Bloodshed, curbs on civil rights show Taliban’s Afghanistan will remain unstable

On August 15 last year, the Taliban stormed Kabul and overtook entire Afghanistan without anyone batting an eyelid. It’s been more than a year but peace and normalcy is yet to return to the landlocked country under Taliban 2.0.

Afghanistan remains largely unstable with the regime’s efforts to curb civilian rights and an anti-women stand imply that the chances of international recognition in the future are slim.

Taliban & al Qaeda bonhomie

On August 1, al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri was shredded to pieces by a ninja missile fired from a US reaper drone in the house of Taliban interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. His killing in Kabul highlighted the close collaboration between the al Qaeda and Taliban, triggering concerns that terrorist groups would operate freely as the Taliban are back in control.

Resistance Forces refuse to budge

The Resistance Forces have been vociferously taking on the Taliban regime ever since the latter took control of Pakistan. According to reports, at least 110 Taliban fighters have been killed in the clashes in July. Bagram, Herat, Panjshir, Kunduz and other areas have witnessed heavy fighting between the two forces. On July 13, the Taliban forces carried out house searches and reportedly warned to kill all the locals above the age of ten if found any links with the National Resistance Front.

Da’esh blood terror

Not just the Resistance Force, the Taliban also faces challenge from the Islamic State Khorasan Province (Da’esh’) terrorists. In July, Da’esh killed 25 civilians and three Taliban fighters. On July 26, the Sharia Council of Da’esh issued a fatwa to target places of worship of non-Muslims and Shias.

A day later, a bomb exploded near the Karte Parwan Gurdwara in Kabul. However, no casualty was reported in the attack. The attack took place a month after ISKP attacked the same gurdwara which claimed the lives of Sikhs and Taliban members.

The Da’esh has already slammed Taliban for establishing relations with India and Pakistan and Iran. On July 28, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said that the number of Da’esh terrorists has risen three-fold since the Taliban came to power. According to him, at least 6,000 Da’esh terrorists are present in the country.

With the Da’esh and Resistance Forces going unchecked, the violence in the Islamic country is likely to persist in days to come.

Inter-Taliban rivalry

The differences within the Taliban have also resulted in a lot of violence. On July 7, 18 Taliban fighters were killed in an intra-Taliban firefight in the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Four days later, two Pashtun fighters were killed and four were injured in clashes with Uzbek fighters of Taliban in Takhar province. On July 15, the meeting chaired by head of Afghan army Qari Fasihuddin in Panjshir witnessed tensions as a number of Badakhshani Taliban objected to continuance of war in Panjshir and Baghlan.

Curbs on civilian and women rights

Ever since the Taliban returned to power, there have been reports of excesses committed against civilians including women. On July 27, Amnesty International released a report titled ‘Death in Slow Motion: Women and Girls under Taliban Rule,’ chronicling the ‘suffocating crackdown’ experienced by women and girls in Afghanistan. The findings included an increase in early and forced child marriages, the detainment, forced disappearances, and torture of women protestors; and women being arrested and detained for “moral corruption”.

The Taliban had defended the policies, calling them to be in line with Afghan culture and the Sharia.

While responding to a UN Human Rights Council resolution of July 8, urging the Taliban to reverse practices that curtail fundamental rights of Afghan women, Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Hassan Akhund defended rules for women and girls in Afghanistan, insisting that his government was practicing human rights as “ordained by God” and it cannot dare amend them.

On July 20, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan released a report titled Human rights in Afghanistan: 15 August 2021 – 15 June 2022, outlining the human rights situation in Afghanistan over 10 months since the Taliban takeover.

Its key findings included: 2,106 civilian casualties (700 killed, 1,406 wounded) predominantly caused by improvised explosive device attacks attributed to Da’esh and unexploded ordnance; 160 extrajudicial killings; 178 arbitrary arrests and detentions; 23 instances of incommunicado detention; and 56 instances of torture and ill-treatment of former Afghan National Defence Security Forces and government officials carried out by the de facto authorities.