Political Leaders, Diplomats Commemorate 21st Anniversary of Massoud’s Assassination

The meeting took place within the framework of the US-Afghanistan consultative mechanism.

The US State Department recently launched the US-Afghanistan Consultative Mechanism and US secretary of state Antony Blinken had said that the consultative mechanism was launched with the cooperation of Rina Amiri.

Blinken stressed that the purpose of the mechanism is to interact more with Afghan civil society, especially women.

Rina Amiri had previously said that through the consultative mechanism, she would support meeting the demands of the Afghan people inside and outside of Afghanistan.

Earlier in May 2022, the Taliban signed another contract with GAAC solutions for ground handling of Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif airports.

According to the Taliban with GAAC solutions in charge, the provision of flight and air traffic support services will increase at Afghanistan's airports.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Taliban's Ministry of Transportation had confirmed that an aviation security agreement had already been signed with the United Arab Emirates, but the air traffic services agreement had not yet been finalised.

The Taliban has emphasised that after GAAC solutions take over the air traffic services in Afghanistan, the provision of air services for aircraft passing through the Afghan airspace will be conducted with international standards.

Previously, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar were engaged in negotiations with the Taliban to manage the ground handling and air traffic services in Afghanistan.

Taliban officials believe that the agreement with GAAC solutions will ensure flight safety and the group will regain access to sources of income from transit flights.

The gathering was held on the eve of the 21st anniversary of the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban resistance leader in 1990s. Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001, by two Arab suicide bombers in Takhar province.

Alison Thewliss and Patrick Grady, members of the UK parliament addressed the meeting.

Ahmad Shah Massoud is considered one of the most prominent commanders of Guerilla wars in the 20th century. He was able to defend his home, Panjshir Valley, against the Soviet Red Army and later, against the Taliban.

During the presidency of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan government honoured Ahmad Shah Massoud with the "National Hero of Afghanistan” title.

Taliban forces in Panjshir province come from a variety of different backgrounds and include local Tajik Taliban units from Panjshir and neighbouring Badakhshan province as well as many Pashtun Taliban fighters from southern and eastern Afghanistan.

As per the report, local Tajik Taliban forces appear to be increasingly unwilling to fight the NRF, which would likely force the Taliban to draw increasing numbers of Pashtun Taliban forces from southern Afghanistan.

According to the report, the Taliban government had been appointing several successive commanders who have struggled to defeat the NRF in Panjshir and Baghlan provinces. Senior Taliban military leaders have launched repeated operations against the NRF but have achieved only intermittent short-term success and failed to decisively quash NRF activity. Taliban Minister of Defense Mohammad Yaqoob; his Chief of Army Staff Qari Fasihuddin; and his Deputy Defense Minister and senior Taliban military leader Mullah Fazel Mazloom have all previously led operations against the NRF.

Citing examples, it added that a local Tajik Taliban commander defected from the Taliban and joined the NRF in May while Tajik Taliban units from Badakhshan reportedly refused to continue fighting the NRF in the Panjshir in July. “These events likely fed into pre-existing mistrust between Pashtun and Tajik Taliban units. Taliban fighters have previously committed war crimes, including torture and extrajudicial killings, against the local, predominantly Tajik, population in the Panjshir Valley. An influx of Pashtun Taliban fighters will likely exacerbate the pre-existing inter-ethnic tensions and worsen cooperation between Pashtun and Tajik Taliban fighters,” the report stated.

“If local Tajik Taliban fighters lose their willingness to fight the NRF, or defect outright to the NRF, then NRF capabilities will continue to grow at the expense of the Taliban’s ability to govern and control northeastern Afghanistan. In this scenario, the Taliban leadership may increasingly deploy southern Pashtun Taliban fighters to the Panjshir and Andarab, likely further exacerbating pre-existing ethnic tensions and possibly driving increased support for the NRF,” the report said.

Factional infighting within the Taliban is also likely affecting its campaign against the NRF and continued failure could empower Taliban commanders from the Haqqani Network, which maintains ties with terrorist organisations like al-Qaeda as was evident when the leader of the Haqqani Network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, hosted former Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri at a house in Kabul until Zawahiri’s death in a US drone strike.

Highlighting the rift between the two factions of the Taliban, the report said that the Taliban security chief for Panjshir declared his allegiance to Sirajuddin Haqqani in an online video and criticised Taliban forces under Yaqoob’s command. Soon after, the Yaqoob-aligned Taliban governor for Panjshir removed this security chief from command. Taliban forces later arrested troops affiliated with the former security chief, indicating continuing tensions between the rival commanders, the report added.

“If Taliban commanders affiliated with Yaqoob continue to fail to quash the NRF rebellion, the Taliban leadership could decide to shift responsibility to other factions within the Taliban, increasing their influence at the expense of Yaqoob,” the report emphasised.

NRF activity is expanding beyond the Andarab-Panjshir Valleys despite Taliban pressure. The defection of Tajik Taliban commanders will also likely increase mistrust between Tajik and Pashtun Taliban forces, further hindering the Taliban’s ability to carry out operations against the NRF, the report concluded.

Taliban officials also said that the cases of the arrested individuals have been sent to the Taliban judiciary.

The Taliban added that apart from the arrests, they have also seized 209 arms/weapons in the province.

This report comes at a time when the Taliban has been accused of arbitrary detentions, beatings, and killing of civilians in the past year.

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, it released thousands of prisoners, including members of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), from Afghan prisons.

Despite Taliban’s claim to have established security around the country, the group has not been able to prevent IS-K attacks.

Recently, human rights organisations have stressed that the Taliban have failed in protecting the Hazaras and ethnic and religious minorities who have been under constant attacks from the IS-K.