Last week, Mullah Omar’s brother and son swear allegiance to new Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor. For the last two months, news about the internal dispute over Taliban succession was circulating in the media outlets. However, with Mullah Omar’s family pledging allegiance to new Amir, Taliban have put full stop to these internal disputes.
After this new development, the High Peace Council of Afghanistan is hopeful that Taliban would once again start the peace process. On the other hand, Taliban are also delighted with the allegiance of Mullah Omar’s family and that the internal disputes didn’t had damage its unity.
In this weekly analysis we would analyze the impacts of Mullah Omar’s family allegiance to new Taliban leader on the continuous war and the Peace Process.
Background
While just becoming the new President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani gives some privileges to Pakistan with the hope that Pakistan will force Afghan Taliban to sit on negotiation table with Afghan government. Moreover, Kabul was also cautious over its relations with New Delhi due to Pakistan. On the other hand, the Pakistani government and the military also made such promises that they would later break it. It was from here that the Pakistani government, due to Kabul’s pressures, forced some Taliban members to talk with Afghan government in Urumqi, but these talks were rejected by the Afghan Taliban.
In the Post Urumqi talks, Afghan government continued to build Pressures on Pakistan and wanted direct talks with Taliban’s leadership council. On the other hand, the relations between the chief negotiator of Taliban in Qatar’s office Tayyeb Agha and Pakistan were severed. Tayyeb Agha didn’t want to talk to afghan government under Pakistani pressure. Therefore, slowly, Taliban’s relations with Pakistan became soured. It was from here that Pakistan builds up its pressures on Taliban and due to these pressures Taliban sits in the peace talks of Murree with a condition that this would be kept as a secret and hence by doing so it will also reduce Pakistani pressures.
In addition, Taliban too, didn’t send its members of Qatar Office to Murree; they were very much concerned about the disclosure of talks. Therefore, they thought that if they would send some Taliban members other than Qatar’s office they would easily reject these talks simply by saying that it is the Qatar’s office that is responsible for such talks, not others.
On the other hand, looking to the difference of Tayyeb Agha with Pakistan, Taliban felt that the Qatar office might not participate in these talks, therefore, in order to decrease Pakistani pressures Taliban took part in the Murree peaceful process and later, too, didn’t reject it either.
The reasons behind disclosure of Mullah Omar’s death
After the negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Murree , the Afghan government based on the precise information of Pakistani officials, officially broadcasted the news on death of the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar. With the announcement of this news, it stopped the peaceful process and still the questions are raised that why in such a critical circumstances this news was given to Afghan government by Pakistan, and published by Afghan government and then confirmed by the Taliban? Some of its reasons are as follows:
- The Afghan government thought that this news would weaken the morale of Taliban to a large extent; impact its unity and speed up the peace process. Besides that, it would be considered as a victory of the Afghan government; however, the result was against the prediction of the government.
- Pakistan disclosed this information to Afghan government at such period of time, when it was under pressure from Kabul and international community and its disputes with the Taliban were also on the increase. Therefore, from one hand, they wanted to suspend the peaceful process, the promises it had given to the afghan government to be amended and to consider everything ended with the news about Mullah Omar’s death. On the other hand, it also wanted to show the Taliban that it has access to its top secret information and can disclose them whenever they want.
- For Taliban, It was too hard to further keep the death of Mullah Omar as a secret after two years, because some rumors about the death of Mullah Omar were broadcasted by the media and a group named Fidai Mahaz. Besides, Taliban themselves were too raising its concerns about the life of Mullah Omar and were requesting for the voice message of Mullah Omar. Moreover, suspending the Pakistani-controlled peace process was also possible through confirming this news.
Impacts of Taliban’s Disputes on the Battlefield
When Taliban confirmed the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar on July 30, 2015, a series of disputes were raised among the Taliban on appointing Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, as the new leader of the Taliban. Family of Mullah Mohammad Omar and the head of the Qatar Office, Tayyib Agha, were heading these disputes.
Domestic and international media covered these disputes widely; however, they did not have attention to this that it was Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour who played major role in the movement of the Taliban in last five years. He was the one who started the Qatar peace process and had direct contacts with the Taliban commanders; all of these caused the provincial governors of the Taliban and most of the commanders to pledge its allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.
It is mentionable that the power of the Taliban is entirely based on its warriors in the battlefield, whenever, these warriors are in the ranks of the Taliban and whenever these ranks are united, the war would be continuing. So, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour recognized this truth and that’s why he appointed Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the powerful Haqqani Network as his deputy.
On the other hand, the political figures which are separated from the Taliban have not have any influence over the Taliban’s military forces and war. For example, separation of Mutaseem Agha Jan and other Taliban leaders have not impacted the war of the Taliban; unlikely, the war has intensified. Meanwhile, the raising disputes of Mullah Mohammad Omar’s family and Tayyib Agha have not impacted the war; several explosions took place in Kabul, war in the North of the country intensified and strategic districts (like Musa Qala) faced collapse in the South of the country.
Whether the Internal Disputes of Taliban are ended?
Immediately after disputes were raised, the new leadership of the Taliban started efforts to gain the support of the military commanders and due to this, he received the support of most of his military commanders and provincial governors. Besides that, he sent a number of delegations to the family of Mullah Mohammad Omar in order to have its support. After the entire military officials pledged its allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the family of Mullah Mohammad Omar announced its support from the new leader of the Taliban and also encouraged other opponents who suspended its pledge of allegiance due to the family of Mullah Mohammad Omar.
According to news, the leadership of the Taliban has sent a delegation to Qatar in order to make Tayyib Agha satisfied and if leadership of the Taliban could make him satisfied and end the political disputes, it would be a big political achievement for the Taliban, then.
Unity of the Taliban and its impacts of the Current Situation
Pledging allegiance of Mullah Mohammad Omar’s family to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour would have the following impacts on the ranks of the Taliban and the peace process:
- It would increase the legitimacy of the new leader;
- Returning of Mullah Mohammad Omar’s family would increase the morale of the Taliban warriors;
- Originally, the peace process was initiated by Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour; however, he, after the death of Mullah Mohammad Omar and his appointment as the leader of the Taliban, called this process as “enemy’s propaganda”. Of course, the reason behind this speech was gaining support of the military wing of the Taliban. Now, as Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour is considered as legitimate and accepted leader of the Taliban and as the family of Mullah Muhammad Omar had pledged its allegiance to him, he would be capable to enter into the peace process with more courage, once again. Of course, it would take some time and starting the peace process soon would be a little bit problematic for him.
- If the peace was made with a part of the Taliban and another part was kept out of the play, it would not bring the real peace to the country, but, the real peace would come when the negotiations were conducted with the Taliban after they became united.
- Taliban would not stop considering its basic circumstances during negotiations, but, they would continue its war until the foreign forces have presence in Afghanistan and the present unity encourages them to do so more than ever.
- If the Taliban became ready to have talks with the Afghan government, they would enter the negotiations with a powerful position.
The End