The challenges of contending with a resurgent Taliban regime in Afghanistan

The Taliban have now been in power for over three years. Despite some internal friction within their own ranks and ongoing attacks by the Islamic State (IS), there is little risk of the Taliban regime being dislodged from power anytime soon. However, those who hoped to see the resurgent version of the Taliban becoming more representative and tolerant have been disappointed by the persistently hardline stance of the incumbent regime.

Signing a peace deal with the Taliban in early 2020 provided the United States (U.S.) a desperately needed exit strategy after its twenty-year occupation of the country. Once the decision to withdraw American troops was announced, the Taliban did not stick to the terms of the peace deal,[1] which had included preventing international terror groups from operating via Afghani soil and engaging in intra-Afghan dialogues to negotiate a lasting political settlement. Instead, the Taliban managed to quickly topple the Western-backed Afghan government and take over the reins of power. Despite the rhetoric of remaining committed to the Afghan people, the Biden administration remained reluctant to engage with the intransigent Taliban regime despite it lacking the will or the means to transform itself from an insurgent group into an effective government. Besides focused kinetic actions, such as the drone strike in Kabul that killed the Al Qaeda chief, Ayman Al Zawahiri, in 2022,[2] subsequent American engagements in Afghanistan have been limited to the provision of humanitarian aid, the scale of which clearly is not enough to meet the needs of all the country’s citizens or to help put the country’s economy on the path of sustainable growth.

Whether the incoming Trump administration will adopt a more pragmatic approach toward the Taliban and pave the way for their international recognition by other states remains to be seen. However, given its bitter experience of trying to rebuild Afghanistan after the post-9/11 invasion, it is unlikely that the U.S. will significantly deepen its engagements with the currently ostracized country. Conversely, the primary outfall of domestic instability within Afghanistan is again being borne by regional states, like adjoining Pakistan and Iran. While Pakistan tightened its borders after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, an estimated one million refugees have poured into Iran, and even further to the west into Turkey, since that time.[3] Both these neighboring states have had to contend with significant Afghan refugee outflows in the past as well, many of whom remain undocumented yet reluctant to go back. Pakistan is also suffering the brunt of cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghanistan, which has now become a major source of tension between Pakistan and the Taliban. Other Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, also have historical linkages with Afghanistan, and they too continue exerting influence in Afghanistan for the pursuit of their own strategic interests.

The following section of this insight will discuss the role of major regional powers within Afghanistan, and it will highlight the fluctuating interests that have led different Gulf states to either cooperate or compete with Pakistan. Lessons will also be drawn from these past interactions to identify alternative possibilities for pursuing mutually beneficial goals that may help harness the geoeconomic potential of this broader region, which is increasingly linked by Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, within this new era of great power competition.

Preceding interactions between Pakistan and the Gulf states in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has long been an arena for great power competition going back to the days of the so-called “great game” between the British and Russian empires in the nineteenth century.[4] But it was the Soviet invasion in 1979, during the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR, which turned Afghanistan into a strategic arena of intervention for regional states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and thereafter by India and Iran. Pakistan worked hand in glove with the Americans to create a generation of militants inspired to wage war against the Soviets during the 1980s. While the beneficiary of significant American and Saudi aid, Pakistan suffered a simultaneous spike in sectarian violence at home, which also began targeting the Shia minority in the country. Once the Afghan mujahedeen managed to repel the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989, American interest in the region quickly waned. Pakistan, however, saw the opportunity to use jihadi outfits to support the local insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir. Moreover, Pakistan also sought to support the Islamists within Afghanistan, as they were considered less likely to push back against the contentious colonial-era demarcation separating Pakistan and Afghanistan, known as the Durand Line. Pakistan hence helped the Taliban, whose leaders were products of Pakistani-based seminaries that had cropped up in the border regions during the Soviet war.

The Taliban quickly managed to win the ongoing bloody civil war in 1996, which had wreaked further havoc in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. The first Taliban regime was, however, alarmingly repressive, and it failed to gain international recognition from any other country besides Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Irked by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s growing influence in Afghanistan, India and Iran joined hands to back the multi-ethnic Northern Alliance, which continued to resist the Taliban[5] until the Taliban were overthrown by the U.S. for refusing to hand over Osama Bin Ladin after he orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on American soil.

While Pakistan was compelled to join the U.S.-led “global war on terror” (GWOT) in Afghanistan, it remained reluctant to sever links with the Taliban, despite their conversion into an insurgent group targeting North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) forces and the Western-backed Afghan governments led first by Hamid Karzai and then Ashraf Ghani. Although Pakistan provided significant logistical and intelligence support to U.S.-led NATO forces, it did not directly target the Taliban on its side of the border. Despite growing American pressure, Pakistan primarily went after the Tehreek-e-Taliban, which was directly attacking the Pakistani state and its citizenry.

The Gulf states also reassessed their Afghan strategy during the long American occupation of the country. Iran gradually mended its ties with the Taliban and began supporting them primarily because they opposed the Western-backed Afghan government, as well as fought with NATO and American forces stationed next door to Iran’s national borders. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE treaded a cautious line during the American military intervention in Afghanistan, Qatar emerged as an important new mediator in this protracted conflict. Qatar worked closely with Pakistan to help convince the Taliban to negotiate with the U.S., and Doha provided a venue for the cumbersome peace negotiations, which eventually led to a deal being signed between the Taliban and the Trump administration in 2022.[6] However, the Gulf states and Pakistan seemed wary of the American decision to undertake a hasty withdrawal, realizing that the ensuing destabilization in Afghanistan would have adverse implications for the broader region as well. The Taliban’s surprisingly sudden takeover of the country after the Western military withdrawal has compelled all regional states to formulate their own equations with the resurgent Taliban regime (commonly referred to as Taliban 2.0), which again has become quite repressive and continues to be considered a pariah state by the international community at large.

Regional recalibrations to engage with present-day Afghanistan

While Pakistan initially made hectic efforts to convince international powers to acknowledge the Taliban, Pakistan itself soon experienced a sharp deterioration in its relations with the emergent regime. Despite their myopic Islamist leanings, the Taliban began pushing back against Pakistan’s attempts to continue fencing the porous yet contentious border demarcation between the two countries. Moreover, the Taliban have done little to prevent cross-border attacks into Pakistan by the Tehreek-e-Taliban and other Baloch insurgent groups fighting for a separate state in Baluchistan. Growing tensions with the Taliban have led Pakistan to expel unregistered Afghan refugees from the country and to even undertake cross-border strikes against suspected militant hideouts in Afghanistan. The resulting bilateral acrimony has undermined Pakistan’s ability to mediate the Taliban’s relations with other powerful nations, especially China. China is, however, taking cautious steps to ramp up investments in Afghanistan, lured by its rich mineral deposits, as well as its geostrategic location, which could eventually see the war-torn country linked to the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The rise of UAE as a financial hub in the Middle East has enabled Abu Dhabi to also project significant influence in Afghanistan. The targeting of the UAE Ambassador to Kabul in 2017 by the Taliban had strained ties between the Taliban and the Emirates, allowing Qatar to become a negotiator between the insurgents and the U.S. However, the UAE is now building stronger ties with the Taliban, which enabled it to take over the management of the four main international airports in Afghanistan.[7] Moreover, the Taliban’s Interior Minister undertook a high-profile visit to Abu Dhabi in mid-2024. The UAE is thus well poised to play a proactive role in present-day Afghanistan.[8]

While Saudi Arabia is also providing significant humanitarian relief to the poverty-stricken country, it is being cautious about its bilateral engagements with the Taliban and is instead using the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to funnel aid,[9] which alongside U.S.-backed UN humanitarian assistance, provides a vital lifeline to multitudes of ordinary Afghans.

After having spent years trying to build ties with the Western-backed Afghan governments, India is trying to develop relations with the Taliban, too. India had invested in the Chabahar deep-sea port built in Iran, to rival the Chinese-operated port located in Gwadar in southwest Pakistan, which could provide an alternative outlet to landlocked Afghanistan. While Pakistan remains suspicious of Indian interactions with the Taliban, Saudi Arabia may now be less anxious about Iran establishing ties with the Taliban regime, due to the detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China in 2023.[10]

Thus, while all regional powers, including Pakistan and major Gulf states, are pursuing independent relations with the de facto Taliban rulers, all these regional stakeholders remain reluctant to officially recognize the Taliban unless there is greater international momentum to afford them such legitimacy. Instead of trying to pursue maximalist agendas, however, it is vital that regional states begin identifying win-win opportunities that could serve their mutual interest as well as bring more relief to the Afghan people as well.

Possibilities for regional collaboration to stabilize Afghanistan  

Many regional powers, including not only Pakistan and major Gulf states but also India and China, are actively trying to develop an understanding with the Taliban, and it is unlikely that they will desist from such engagements, even if the incoming U.S. administration wants to further isolate the Taliban. Although the Taliban 2.0 have certainly not kept up their promises of being more accommodative, they are demonstrating an impressive ability to calibrate their relations with different regional countries in the bid to keep the country afloat and to retain their own grip on power. While saner elements within the Taliban seem keener to seek increased external recognition, more hardline elements within their leadership continue doubling down on draconian policies such as the use of morality laws and other unreasonable measures, such as preventing girls from studying beyond the primary level.[11] Yet, there are some common threats and opportunities that offer regional states the chance to cooperate in Afghanistan and to mutually pressure the Taliban to become more receptive to addressing international concerns regarding security threats emanating from Afghanistan and to improve their human rights record.

While a plethora of insurgent groups have operated from Afghanistan over these past few decades, and many of them have been used by different regional countries to stoke restiveness in rival nations, the Islamic State (IS) is one entity that is considered a common threat by the Taliban, by all major Gulf states, as well as by Pakistan, India, China, and most Western countries. This presents a unique opportunity for all regional states to undertake counter-terrorism collaboration, which may lead to other opportunities for reaching an understanding on lessening country-specific terror threats emanating from Afghanistan. It is likely that the Taliban will themselves be more receptive to clamping down on other insurgent groups operating from their soil if they no longer fear attrition of hardline elements to the IS-K, which portrays itself as a more legitimate jihadi outfit than the Taliban regime, which is said to be corrupted by power. The Gulf states can also help exert their influence on the Taliban to prevent them from offering launch pads to insurgent groups suspected to be used by Pakistan and India to stoke tit-for-tat cross-border restiveness.

Afghanistan is in desperate need of foreign direct investments (FDI), but these investments need to be made in a transparent and responsible manner, which goes beyond lining the pockets of corrupt officials who enable the exploitation of the country’s resources, without adequately stimulating the national economy. Given the turbulent situation in the Middle East, it is unlikely that the U.S. will allow India another sanctions waiver on the Chabahar port in Iran. While Afghanistan can explore increased trade with Central Asian states, doing so without Russian involvement, which too is heavily sanctioned due to its invasion of Ukraine, dampens such prospects as well.

Despite its current tensions with the Taliban, Pakistan still provides the most viable route to continue bringing in aid and increasing trade with Afghanistan and in helping end the isolation of ordinary Afghan citizens. While the U.S. never managed to operationalize a so-called “reconstruction opportunity zone” straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border, wealthy Gulf states can consider turning this innovative idea into a reality, or else, they can invest in making the recently designated border markets between Pakistan and Afghanistan more robust. Such cross-border investments would provide desperately needed economic opportunities to the Afghan people across the Durand Line, and it may even motivate both Pakistan and Afghanistan to invest in more effective border management that enables regulation without impeding the movement of people.

[1] “Joint Declaration between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan,” US Department of State, 2020, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/02.29.20-US-Afghanistan-Joint-Declaration.pdf.

[2] Basit, Abdul, 2022, “Ayman al-Zawahiri’s assassination spells bad news for the Taliban,” Al Jazeera, August 4, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/8/4/ayman-al-zawahiris-assassination-spells-bad-news-for-the-taliban.

[3] “Country analysis: Iran,” ACAPS, 2024, https://www.acaps.org/en/countries/iran#.

[4] Ahmed, Akbar S., “Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited–A Review Article,” The Journal of Asian Studies 41, no. 1 (1981): pp. 73–80.

[5] Tadjbakhsh, Shahrbanou, “The Gulf and Afghanistan: Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Rivalry Projected,” Peace Research Institute, 2013, https://www.prio.org/publications/5850.

[6] Taneja, Kabir, “Middle Powers in the Gulf: Navigating the Return of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Observer Research Foundation, 2024, https://www.orfonline.org/research/middle-powers-in-the-gulf-navigating-the-return-of-the-taliban-in-afghanistan.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ipek, Faiteh, “The Gulf States’ Approach to Taliban Rule: Navigating Opportunities and Tensions,” Gulf International Forum, 2024,  https://gulfif.org/the-gulf-states-approach-to-taliban-rule-navigating-opportunities-and-tensions/.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Gallager, Adam, et al., “What you need to know about the China’s Saudi-Iran deal,” United States Institute of Peace, 2023, https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/what-you-need-know-about-chinas-saudi-iran-deal.

[11] Memon, Laxhmi, “Not all is well inside the Taliban,” Al Jazeera, September 14, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/9/14/not-all-is-well-inside-the-taliban.