Americans are preparing to create an inclusive government in Kabul. Washington has staked on the "Kandahar group" in the Taliban and is considering removing the Haqqani Network from the scene.
Andrey Serenko, a correspondent for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, head of the Analytical Center of the Russian Society of Political Scientists
Photo: American diplomat Thomas West actively uses the Qatari flag to achieve US goals in Afghanistan/Photo from Thomas West's Twitter account.
An inclusive government in Kabul may appear as early as the spring of 2023. This was reported to NG by sources in Afghan political emigration who are familiar with the efforts of American representatives who are trying to convince a number of leaders of the Taliban (an organization banned in the Russian Federation) to agree to the creation of a cabinet of ministers with the participation of nominees from the main ethnopolitical groups. The success of American plans will mean a weakening of the positions of Russia, China, Iran, and the countries of the region in Afghanistan, the sources believe.
High-ranking representatives of the US State Department and the CIA have been actively working for several months to "re-educate" major functionaries of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, as well as intensive consultations with the main groups of the Afghan political emigration. To do this, American emissaries, according to NG sources, use a variety of sites in Qatar, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, resorting to the services of the most unexpected intermediaries. For example, Thomas West, the Special Representative of the State Department for Afghanistan, who plays a key role in Washington's "shuttle diplomacy" aimed at solving the problem of creating an inclusive government in Kabul, even used his family ties - Mr. West's wife is a Pashtun, and his father-in-law has quite serious contacts in influential groups of the Afghan elite, including the Taliban.
The strength of American activity in the Afghan sector today is not only the effective collaboration of diplomats and intelligence officers but also the communication style chosen by Thomas West. “Unlike the curators of the Afghan direction in some other countries, West shows that he likes to listen more than speak,” NG sources comment on the situation. “He does not teach Afghan interlocutors what they should do, but over the past three months, he has simply listened to them for hours, in particular, at numerous meetings in Istanbul. As a result, Afghan politicians who are in dire need of attention get the opportunity to speak out, and the American diplomat learns all the nuances of the life of the Afghan political emigration, the main ideas, and plots that are discussed by the key players in Afghan politics while consolidating positive personal contacts. This then allows the American side to more subtly and, accordingly, successfully build a dialogue with all parties, including the Taliban, formulate compromise moves and offer interesting tactical solutions.”
An important role in the American model of inter-Afghan communications is played by the intermediary capabilities of Qatar and the UAE. It is on these platforms, with the participation of major politicians in Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, that representatives of Washington, not without success, develop point-to-point communications with influential functionaries of the Taliban regime. Thus, in early October, senior State Department and CIA officials met in the capital of Qatar with the head of the Taliban's Main Intelligence Directorate, Mullah Abdulhaq Wasiq. In Doha, at the request of the Americans, Qatari representatives held important talks with Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqub. A few days ago, Mullah Yakub arrived in the United Arab Emirates, where, according to rumors, he is scheduled to meet with high-ranking American emissaries.
The Middle Eastern emirates, it seems, are assigned by the Americans the role of the main contact point with the Taliban's power bloc. First of all, we are talking about the Kandahar group in the corporation of the Taliban security forces, the informal leader of which is the head of the Ministry of Defense, Mullah Yaqub, the son of the founder of the Taliban movement, Mullah Omar.
According to NG sources, it is with the Kandahar faction in the leadership of the Taliban that Washington hopes to achieve success in solving the problem of creating an inclusive government in Kabul. “According to the rumors that appeared in the Istanbul circles of the Afghan political emigration after numerous meetings with Thomas West, decisive consultations with key political groups of the Afghan abroad and the leaders of the Kandahar Taliban group are to be held in December and January,” NG sources note. - It is expected that by February 2023 the necessary compromise will be reached - both in terms of the mechanism for forming a new cabinet of ministers, and its personal composition. After that, the future ministers from among the political emigrants will go to Kabul, where the Taliban power bloc, controlled by the Kandaharis, will have to ensure the practical implementation of the agreements reached.”
According to NG sources, the American architects of the model of an inclusive Afghan government they are promoting are relying not only on Mullah Yaqub but also on the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban government, Mullah Abdulghani Baradar, who is the leader of the "Kandahar faction" in the political leadership of the Taliban. In turn, Mullah Baradar, who signed the first deal with the United States on February 29, 2020, in Doha, which paved the way for the Taliban to power in Kabul, maintains friendly relations with the country's ex-president Hamid Karzai. According to Afghan sources, it was thanks to Mullah Baradar that Karzai, who had been under house arrest for more than a year, was able to fly from Kabul to Dubai a few days ago. Observers noted that Karzai and Mullah Yaqub, although on different planes, flew to the United Arab Emirates on the same day, where American emissaries were already present. Taliban spokesmen immediately began to talk about the coincidence of these trips, but only very gullible people listen to these comments today.
Intensive "shuttle diplomacy" of Thomas West, active consultations of the Americans with the Afghan political emigration, and the leaders of the Kandahar Taliban group, however, cannot succeed without solving the "Haqqani problem". The head of the Taliban Ministry of Internal Affairs and at the same time the leader of the terrorist network of the same name (banned in the Russian Federation) Sirajuddin Haqqani has a reputation not only as the main rival of the Kandahar group in the struggle for power within the Taliban, but also as a person associated with Pakistan, and through it with China - an obvious competitor to the United States in the region. NG's sources claim that the Haqqani group is not participating in negotiations with the Americans, who have staked on the Durrani Kandaharis from southern Afghanistan, the main rivals of the Haqqanis, who claim to be the spokesmen for the interests of the Ghilzais, the Pashtuns of Eastern Afghanistan. However, Sirajuddin Haqqani has the ability to use force to prevent the implementation of the behind-the-scenes agreements of the Americans, Kandaharites, and Afghan political emigrants: Haqqani controls several tens of thousands of militants legalized through the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as hundreds of suicide bombers.
Without solving the "Haqqani problem", Tom West and his partners will not be able to implement the plan to create a new Afghan inclusive government. Obviously, there are several possible scenarios here. The first is to try to negotiate with Sirajuddin Haqqani by inviting him to a mutually beneficial partnership with the concessionaires (for example, by extending to him the current model of systemic bribery of the leaders of the Kandahar group, in which they receive weekly from the American side, according to various sources, from 40 to 80 million dollars). The second scenario is a military-political coup in Kabul by the forces of the Kandahar group, which controls the Ministry of Defense and the Taliban army, as a result of which Sirajuddin Haqqani will be forced to leave the country and go to Pakistan. The third scenario is the physical elimination of Sirajuddin Haqqani (either with the help of an American UAV or as a result of a suicide attack, which is traditionally attributed to ISIS (banned in Russia).
Having successfully implemented one of the scenarios for the “final solution” of the “Haqqani problem”, the US-Kandahar coalition, with the participation of political emigrants, will be able to announce the emergence of a new inclusive government in Kabul. It seems that the formal “shadow emir” of the Taliban, Mawlavi Haibatullah Akhund, will not be able to cause serious trouble in this case: as Afghan sources of "NG" note, he has strong levers of influence through the secret services of Pakistan, the leadership of which is likely to join the winners in the new Afghan political intrigue. Finally, it is quite easy to replace one "shadow emir" of the Taliban with another, name, because no one has ever seen the real Haibatulla Akhund ...
The political losers from this combination with an inclusive government of Afghanistan following the American model will obviously be Washington's geopolitical rivals in the region - China, Russia, and Iran. The appearance in Kabul of a government with ministers selected by Thomas West will mean a further and rapid reduction in the influence of Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran on the Afghan situation. Moreover, even the likely appearance in this cabinet of the psychotherapeutic figure of Hamid Karzai, who for some reason in Moscow is considered “one of their own”, will not solve the problem of strengthening the influence of the countries of the region in Afghanistan.
