The Afghanistan Loop (Part I)

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Ever since the programmed handover of power by the US and its vassal government to the Taleban, Afghanistan has remained trapped in a paralysing nightmare from which, by the looks of things, it will not awaken in the foreseeable future.

On 29 February 2020, the US and the Taleban signed an agreement in Doha on the basis of which a transitional government with the participation of the Taleban was to be formed to lead the country toward peace and security and to end the US and NATO occupation in a gradual and orderly manner. However, beyond the official pronouncements presented to the public, there have been recent speculations circulating on social media, in various Afghan television programmes outside Afghanistan and in discussions and interviews amongst journalists, academics, historians, political experts and political activists that there must have been other collusions between the Taleban and the US on the one hand and amongst Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and the US on the other.

They refer to the fact that, after the power grab, Turkey and Qatar repeatedly tried to persuade the Taleban to leave the security and management of Kabul airport to them, but the Taleban consistently rejected their offer. Now, according to latest reports, the "United Arab Emirates" has won the open tender for the Kabul Airport and will take over its administration and security. By extension, this also means that Mossad agents will now be able to fly to Kabul and then infiltrate Iran unhindered. (The long border between Iran and Afghanistan is difficult to control and only at great cost to Iran.)

Moreover, the breakneck speed in which the US departed from Afghanistan, and the ensuing classic flight of the "president" and his government from those "victorious insurgents" (who, initially, had no intention of entering the capital), suggest that consensual action had been taken long before the Doha meeting. So... was the Afghan government under Ashraf Ghani absent and unrepresented at the negotiations in Doha, and had they agreed to "secret agreements" beforehand and then simply played along? There are many indications that this was the case.

According to various witnesses, units of the so-called "Haqqâni network" (the political-ethnic-religious radical branch of the Taleban aka the Ghelzayi faction), with the active participation of the "presidential palace", were placed in strategic, undisclosed locations in Kabul months before the capital's capture. The other branch of the Taleban, the Dorrani faction (the "moderate" Taleban) headed by Mullah Baradar, who led the negotiations in Doha, appeared to be surprised by the rapid fall of Kabul. This raises the suspicion that perhaps only part of the Taleban, namely the Haqqâni network, came to a secret agreement with the US, Ghani and his men elsewhere, before or after the Doha talks, The hasty retreat of US troops and the Afghan government seems, now in retrospect, to have followed a sophisticated scenario. The purpose and aim of such a scenario would have undoubtedly been to plunge the country into deeper instability and chaos in order to prepare the ground for future plans of further destabilisation (as in the potential incorporation of DAESH).

Al-Qaida, Hezb-al-Tahrir, Central Asian and Uyghur Islamists are already present and represented amongst the Taleban, and they are all based in northern Afghanistan. The events of early January 2022 in Kazakhstan confirm the existence of such a scenario. Furthermore, on 7 May, seven missiles were fired into Tajikistan from the Badakhshan province on the border with Tajikistan, and a month ago Uzbekistan was the target of missiles from Afghanistan. Opposition Islamic groups in Central Asian states, emboldened by the Taleban "victory", are beginning to take action against their governments, as evidenced by the recent unrest in the southwestern province of Badakhshan in Tajikistan.

The Taleban repeatedly issue contradictory statements about their position and aims. On the one hand, they say that they are fighting DAESH resolutely and that there are no DAESH cells worth even mentioning in Afghanistan. On the other hand, they attribute all terrorist attacks, which are directed almost daily mainly against Shiite Hazaras, to DAESH. In any case, the Haqqâni network is said to have close ties to DAESH, and - ideologically - they are scarcely distinguishable from one another. While the Dorrani Taleban address their leader Mullah Heibatollah Âkhomdzada with "Amir al-Mo'menin", the Haqqanis call their founder and boss "Serajoddin Haqqâni Khalifa" (the Caliph). The title Amir denotes the leader within a country or people, whereas Khalifa is a title given to the leader of all Muslims in the world. (Al-Baghdadi the leader of DAESH also referred to himself as Khalifa.)

The Taleban have also deployed units of "Badri suicide squads" on the Afghan border with other Central Asian countries. Even though the Taleban keep insisting that their territory poses no threat to neighbours, the very deployment of these units and the presence of Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek and Uyghur terrorist groups in northern Afghanistan constitute a sword of Damocles hanging over the entire region.

After having seized the entirety of Afghanistan, the Taleban had announced a general amnesty for all members of the overthrown state. But not a day goes by without a soldier, officer, policeman, judge, prosecutor or anyone else who worked for the occupation forces or the former government being arrested, abducted, beaten and humiliated or murdered somewhere in Afghanistan. People disappear without a trace, their bodies are found a few days later somewhere with bullet and torture wounds... or... not at all. The perpetrators are always registered as "unknown". And the official statement coming from the Taleban is always the standard retort: "The case is being investigated and those responsible will be punished according to Sharia law." The Internet is full of photos, videos and reports regarding these cases. And they do not even take into account the numerous kidnappings, murders and other minor and major transgressions that fall within the realm of "ordinary crime". This is a welcome state of affairs for anyone who has a personal score to settle with someone: revenge has become the order of the day.

As it is, the Taleban are lacking in professionalism, craftsmanship, know-how, knowledge and a grasp of the complexity of life, the world and its inhabitants. They spent their childhood and puberty in strict, military-style so-called "Qorân schools", where they were indoctrinated and brainwashed down to the last brain cell and submitted to corporal punishment regularly. Afterwards, they were unleashed on humanity as young men with the task of putting into practice what they had learned and internalised. These schools were established in Pakistan after the start of the Afghan war in the 1970s (in addition to the already existing traditional Deobandi Qorân schools), specifically for Afghan refugee children - all supported by the CIA and MI6, designed and financed by Saudi Arabia, managed by and in Pakistan. During this period, the aggressive Deobandi ideology that had established these schools was supplemented by the Wahhabism of the Saudis. The number of such schools in Pakistan is estimated to be as high as 170,000.

Today, it has become fashionable and often an example of virtue signalling amongst politicians, political and human rights activists and journalists to condemn the Taleban primarily for not allowing girls to attend school. So, what if the Taleban were to acquiesce and allow this to happen tomorrow? What would these young girls and boys experience in the Taleban schools? What would they be taught?

For one, there is currently a great scarcity of teachers, teaching materials and teaching programmes. Most of the boys who attend school are without a teacher. (Female teachers are in any case prohibited in the boys' schools.) And what do the boys do at school without a teacher? They just kill time.

Secondly, the Taleban intend to Islamise, or rather Talebanise, the education system. This means that students in schools can expect more or less the same materials and conditions as in those schools where the Taleban themselves were educated. If the Taleban regime survives and establishes itself internationally, the next alumni of Afghan schools will simply form the next generation of Taleban. Is this desirable? Would it not be better to remain illiterate and uneducated than to become an educated Taleb, on the par of some of the current Taleban leaders and senior cadres? A Taleban school is not a school in the "modern, civilised sense". It is a breeding ground.