s leaders were politically refined in its capital, Doha, over the subsequent years within which talks were held between the group’s representatives and their US counterparts. 

Also, in 2013, Qatar established the Taliban’s political bureau in Doha, which was the first and only one of its kind, to institutionalise contacts between them and the United States in the atmosphere of irresistible luxury and glamour away from Afghanistan.  

Since then, the Taliban has been increasingly involved in international diplomacy acquiring considerable skills in the process that on different occasions it managed to blackmail the US into making concessions by capitalising on its desperation to pull out of Afghanistan without jeopardizing its interests. 

The Taliban representatives also visited the capitals of some major international and regional players for talks with governments’ officials and representatives of international bodies. 

Besides, all through the US-Taliban negotiations in Doha, the former had effectively treated the latter like a substantive government, not a group, leading to the ratification of the deal between them in February 2020. For instance, the deal provides, among other things, that the US would withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, while the Taliban, in return, agreed not to harbour or allow anyone or group threatening the security of the United States or its allies to operate in the country.  

After all, from the way the US pulled out of the country, it was clear that it effectively handed it to the Taliban on a silver platter. Equally, the reactions of the other world powers, which suggest no surprise, imply that they were at least privy to, if not part, of the whole thing all along.  

Now, though the new Taliban government would be different from the pre-2001 Mullah Omar-led government, it wouldn’t necessarily live up to the US expectations. Yet, as long its grip on power doesn’t threaten the US security or jeopardise its interests, any other excesses it may commit would be overlooked. 

Looming scenario in Afghanistan

(Link on Daily Trust)

The rate at which Afghanistan districts and cities are falling to the Taliban since the withdrawal of the US forces brings back memories of the mid-90s when the group was rising to power in a similar pattern, leading to the fall of the capital, Kabul in 1996. 

As a young international affairs enthusiast then, and even though with limited understanding of the geopolitics and other dynamics of the situation, I interestedly followed the developments. 

Afghanistan was invaded by the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in 1979, following which local resistance groups known as the Mujahedeen sprang up to resist the invasion. Meanwhile, the global power struggle between the US-led capitalist West and the Soviet-led socialist East was still raging. 

As either country was determined to undermine the influence of the other, the US was committed to forcing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. However, faced with the absence of any reliable local allies to manipulate, the US decided to pursue its goal by riding the wave of the then-popular Jihad sentiment against the Soviet invasion of the country. 

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) managed the intelligence aspects of the US support to various Mujahedeen groups, while the State Department managed its diplomatic aspects. Also, thanks to the US-influenced global media narrative about the Mujahedeen, sympathy for them and their cause skyrocketed especially across the Muslim world and among Muslim communities the world over. 

Passionate supplications for Allah to grant the Mujahedeen victory became part and parcel of Muslim supplications particularly in Friday Sermons, Taraweeh and Tahajjud in Ramadan. Tales of the extraordinary heroism of the Mujahedeen, many of which turned out to be fabricated, were systemically popularized, which inspired thousands of Muslim volunteers across the world to travel to Afghanistan and join the Jihad. Many of such volunteers especially those from the rich Gulf Arab countries and western countries abandoned lives of luxury to endure extreme hardship and stress in Afghanistan.  

Anyway, the Mujahedeen managed to force out the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989, and in 1992 managed to overthrow the government it had installed. However, the hitherto united Mujahedeen groups turned against one another in a bloody power struggle plunging the country into unprecedented chaos. 

Meanwhile, neighbouring Pakistan, which must have lost a considerable amount of its influence over the feuding former Afghan Mujahedeen groups was increasingly worried over the potentially destabilising implications of the situation on its security and stability. It, therefore, facilitated the formation of a group of Afghan refugees in Pakistan known as the Taliban to tackle all the feuding armed groups in Afghanistan.

Soon, the group began to attract many disgruntled nonpartisan Afghans and, of course, attracted those foreign volunteers most of whom were Arabs. And with the support of the Pakistani intelligence agency, the Taliban fighters began to sweep away those former Mujahedeen groups from Afghanistan districts at a dramatic rate, which culminated in the fall of the capital and the emergence of the Taliban government in 1996.  

However, following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC, which the United States accused Osama bin Laden of masterminding, the US demanded that the Taliban government surrender Bin Laden to it. The then Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar insisted that they would only surrender him if the US furnished them with irrefutable evidence of his involvement. The US invaded Afghanistan anyway, overthrew the Taliban government, and had since been there before its withdrawal recently. 

Interestingly, though the US had installed and sustained successive Afghan administrations in the country, it failed to raise a substantive government strong enough to provide and maintain peace and stability, which explains the persistence of the Taliban’s activities all through in the countryside and remote areas. The largely corrupt Afghan political elites were holed up in their respective fortresses in the capital, Kabul, and other cities. They had apparently taken the protection they enjoyed from the US army, for granted. They never believed that the US would follow through with its withdrawal at least at this moment given the procrastination of successive US administrations on the matter.  

Now, given the rate at which the Taliban is advancing across the country, overthrowing the already shrinking government in Kabul could be just a matter of time, barring any major development that may prevent it. However, that may not necessarily translate into the return of the Taliban government, after all. Because in the absence of any superpower in the country, there are now some regional powers pursuing their respective interests and agendas. Pakistan, Turkey and Iran are particularly active in this regard.

Pakistan, being ethnoculturally, religiously, socially, politically and geographically closest to Afghanistan, is, of course, interested in Afghanistan’s affairs. It is strategizing to play appropriate roles in shaping Afghanistan’s political future.  

Also, though Turkey doesn’t have shared borders with Afghanistan, it’s determined to impose its influence on the country’s political future in the context of its geopolitical expansionism. After all, its troops are already in the country supposedly as part of the NATO mission there. 

Equally, neighbouring Iran has been increasingly involved in Afghanistan in pursuit of its agenda, which is much more complex than that of the others. Likewise, its approach is different from that of the others. 

As it has always done to infiltrate wherever it targets, Iran is already busy creating armed militias among the Hazara Shiite minority in Afghanistan, and preparing them to grow into a formidable purportedly Afghan political block but loyal to Iran in reality through which it can influence things in the country. 

Now, as things stand, the fall of Kabul may unleash uncontrollable chaos in the country, which underscores the imperative of arresting the situation before it’s too late.  

Resignation to the reign of terror

(Link on Daily Trust)

In 2010, the first civilian governor of Kano State, Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, died of a shock-triggered cardiac arrest following a robbery incident on his way from Bauchi to Kano. His brother who was with him in the same chauffeur-driven vehicle narrated how, shortly after the incident, Rimi lamented in shock that the robbers were Fulani. Though they didn’t physically harm them, Rimi’s condition deteriorated, leading to his death. 

Of course, if Rimi’s reference to the robbers’ ethnic identity were nowadays, it wouldn’t prompt wonder for obvious reasons. It’s, therefore, necessary to understand the context in which he made the remark to appreciate why the robbers’ ethnic identity was of interest to him at that particularly tense moment. 

The incident happened against the backdrop of growing controversial speculations that some Fulani pastoral nomads were increasingly taking to armed robbery. It was difficult then to even imagine a Fulani pastoral nomad committing armed robbery. Perhaps, except who had actually fallen victim to it, or had known of a confirmed case, no one would believe that a typical Fulani fellow could even contemplate turning into an armed robber. 

The characteristic ultra-conservatism, excessive, in fact, counterproductive contentment, modesty, and real or perceived naivety of the Fulani, in particular, explained that general assumption about them, and indeed explained Rimi’s shock and frustration, being a Fulani himself. 

Interestingly, albeit to a lesser extent, a similar reaction must have trailed the beginning of the involvement of some Hausa folks in armed robbery, a few decades earlier, for, though Hausa and Fulani are ethnically different, they share a lot in common, with the former being typically the “refined” version of the latter in many aspects.    

Anyway, since that robbery incident, the reality has done away with those speculations. While armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, or any other crime isn’t limited to any particular ethnic group, the growing involvement of some Fulani folks in them remains particularly interesting due to the foregoing reasons.

Besides, over the past decade within which the traditional highway armed robbery has effectively disappeared as travellers no longer take unnecessary amounts of cash with them thanks to the growing penetration of electronic money transaction technology, those Fulani folks have switched to the increasingly “lucrative” banditry and kidnapping. 

Also, though not all bandits and kidnappers are Fulani, the coincidental dominance of Fulani in the crimes in northern Nigeria has changed the image of a typical Fulani pastoral nomad from a herd-rearing, stick-wielding, innocent-looking, shabbily clothed, and pity-arousing fellow, to an AK47-wielding, motorbike-riding, and panic-arousing thug. 

Now, caught between that reality, on the one hand, and the persistent government failure to guarantee people’s security, on the other, many communities especially in northern Nigeria have resigned themselves to the reign of terror in their respective communities. They have come to terms with whatever dangerous security situation they have been exposed to by bandits and kidnappers. 

Peasant farmers in some communities, for instance, negotiate with bandits to allow them to utilise their own farmlands while they, in return, pay a fortune to the bandits or provide services to them, which include supply and logistics, and even a cover-up to enable them to elude the security agencies. Other communities would raise a fortune and hand it to the bandits in return for their safety for some time, yet they may still be vulnerable to raids by other bandits or even the very bandits who extorted them. 

Resignation to the reign of terror isn’t only noticeable in remote and rural areas; urban dwellers have equally resigned themselves to it. The scope of suburban communities repeatedly raided or vulnerable to raids by motorbike-riding kidnappers breaking into homes and kidnapping people is steadily widening. 

Besides, given the huge amounts of ransom that families pay to rescue their loved ones kidnapped from home or on highways, cases of urban kidnapping of individuals by familiar and otherwise trusted amateur but equally lethal undercover kidnappers lurking among families or in neighbourhoods, are becoming too common to prompt a surprise. 

There have been cases of neighbours, family friends, and domestic helps kidnapping or facilitating the kidnapping of individuals in the very families that trust them. In fact, there have been cases of relatives kidnapping their relatives, brothers kidnapping their younger siblings, and husbands kidnapping their wives.

From a typical recorded phone negotiation conversation between family members whose loved ones were kidnapped and the kidnappers over the amount of ransom and how it should be delivered, it’s very obvious that people have lost confidence in the authorities, and have indeed resigned themselves to the “new normal”.  

Also, travellers are increasingly settling for relatively inconvenient rail travel where the service is available, while others including those who can barely afford it opt for air flight.   

There are also many other instances of people’s resignation to the reign of terror in the face of the failure of the authorities to live up to their responsibilities. After all, that’s quite understandable. Because in an increasingly hopeless situation where, for instance, a gang of bandits would simply descend on supposedly protected government schools and herd students into the bush, whatever concession or desperate move that vulnerable communities and individuals make for the security of their lives isn’t only justifiable but is actually the only right thing to do. 

Though resignation to the reign of terror is suicidal in the long run, it remains the only option for the vulnerable while the shame and blame rest with the authorities who have failed them.