Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] At a meeting on Tuesday, December 10, the State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill that provides for the possibility of excluding the Taliban movement (an organization under UN sanctions for terrorist activity) from the list of organizations banned in Russia.
The authors of the draft law (No. 778 284-8) were a group of parliamentarians, including senators Andrei Klishas, Andrei Yatskin and Yuri Fedorov, as well as deputies Vasily Piskarev, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Vyalkin.
According to the draft law, “the ban on the activities of an organization included in the single federal list of organizations, including foreign and international organizations recognized as terrorist in accordance with Russian legislation, may be temporarily suspended by a decision of a Russian court based on an application by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation or his deputy, if there is factual information that such an organization, after being included in the said list, has ceased carrying out activities aimed at promoting, justifying and supporting terrorism.”
Earlier, on November 25, the Afghan portal "Alemara" reported on the negotiations between the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu in Afghanistan with the Afghan Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund. Shoigu emphasized Russia's readiness to develop bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan, pointing to plans to exclude the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) from Russia's blacklist in order to strengthen political and economic ties.
Akhund, who oversees economic issues in the Taliban-formed government, noted that Afghanistan intends to “play a key role in strengthening the North-South Economic Corridor, as well as economic ties in the region.”
At the moment, it has become obvious that all concerns about the hypothetical expansion of the Taliban into neighboring countries have remained at the level of conjecture and speculation. The Taliban movement has demonstrated in practice that it intends to build good-neighborly relations with all its neighbors.
In addition, the Taliban have demonstrated that they are willing to take into account the interests of the minorities living in the country. This is especially noticeable with regard to the local Shia Hazaras, who have been given the opportunity to openly practice their version of Islam, build mosques and hold holidays, including in Kabul, while representatives of the Hazaras have received various positions in the IEA administration.
For Moscow, the positive attitude of the Afghan government towards Russia itself and its approaches to international affairs, including its approach to the CIS, certainly plays a role.
Afghans look with hope at the confrontation between Russia and the collective West, with the hope that Russia “ will be able to withstand this onslaught, this pressure, and will be able to achieve a revision of this unipolar world order.”
Therefore, it can be said that the Taliban have passed the probationary period that Moscow set for them regarding their exclusion from the terrorist lists.
The Taliban's continued "terrorist" status has slowed down the development of bilateral contacts between Moscow and Kabul. This has an impact on trade relations and makes it difficult for entrepreneurs who want to do business with Afghanistan to do so, due to concerns, even if hypothetical, of being prosecuted for justifying or financing terrorism.
ATTACK ON HAQQANI AMID RUSSIAN INITIATIVES
However, it is obvious that the prospect of removing the Taliban from the terrorist list and their rapprochement with Russia does not suit everyone.
This also applies to external forces hostile to Afghanistan and Russia, which have tried to show that the IAE's merits in the fight against terrorism are exaggerated, and that the Taliban are not fulfilling their obligations to suppress the activities of the ISIS (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) Khorasan Velayat (ISIS-Kh) (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation).
It was precisely the achievements in the fight against this cell that were noted as an important indicator that the Taliban itself is not a terrorist force, but rather a counter-terrorist force.
But on Wednesday, the day after the Duma vote, a suicide bombing in Kabul killed Khalil Haqqani, the Taliban's acting minister for refugees and repatriation. He was a high-ranking member of the influential Haqqani family.
The incident marked the first killing of a serving minister since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021. Experts say the attack is a "declaration of war" by ISIS-K against the Haqqani family, but both external and internal opponents may be behind it.
This attack on the Haqqani family, against the backdrop of Russian initiatives, can also be seen as a challenge to the reformist wing of the Taliban led by this clan, which is behind many of the initiatives to get closer to Moscow.
The family's most influential representative, Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, also held talks with Sergei Shoigu at the end of November.
Initially the most radical in the Taliban movement in matters of war and resorting to prohibited methods of waging it, Haqqani after its end turned out to be the most moderate in terms of state-building. It is with him that hopes are associated for a change in the internal policy of the Taliban.
It was Haqqani who was behind the amnesty of many members of the previous administration and tried to prevent reprisals.
His supporters also opposed the ban on female education.
In fact, because of Haqqani's position, a compromise system has essentially emerged in the country, where the so-called "Kandahar clique" from Emir Akhunzada's entourage is pushing forward more and more restrictive laws, but which, due to Haqqani's opposition to them, end up not being laws, but rather some kind of non-binding recommendations. Or loopholes appear in each of them, as in the issues of female education and employment, when in fact women can study in private schools for a fee or in religious schools for free, but the latter also provide for secular education.
Finally, the Haqqanists, unlike the Kandaharis, adhere to a more global agenda and, as noted by Russian observers who have been in contact with them, “like to talk” about multipolarity, which is why they more openly express their hopes for Russia’s success in the SVO.
SUCCESSES IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM
However, despite the ongoing terrorist attacks, the Taliban's success in the fight against terrorism is hard to doubt. In fact, this became an important factor in the recognition of the Taliban and the removal of terrorist labels from the movement.
It is significant that the Americans, who spent 20 years trying to eradicate Osama bin Laden's brainchild in Afghanistan, were forced to acknowledge this success. But as soon as they left, the Taliban themselves solved this problem.
In particular, as Christie Abizaid, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, stated on September 11, 2023, is in its historical decline in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely.”
The Taliban, despite the ongoing terrorist threat and isolated attacks, have been able to suppress ISIS-K activity in Afghanistan. After a significant increase in its activity due to the security vacuum created in parts of the country by the US withdrawal, the Taliban have changed this dynamic by denying the terrorists control over certain territories they were able to acquire by following the Americans fleeing the country.
Their activities were hit and their activity significantly reduced, which was noted in the relevant reports of international structures.
It is emphasized that the Taliban were able to conduct a successful campaign against ISIS-K and eliminated most of the sleeper cells that were ready to continue terrorist attacks in Afghan cities. After a surge in terrorist attacks in the first months after the Taliban came to power, their number is beginning to decline as a result of counter-terrorism measures by the IEA security structures.
In particular, in 2022–2023, the number of terrorist attacks and other attacks by ISIS-K has significantly decreased. If in the first year of the Taliban rule (2021–2022) there were 314 attacks and assaults, then in 2022–2023 there were only 69, that is, fewer than during any period of the group’s activity in Afghanistan since its emergence.
The Taliban's fight against ISIS is systemic and consistent, Khorasan itself is turning into a virtual province, and its connection with Afghanistan and the territory of Greater Khorasan is becoming more conditional, as stated in the UN report of January 2024.
As ISIS* researcher Aaron Zelin notes : “ Unlike most past cases of jihadist external operations, where basing was critical, a paradox occurred in which the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate effectively undermined much of the local capacity of the Khorasan Province in Afghanistan.”
At the same time, the main threat of ISIS-K now comes not from Afghans, but from citizens of Tajikistan. Rather, the reverse process of Tajiks moving to Afghanistan to participate in terrorist activities there is observed. Other citizens of the republic are drawn into ISIS-K activities through its cells in Iran and Turkey.
FIGHT AGAINST DRUG TRAFFICKING
Countering drug trafficking is another area where the Taliban have demonstrated success in their activities, which has also become an argument for removing the terrorist label from the movement.
The Taliban have already imposed a total ban on drug production and use in Afghanistan. They continue their campaign against the illegal drug industry, arresting drug addicts and drug dealers, and destroying opium poppy and cannabis fields. This has already led to a significant drop in production, but it also has a downside, hitting poor rural residents particularly hard.
In particular, the UN estimates that the cessation of opium poppy cultivation has affected the lives of almost seven million people.
According to a 2023 UN report, poppy cultivation in southern Afghanistan has declined by more than 80% as a result of Taliban campaigns to stop its use in opium production. For example, poppy cultivation in Helmand province has declined by 99%.
In November 2023, a UN report showed that poppy cultivation had declined by more than 95% across Afghanistan, stripping the country of its status as the world's largest opium producer.
Many farmers have switched to growing wheat or cotton, but they struggle to make ends meet. Developing agriculture will require more irrigation systems, cold storage facilities, and better roads. The Taliban does not have the budget to develop such infrastructure. Perhaps establishing economic ties with neighbors after sanctions are lifted will help to partially solve this problem.
Overall, the Taliban have managed to stabilize the economy somewhat. Afghanistan's foreign trade has fallen since they seized power. However, despite the decline in imports, most of the country's income now comes from taxes.
As experts note, the Afghan economy is no longer in a state of free fall and appears to be frozen in a precarious equilibrium, albeit at its lowest level.
Modest positive trends include lower inflation, exchange rate stability, some recovery in imports, more than a doubling of exports, stability or a slight increase in labor demand, and stable wages.
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