Not only Russia, even if the whole world recognizes the Taliban *, the resistance of Afghanistan against these "Islamic savages" will continue, because this war of civilization and barbarism and the matter of life and death of non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan, first of all, Tajiks, who, apart from body and soul, houses and blood, wives and sisters... war has been declared on their civilizations.
Author: Farid Ahmad
Sergey Lavrov's recognition that the Taliban diplomat was registered by the Russian Foreign Ministry at the Afghan Embassy in Moscow is a step towards the official recognition of the Taliban, but in no way is this world power's refusal of its key interests in Afghanistan, primarily the acceptance of the Talibani system of rule.
From the very beginning of the Taliban's rise to power, which certainly would not have been possible without Russia's military assistance, Russian diplomats have started a game of cat and mouse. In particular, Zamir Kabulov, one of the comrades of Zalmay Khalilzad and Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban, made every effort to persuade Moscow of this terrorist group (according to Russian law). He even once called the National Resistance Front a "virtual organization", although he later admitted that it is a force and side of the war in Afghanistan.
But the truth is that Russia and the Taliban had nothing in common strategically, and the fate of Russia is not in the hands of diplomats, and the final decisions have always been made by its military.
The Taliban came to power as a joint project and proxy army of Pakistan, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and the US. Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in whose time the Taliban were thrown into the region's intelligence game, has bluntly admitted that the Taliban project was planned by British intelligence, financed by Saudi Arabia, and realized ed by Pakistan. The United States was the leader of the team and relied on the Taliban to carry out their plans, such as transportation of the natural resources of Central Asia to South Asia.
That same "Taliban Project" led to a strategic alliance between China and Russia that continues against the US to this day. Beijing and Moscow were in a strategic feud after the death of Joseph Stalin. The commitment of Stalin and his Chinese counterpart Mao Zedong was that Russia and China - the two communist powers - must cooperate together until the total defeat of Western imperialism throughout the world. But Nikita Khrushchev came and announced cooperation with the West. This turn so angered Mao Zedong that he humiliated and scolded the Soviet ambassador to China during one of the events.
Russia and China reunited when the Taliban entered the scene. The first example of such an alliance was the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This is a military alliance that unites the countries surrounding Afghanistan from the north (Russia, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus) and the south (India and Pakistan) and has one goal - to completely withdraw the United States from Eurasia.
Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the First Anti-Taliban Resistance, attended a July 2000 meeting of the leaders of the SCO member states and met with each of them, including the leaders of Russia and China, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping.
Anyone who reads the final document of this meeting, known as the Dushanbe Declaration, understands that this influential organization then said its last word on the Afghan crisis, namely the inadmissibility of the Taliban regime in the region and the practical support of the Massoud Resistance Front.
The main reason for removing Ahmad Shah Massoud from the scene was that if the organization supported his resistance, the plans of the US and its allies, namely, the plan to create a foothold in the region, would collapse. The late Massoud was the victim of these great plans.
During the presence of the US and NATO in Afghanistan, all countries involved in the affairs of the region, especially Russia and China, did everything for the Taliban to defeat them until the US was defeated and forced to flee. At the time, the Taliban was the only option for cooperation.
But two points - one is the Doha agreement between the Taliban and the United States, and the other is that the United States gave up all its weapons, given over 20 years to the Afghan armed forces, to the Taliban, at once changed the calculations of Russia and China and aroused their suspicion of the Taliban.
The Taliban's Badri unit was established in Pakistan after an agreement with the United States and was equipped with weapons and clothing, even trained in NATO warfare tactics. Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies never bypass such incidents.
Although their media feasted in honor of the US defeat in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the attitude of both countries towards Afghanistan has changed since the first signs of defeat and the departure of the Americans began to clear. China, with the help of Pakistan and with the hope of its huge money, tried to fill the vacuum created after the United States.
For this reason, Beijing sent its specialists to Afghanistan in several areas, the most important of which were: 1) military presence at Bagram airport; 2) Iran-Afghanistan-China gas pipeline project; 3) projects for the development of natural resources; 4) Obtaining Uyghur terrorists. But these experts came to the conclusion that: 1) the military presence in Bagram is nothing but falling into a US trap; 2) conditions for investing in economic projects have not yet been created; 3) The Haqqani Network of Taliban sheltered the Uighurs in their bases in Helmand and Paktia and refused to extradite them.
China backed up but did not abandon its plans and began to act more cautiously. All these conferences are aimed at getting the region to accept the Taliban yet because of those Chinese economic interests.
And what did Russia do?
Moscow has been an ally of the Taliban in their wars against the US and NATO, but they have become suspicious. From here it began preparations for the defense of the southern borders of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Several military exercises of the CSTO, the transfer of new weapons and ammunition to the 201st base in Tajikistan, etc. can serve as an example. At the same time, a few months before the fall of Kabul, Moscow began to work with anti-Taliban forces to create a new resistance, as it was clear that the fate of the Afghan government and its international patrons was sealed and the Taliban would come to power with American weapons and become a threat.
In 1994, the US team saw in the Taliban an axis for all extremists and terrorists in the region and the world, who, under the "flag of Islam", would cross the Amu Darya, primarily to seize territories of Russian influence. This strategic goal is still actual.
The first point of contention between Moscow and the Taliban is terrorist organizations based in Afghanistan. After the victory of the Taliban throughout Afghanistan, especially along its borders with the countries of Central Asia, dozens of centers and bases of terrorist organizations emerged, such as ISIS*, Al-Qaeda*, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan*, Jamaat Ansarullah*.
All organizations that existed 20 years ago in Pakistani Waziristan moved to Afghanistan, especially to its North - southern borders of the CIS. There are reliable reports that militants of terrorist organizations have settled in northern Afghanistan, especially in the border areas between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, namely in the areas of Nusai, Yavan, Baharak, and Raghistan (Badakhshan), Darqad (Takhar), Dasht Archi, and Imam Sahib (Kunduz). All citizens of Central Asia, numbering up to two thousand people.
In the provinces of Juzjan and Faryab, bordering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, since 2008, an al-Qaeda shelter or "state within a state" was created with the assistance of the government of Hamid Karzai and the United States, predominantly from Uzbeks. Bibi Mukarrama, daughter of Tahir Yuldash, founder of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, is the leader of the Uzbek terrorists, and a Kazakh citizen named Abdul Rauf Aka, who lives in Badghis province, is the commander-in-chief of foreign terrorists in the region.
In the district of Inhisorot, the city of Puli Khumri, the capital of the province of Baghlan, a base of Uyghur and Central Asian terrorists has been created, where about 230 families live. The number of citizens of Central Asia, Russia, and China, who were at ISIS bases in the Chaparhar district of Nangarhar province, reaches 1,000 people. Their leader is a citizen of Kazakhstan, who has six deputies, and one of them is a Tajik woman named Khursheda, the commander of the ISIS women's unit.
It's just a drop from the ocean. The truth is that the Taliban will never give up on these groups because they have one idea and one goal - to establish an Islamic emirate or caliphate that is not limited to Afghanistan. As a result, the Taliban gave free rein to all organizations and groups, and the Lashkari Hamza of the Haqqani Network* manages their activities. And the question is: for what purpose?
Lavrov also mentioned this at the meeting in China. This question has already been raised many times. But the Taliban did not react and are unlikely to react to these statements.
The Taliban, with whom the Russians, or rather their diplomats, are dealing, are of the type of Amir Khan Mottaqi and Zabehullah Mujahid. They, like Lavrov, do not play any role in making final decisions. They do what they are told. The decisive word belongs to the Russian military, who see how the Taliban are building up the power of terrorist organizations, despite the concerns of their neighbors. This is the same Taliban that appeared in the 90s, nothing has changed.
On the other hand, the establishment of a religious extremist regime in Afghanistan and its transformation into a springboard for the spread of such regimes to the countries of Central Asia poses a direct threat to Russia, which also has Muslim republics. Afghanistan under the Taliban became a kind of "Islamic Israel", from the appearance of which the region lost its peace and actually turned into a "paradise" of the radicals of Central Asia, Russia, and China. This is completely unacceptable, especially for the Russian and Central Asian military, who are well aware that the Taliban never renounce foreign terrorists, like their founding father, Mullah Umar, who surrendered Afghanistan, but not Osama bin Laden.
For the two reasons mentioned above - the transformation of Afghanistan into a haven for terrorist organizations and the strengthening of the extremist Islamic regime in the country - a rapprochement between Moscow and the Taliban is not possible. Their friendship for the sake of enmity with the United States ended. The Taliban will never be ready to create an inclusive government, cleanse Afghanistan of terrorist organizations, will not abandon the extremist medieval regime, and will continue to oppose the achievements of human civilization, such as women's rights and freedom of speech. All this is not acceptable not only to Russia but also to the civilized world.
On the other hand, Russia is involved in the war in Ukraine. There is a possibility that after this war China will attack Taiwan. The contradiction with the Taliban in the current situation can be called suicide. Talib is nothing - he has neither internal nor external popularity. But the war with the Taliban will also develop into a war with the United States and its partners, as it is in Ukraine. Then the Taliban will throw themselves into the arms of the United States. This war will put Russia and China between water and fire.
Why don't the Taliban seize such a golden opportunity? The answer is obvious: the US is not a reliable partner. In the first Taliban reign (1996-2001) they used them and threw them away like a useless thing. On the other hand, Pakistan, the main patron of the Taliban, has a strategic relationship with China, and the latter will never allow the Taliban to create problems for Russia - a Chinese strategic partner. China needs Russia's support in its war with Taiwan. On the other hand, the Taliban are well aware that if they take action against Russia and China, they will destroy themselves, because this will push them to support the Resistance Front. Finally, the rule of great wars is that when a country decides to attack, it must have at least four times the strength and capability of the adversary, as the Russians have in the Ukraine war and which the Taliban do not have.
Now Lavrov and his Taliban diplomat named Gharwal, who was accredited a month ago in the early days of the war in Ukraine. The presence of one Talib in a large embassy can never be a great problem. Apparently, Russia did this to please China, which is in the general interest at the moment.
On the other hand, this means that Russian diplomacy is holding the hands of the Taliban, and its military is holding the hands of the Resistance Front. The future that Russia and China see is a compromise between the two sides. What is not in the interests of both Moscow and the Resistance Front are the same reasons that we have given above. However, this will bring the Resistance Front closer to Russia every day and separate the Taliban from Moscow.
Strategically, the north is not a stronghold of the Taliban - Pashtuns, and Pakistan. The North is the territory of non-Pashtun resistance and Russian influence. Russia will never allow its security sphere to fall into the hands of Pakistan and its longtime allies, Britain and the United States. This is the “red line” of Russia.
The Taliban have a choice, if they want to survive, they must liberate all resistance territory from their armed forces, if not, they will have to wait for the fierce fighting this spring and summer, which has already begun.
Not only Russia, even if the whole world recognizes the Taliban *, the resistance of Afghanistan against these "Islamic savages" will continue, because this war of civilization and barbarism and the matter of life and death of non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan, first of all, Tajiks, who, apart from body and soul, houses and blood, wives and sisters... war has been declared on their civilizations.
* The organization is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities
