Developments in Herat and Badakhshan are far more than merely Afghanistan's internal affairs.
By Abdul Naser Noorzad Tajik, researcher in politics and geopolitics, especially for “Sangar”
The struggle among major powers for influence in Afghanistan has always unfolded amid uncertainty and concealed geopolitical rivalry. Geographically strategic regions have consistently attracted the attention of both regional and extra-regional powers. Among them, the provinces of Herat and Badakhshan occupy a particularly significant position. Owing to their strategic and geopolitical importance, they have become two of the principal focal points for actors involved in Afghanistan's political and security landscape.
Over the past months and years, Herat and Badakhshan have increasingly become the focus of intelligence agencies from regional and global powers. This growing attention has been driven by several factors. In particular, since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, and alongside the emergence of various political, military, and civil movements outside Afghanistan, the strategic significance of these regions has grown considerably.
The armed and political opposition, which generally lacks sufficient operational capability and practical effectiveness, has largely served as an instrument for maintaining the balance of power among competing states. As such, it has itself become an integral component of this complex geopolitical equation. The reserve role assigned to these movements—preserving equilibrium and providing leverage during periods of political crisis—constitutes another characteristic feature of this intricate strategic game.
The uprisings in Badakhshan, Ghor, and Herat, together with women's protest movements in Afghanistan's major cities, provide important indicators for understanding the country's future trajectory. In many cases, these uprisings, localized disturbances, and short-lived pockets of resistance have coincided in time and exhibited meaningful strategic interconnections. Such connections, however, do not necessarily imply centralized coordination or unified leadership. Rather, they stem from the strategic importance, geopolitical position, and geographical interconnectedness of these territories, where even a minor disturbance can trigger changes along the entire length of these strategic fault lines.
For many years, the Hindu Kush has been viewed as Afghanistan's natural defensive barrier and the point where the country's northern and southern, as well as eastern and western regions, converge. Today, however, under a new geopolitical configuration, it is the country's northeast and southwest that have emerged as the principal belt of tension stretching along the Hindu Kush.
To better understand the nature of these developments, it is important to emphasize that the Hindu Kush is far more than merely a mountain range. It represents a strategic intersection where the interests of regional and global powers converge. The significance of this mountain system has been so profound that, for at least the past century, it has repeatedly served as a corridor for military invasions, a theater of confrontation, and a battleground for competing great powers.
Today, as Afghanistan has evolved into one of the principal sources of regional security challenges, and as the absence of a dominant power capable of maintaining order has become increasingly apparent, the country has effectively turned into an "uncovered cauldron," open to the activities of regional and international intelligence services. Under these circumstances, the Hindu Kush continues to retain its central strategic importance.
These strategic fault lines are already generating significant security shocks. From the uprising in Badakhshan, closely linked to the security interests of China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, to the unrest in Ghor and Herat, which directly affects the interests of Iran and even Russia, all of these developments can be examined within a single analytical framework. According to the theory of strategic fault lines, it is precisely within this geographical space that Afghanistan's future security architecture, its geopolitical identity, and the prospects for either confrontation or accommodation among major powers are taking shape. Consequently, external actors increasingly view Herat and Badakhshan as strategic testing grounds for applying pressure and managing regional balances, seeking to assess the resilience of the existing order, which rests upon an informal equilibrium among competing interests.
Equally important is the fact that Herat, Badakhshan, and the entire Hindu Kush corridor possess substantial natural, human, and indigenous resources capable of sustaining insurgencies, armed confrontations, and political resistance over the long term—even without significant external support. Their geographical position, abundant mineral resources, deeply rooted anti-hegemonic and anti-colonial sentiments, together with the ability of extremist organizations to recruit fighters, collectively constitute a strategic environment that distinguishes this region.
Badakhshan offers perhaps the clearest example. From a geopolitical perspective, it marks the beginning of the Hindu Kush's "security wall"—a strategic belt that serves not only as a natural boundary between competing centers of power but also as an arena of regional competition. China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Russia all regard this region as an essential component of their respective strategic and security calculations. Consequently, Badakhshan has once again emerged as one of the principal arenas of geopolitical competition in the region.
Moreover, numerous provinces stretching along the Hindu Kush have, for decades, retained the capacity to generate resistance movements, uprisings, and localized rebellions. This enduring characteristic has transformed these territories into what may be described as strategic fault lines from both security and geopolitical perspectives. They continue to function as instruments of strategic bargaining, mechanisms for protecting the interests of competing powers, and reservoirs of latent instability that can be activated whenever circumstances require.
Beyond its geographical location, abundant natural resources, strategic transit routes, illicit narcotics trafficking networks, and rugged mountainous terrain, the Hindu Kush possesses all the attributes necessary to become a potential corridor for the diffusion of instability. Even today, the connective nature of this geographical belt links Afghanistan's various provinces into an interconnected system, creating the conditions for a chain reaction of mutually reinforcing developments.
For this reason, developments in Herat and Badakhshan cannot be interpreted merely as an internal response to the redistribution of power following the Taliban's return to government. They can only be properly understood within a much broader geopolitical framework. Accordingly, those who portray the situation in Badakhshan and Herat solely as the result of internal divisions within the Taliban movement or competition among local actors for political influence either fail to appreciate the true depth and scale of these developments or deliberately seek to steer the analysis toward conclusions that serve their own interests.
In this context, the role and degree of influence exercised by the Persian-speaking states in these two provinces deserve particular attention, alongside their broader strategic and geopolitical significance. In Badakhshan, the Republic of Tajikistan, and in Herat, the Islamic Republic of Iran, together constitute the two gateways of a single strategic security frontier known as the Hindu Kush. For both countries, developments in these regions are significant not only from the perspectives of security, economics, politics, and geopolitics, but also in light of their shared civilizational, cultural, and historical ties.
Both Persian-speaking states form part of the emerging security and political architecture of the East and view the reduction of American influence in the region as closely linked to the necessity of containing the spread of extremism emanating from Afghanistan. Alongside Iran and Tajikistan, China, Russia, the Central Asian states, Pakistan, Türkiye, the Arab states, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States likewise assess Herat and Badakhshan through the prism of their respective strategic and security interests.
Most regional states—with the notable exception of Pakistan—recognize that ignoring existing realities could allow a new wave of extremism and instability to spread from the two strategic ends of the Hindu Kush, namely Badakhshan and Herat, eventually affecting the entire region. Consequently, developments in these two provinces can no longer be viewed simply as Afghanistan's internal affairs. Rather, they have become an integral component of the broader equation of regional security and great-power competition at the very heart of Asia.