Exclusive interview of Amrullah Saleh, former Chief of the National Security Directorate, Vice President, and head of Green Trend Afghanistan with The Print (India)
Source: Green Trend Afghanistan, especially for Sangar.
At 52, Amrullah Saleh is a proud Afghan who believes the Taliban chapter is an aberration in his country’s history and that the regime would collapse if not for support from the West.
Saleh served as first vice president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from February 2020 to August 2021 under the then President Ashraf Ghani. Prior to that, he had served as acting interior minister in the Ghani administration and head of the National Directorate of Security under President Hamid Karzai. In an exclusive and exhaustive interview with The Print Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta, Amrullah Saleh talks about the Doha Agreement, US withdrawal from Afghanistan, infiltrating the Taliban and his incomplete mission.
Here’s a full transcript of the interview, edited for clarity.
ISLAM FROM AVRANGZEB TO TALIBAN
Shekhar Gupta (SG): So, Amrullah [Saleh], you’ve led an adventurous life. From what I read from published material, at a very young age, you did join the Mujahideen, but on the Ahmad Shah Massoud side, you are a Tajik and then rose in politics, educated yourself very well, and also immersed yourself as a kind of modern English-speaking spokesperson of your country. What’s the state of your country now? The state of the world is now in a flux, particularly with the rise of Donald Trump. So where do you see Afghanistan, the Taliban, and the prospects for your country and the region?
Amrullah Saleh (AS): Well after the fall of monarchy in 1974 [1973], since that time till today, Afghanistan has unfortunately remained a very unstable country, very fluid situation. The rise of the Taliban is another episode in the turbulent modern, contemporary history of Afghanistan. Of course, in this episode of history, fanaticism, radicalism and religious bigotry has manifested and demonstrated itself in ways unprecedented in history, but it also is rooted in what happened to my country in the 1980s.
In the 1980s the West and the rest of the allies of the West used to call the Soviet Union a godless empire. So, they financed and sponsored religious fanaticism to fight the Soviet Union, and gradually, by the passage of time, a monster was born out of that adventure of the 80s, which is now called Taliban. This type of manifestation has no precedence in history. As an Indian, you may have very rightfully and very legitimately, have historical grievances, and there’s a dark chapter of Indian history, and the era of Aurangzeb.
Aurangzeb, if he was a Taliban, he would be considered ultra-modern.
SG: The Taliban would not find him Islamic enough?
AS: No, no, no, no, no. They will flog him.
SG: I see. And why do you say so? And what is it that they would find objectionable about Aurangzeb?
AS: Well, in Afghanistan, we have a very dignified and a very honorable minority called Ismailis. They are a denomination of Islam. Over the past one year, the Taliban are literally abducting their children and reconverting them. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if a district of Afghanistan, or a province of Afghanistan was fully Hindu, not, you know, a dot here, a dot there. That’s another thing. It’s another thing that the Taliban showcase sometimes, that they welcome an Afghan of Hindu faith, or an Afghan of Sikh faith, and talk to him. It’s one thing, right? But can you imagine a minority under the Taliban, if they are not tolerating Ismailis, and they whip their children, they abduct their children, convert them to Hanafi. It’s like children, you know, of one caste of Hindu being kidnapped by another caste and converted to Hinduism. That’s how it is, you know. So therefore, I think that’s why I said Aurangzeb, who, legitimately by Indians, is regarded as the most fanatic leader during the Muslim rule, for the Taliban, or in the scheme of the Taliban, would be considered an ultra-moderate, moderate figure. So that’s how bad they are.
SG: Yeah, that’s how bad they are. But now they are there. So, what’s the future?
AS: You see, as I said, they are an episode. They are an episode in our history, and they are not going to be a lasting episode. Nothing that they do is signaling their long-term survival. The country has no constitution. It has no written laws. They gave reference to Sharia law. And Sharia law is basically a series of texts written in hundreds and tens of thousands of books.
“For a common man to understand how he can adhere to Sharia law, it’s a massive confusion”.
They are not responsive. They are not accountable. They have taken Afghanistan to complete isolation. They are there. So were other groups, but the country lacked consensus on how to go forward. For the first time that we had consensus, a constitutional consensus for transfer of power. It was the last Republic which made it extremely clear how to get into politics, how to play it.
SG: What do you describe as the last Republic? You mean the one under Ghani?
AS: It is 2004 to 2021. So, the country, for the first time, which had a constitutional clarity on succession, was the Constitution of the Republic. That’s completely gone. So, as I said, we have a situation in Afghanistan. It’s unprecedented in human history, and it is failing already. It has not impressed anyone, including the Islamic countries who find the Taliban version of Sharia, completely un-understandable and very dark. Everybody is, you know, nobody is taking the risk or to say the shame to recognize them. They are an episode, and they will be gone.
‘US-SPONSORED’ TALIBAN RULE, RECONSTRUCTION AND AFGHANI
SG: Do you put a time frame to it?
AS: The time frame cannot be a wish, it cannot be an imagination. The time frame directly relates to a series of internal factors, external factors, and also the relationship between the external dynamics and the internal dynamics. So, taking into consideration these three dimensions of the situation, I would like to state the following. Economically, the Taliban generate $2.5 billion from customs revenue, from taxation and from extractive industries. They make $2.5 billion to $2.8 billion annually, and they use this money largely for consolidation purposes, which means expenses for defense, interior and intelligence and office of the PVPV. This is promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, and the ministry of religion.
They have a deficit of $4 billion. So far in the past three years, the difference of the deficit was filled by the Biden administration. Because Biden wanted to compensate for his strategic disastrous mistake by injecting funds in order to keep the Taliban quiet, in order to suppress the opponents of the Taliban and somehow present that yes, the trouble did have an impact, and the impact was only marginalization of women and crashing of women rights; everything is perfect, but the Americans used to pay $4 billion to subsidies that image. If there is any fluctuation in the American or Western decision in regards to that amount of funds, which I will break down for you, how they give it to the Taliban, then it will create an economic and financial earthquake in the Taliban. The Taliban will not be able to completely use domestic income for consolidation, and therefore the internal revolt will become much, much easier. So therefore, the Taliban clerical rule is a US-sponsored rule.
SG: Would you say a US-sponsored rule? Or Biden administration-sponsored rule?
AS: Well, you see Biden was US president for four years, and still, he is in office. So, I think Biden is not a billionaire to sponsor the Taliban. He wasted American tax money.
He [Biden] wasted American tax money to sponsor and keep the Taliban afloat.
But let me now articulate to you or break down for you, the amount of assistance and type of assistance that the Americans gave to the Taliban.
Number one is this weekly cash and according to SIGAR, SIGAR is the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, for the first 10 months of 2024 Biden administration shipped $884 million in cash to the Taliban. It’s available on Twitter. You can look at it. So let me break down the American sponsorship of the Taliban, first is the cash shipments. Second is they print Afghan currency for the Taliban. So, according to the Taliban Central Bank in 2024, United States printed 80 billion Afghanis for the Taliban and that would be $1.2 billion.
The third type of assistance is, some of the suspended projects, which were approved during the Republic, financed or sponsored by World Bank and Asian Development Bank, the Americans have quietly okayed, the resumption of those projects. So that is the third type of assistance. The fourth type of assistance is the Americans print passports for the Taliban. So far, they have given 7 million passports to the Taliban. The Taliban sell these passports between $200 to $2,000 each. So that’s another income.
SG: So, tell me when Americans print this currency for Afghanistan? How does that become a money transfer, isn’t that just currency with no value?
AS: They print it in Poland, and then they ship it by direct chartered flights.
SG: Of course. But with that money, what value is that money in Afghan markets or anywhere?
AS: Well, currently the Afghan currency, because of the American intervention, is stronger than the Indian rupee. So, what is the Indian rupee to a dollar today?
SG: 80. I’d say 84.50.
AS: So, Afghani is 68.
SG: But you know that means there must be a dollar value sitting there for this to be like that.
AS: Exactly. This is part of the conspiracy. It is more positive speculation. It’s more, you know, more info operations, psychological operations, that they have kept this Afghani strong and valuable.
If there was no American intervention in the spring of 2022 the Afghani was losing value almost five to ten percent per day, and then the American intervention came and they stopped.
It was the time when Taliban closed the money market, etc.
SG: What is the street value? There must be a street market for the dollar.
AS: This is the street value. This is street 68 to 71.
SG: I remember we used to go to the money market, which was mostly run by the Sikhs those days.
AS: The street value is this, you know. So, I mean basically this cash shipment, which the Americans fly with a chartered plane every while from Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah to Kabul.
SG: So, first in Poland, they print in Poland and bring it to Iraq and then to Kabul?
AS: No, no, no, no, no. The Poland aspect is the Afghani currency. I am talking about dollar shipments. They physically take tens of millions of dollars every 10 days or fortnight from Sulaymaniyah, a city in Iraq, and they fly to Kabul.
SG: Which means some of the Taliban leaders are getting very rich?
AS: Absolutely. So, you ask me, how are they there? No, they are not there. I mean, the Taliban rule is as you can imagine, testing on a number of factors which are not under the control of the Taliban. One of them is the economic aspect. If, for any reason, the West decreases the assistance, halts the assistance, or it was to use the assistance to pressure the Taliban.
The Taliban will collapse because they do not have enough domestic revenue.
They claim to have in the security sector something like 437,000 personnel. If the figure is true, which my organization has found out that 100,000 of those paid in the system are ghosts, they do not exist. They are buddies of the Taliban commanders, etc. But they do not exist. So let us take their figure for face value, and let’s say that, yes, 437,000 Taliban militias do exist, and if we very conservatively calculate the cost of maintenance, food, medical care, clothing, logistics, salary, at $500 per person per month.
This itself easily makes the Taliban military security budget over $2.5 billion. The assistance of the West, which is being done very silently, because this is the most shameful and disgraceful assistance they are providing. They do it very silently, and they create a pretext for it, that it’s humanitarian and it’s for NGOs. You cannot find a single case in history where NGOs are delivered with cash, and where NGOs are not putting their names on the website—which NGO is receiving the money.
There are 278 Western organizations in Afghanistan, and there are 2,169 local NGOs, these organizations totally employ up to 80,000 Taliban vetted and Taliban certified Afghans, who are beneficiaries of the Western cash and financial assistance. So, this is what is keeping the Taliban afloat
PASHTUN DOMINATION, DOHA AGREEMENT AND ‘US BETRAYAL’
AS: That was a very small part of the external aspect. Let me also concentrate a little bit on the domestic aspect. The Taliban structure, as we have profiled it. It is between 93 to 98 percent Pashtun. That is not very natural, and it will explode, and an explosion will be very costly, and it is an inevitable explosion. It is on the way.
SG: Because of its total Pashtun domination?
AS: Well, I mean, it’s not sustainable domination. Yeah, the country has a very low economic base. It’s dependent on the charity of Biden, and it’s oppressing over 70 percent of its own population. Look if oppression and cruelty was a means to continue, Myanmar would have been in a good situation right now. And as far as I know, Myanmar has lost 50 percent of its territory to insurgents.
SG: More, I suspect more. That’s the reason Chinese are getting very alarmed now, because they’ve taken a couple of garrison towns close to Yunnan province on the other side.
AS: I mean, what is waiting for Afghanistan? I mean, Myanmar will look like child’s play.
SG: So how do you think the Taliban will now respond to Trump administration? Could they buy peace with them by making a few relaxations about women?
AS: First of all, let’s not forget that the Doha Agreement between the United States and Taliban was signed when President Trump was in office, his first administration.
Now there are a lot of talks going on that he was deceived by his negotiating team which was led then by Zalmay Khalilzad and the compromise, the unprecedented, disgraceful compromise the Trump administration showed to the Taliban was actually architecture by the team and the team exploited President Trump’s naivety and his lack of understanding of the details of the Afghan situation.
He didn’t know that the Doha Agreement was so bad for the United States and the people of Afghanistan. But anyway, let’s not forget that it was signed when he was in power. And prior to the signing of this agreement, I was with President Ghani, visiting Germany. On the sidelines of Munich Security Conference we met Pompeo, his Secretary of State, along with German Minister for Foreign Affairs and NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and they came to brief us, brief President Ghani on the situation and status of the negotiations in Doha and their briefing was very arrogant, it was full of hubris.
Then President Ghani looked at me because I had prepared myself for such an interaction with the American delegation. He asked me if I could respond, tell him what all the downsides of bypassing the Afghan government and signing an agreement with the Taliban. I counted 11 reasons amongst which was exactly the prediction that whatever you name this agreement at the end of the day it will boost the morale of radical groups all over the world. Secondly, America will not be able, after signing this agreement, particularly by bypassing a government, with which you have written and signed bilateral agreements, binding bilateral agreements, you … those papers and you give precedence and preference with agreement with an insurgent, terrorist group. Are you sure you’re able to defend your standing and reputation and prestige after this.
Of course, I counted a couple of other reasons which attracted his attention and what they did afterwards, they signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban that same day and NATO Secretary General and US Secretary of Defense, they came to Kabul and they issued a declaration reiterating that the Doha Agreement does not mean that the United States will abandon its alliance with the Afghan Republic and ally with the Taliban. That was also a deception. They didn’t mean it. Their priority was to deceive the Republic to the very last moment till the last American departed and they had issued immigration visas for major commanders, for special forces, for people who had very critical jobs in the security sector. They had actually somehow emptied the Republic by exploiting the dependency of the Republic from the logistics from the Western side, on financial dependencies of the Republic. Why? Because Khalilzad admits that it was meant to hand over the country to the Taliban so there is a unified administration.
So, Doha Agreement was a coup d’état backed by NATO, backed by the United States, architecture by the negotiating team of the United States led by Zalmay Khalilzad. So now they say the Taliban have breached it.
There are four parts in that agreement. Part 1 is Taliban commit themselves, decouple themselves, distance themselves from terrorism. Which terrorism? The terrorism that threatens safety and security of the American mainland and its interests. It’s not terrorism that threatens the region. So, let’s be clear, that aspect is very selfish. It’s not terrorism that threatens humanity, it’s terrorism that only threatens the United States. So, have the Taliban fulfilled their obligation as far as the first part of this agreement is concerned? We don’t know because the skill is with the CIA, with Western intelligence agencies. But as far as groups threatening constitutional order in the region are concerned, Taliban are very proudly assisting those groups. They are harboring Ansarullah which wants to topple the government in Tajikistan, they are harboring Uighur militants, they are harboring Kashmiri militants, they are harboring Baluchi militants who are fighting Iran. There are a number of groups, maybe four or five, very active inside Afghanistan who are protected, harbored, trained and sponsored by the Taliban and the United States very deliberately did not include their names in the list of terrorists that the Taliban has to abandon.
AL QAEDA LINK, POSITIVE HEADLINE FOR TRUMP AND INDIA
SG: What about Al Qaeda elements? Do they also survive in Afghanistan, are they regrouping? Because I see some long tweets by somebody who’s been doing this from the intelligence side in America, who has been part of the negotiations. She claims, Sarah Adams, who says that because of family relationships, etc. between Taliban leaders, Baradar in particular and, and Osama’s family, Osama Bin Laden’s family, one, that AQ is being revived. And second, that there is a clear AQ-Taliban connection.
AS: There is absolutely no doubt that there is an AQ-Taliban connection, that there is a very deep bond between the two, but you have to take into consideration terrorism is not a valid currency in the international politics of the United States anymore. So, we are singing the wrong song to attract the attention of Washington. They have developed capabilities which they claim can be deployed to foil attacks, foil plans of terrorists without deploying troops on the ground. They believe that they now have intelligence collection capabilities which has minimized the need of the United States to have eyes and ears on the ground.
They have developed the so-called over-the-horizon capabilities which gives them, you know, free hand to operate any part of Afghanistan from above the skies and no need to coordinate with people on the ground. So, if we go back and sing the narrative of 2001, 2002, that’s a very old narrative. We have to move out of that cage, we have to move out of that situation.
Terrorism for the West has a new meaning today. It doesn’t have the same meaning it used to have in 2001 all the way to 2011.
So, I would say Al Qaeda is largely an irrelevant organization for the West. So why should we consume our time telling something to our Western audience which makes no relevance to today.
So, with that said, let me finish the four points, but I will come back to the issue of terms. The second part was safety of American withdrawal, for the safety of American withdrawal. There were two strategic mistakes. The Americans violated the bilateral security agreement they had signed with the Republic and they violated another very vital document called Strategic Partnership agreement (SPA) which they violated. According to those documents, the US had to notify the Afghan Republic about its departure and treat the Republic as a partner for safety of the departure. They instead engaged the enemies of the Republic for that. Which means if you are a junior partner, if you are a weaker partner, there is no way you can keep the United States committed to the legal documents you sign with them. So, this is not going to be forgotten. This is going to stay as a stain on the forehead of the American foreign policy gurus for a very, very long time.
Yes, you know, we have weaker voices. We may not be taken seriously, but those who are in state affairs, they use this example of America not respecting its signature when it suits them, they will just depart without notifying you. So, the second mistake in this area was that they paid a very, very hefty price to the Taliban. They put pressure on us and they made fake promises to us that if you do this, we will do this. They didn’t. So, we released 5,000 prisoners. They were not supposed to go to the front. They did. And Khalilzad lied to us all the time and apparently, he lied to the US administration too.
And the third, they, in a way, assisted the Taliban in capturing the Afghan towns. What do I mean? Because all the American mentors who were in our military units, they were through Doha in contact with the Taliban. So, they would notify the Taliban. We are now out of this particular unit. It’s up to you. What do you do? This is part of the secret annexes of the Doha Agreement. That is why those secret annexes are so shameful, so disgraceful that three years on sorry, four years on, they are still not revealing what was written. The secret annexes of the Doha Agreement are basically mechanisms explained how to backstab the Afghan …
So, the Americans paid a hefty price practically on the ground and they paid by their prestige by their reputation. So that is the true price that Biden paid. We don’t care that Blinken did this, we don’t care that Austin Lloyd did it. We don’t care. I briefed Austin Lloyd in the Pentagon. We had about two hours’ discussion with him and he looked at my eyes and, and you know, he spoke very, very little and then his intent was clear. They had made their minds. This was less than a month before the fall of Kabul. I told him, Mr. Secretary, you say you are backing the Republic but every single logistical contract you have for the support of the Republic ends on September 1st. Why? Without any exception, all logistical contracts are ending and the contractors to which we are so dependent, they are leaving. Why? He had no answer.
And I said, what if the Taliban put a very suffocating siege around Kabul? Do you do anything? He said we will send a General to Kabul, discuss these details. And the General who came was a panicked General who did not know what to do. And he joined the rest of the team in deceiving us. So, the safety of the withdrawal was item two.
Item three was intra-Afghan negotiations, which never happened. Item four was a permanent ceasefire which never happened.
So, if the Trump administration wants to revive the Doha Agreement, there are two unfinished business: ceasefire and intra-Afghan negotiations.
Will they have resources to go and pressure the Taliban for these two? I’m not sure. But you see, the agreement between the two parties is void and it is empty and it talks nothing about the values and principles, etc. So, what will the Taliban do? I think the Taliban have three American hostages. They may give these hostages to Trump to create a positive headline for him.
SG: Are these American Americans or Afghan Americans?
AS: Two of them are Anglo Saxon Americans. One of them is Afghan American Mahmood Shah Habibi who was running an undercover telecommunication company and reportedly he had a role in locating al-Zawahiri. So, these three Americans, the Taliban may give to Trump to create a positive headline for him and to sort of have a sweet beginning. The Taliban may then request the CIA to brief Trump on their collaboration with the American security establishment about probably a number of cases they have jointly worked together against which I cannot speculate. I don’t want to speculate. So, the Taliban have a couple of relevant playing cards in their hands. But as far as the value is concerned, I will count for values which the Taliban will not commit as far as I know.
And I know from yesterday, I got the documents from internal Taliban discussions. And these documents clearly reveal that these four items which I just count now, they will not negotiate with the Americans. Number one, they will not relax their policies on women. They will not open up the girls’ schools and they will not allow women to work as independent human beings in the sphere of economy, governance, whatever. That’s one.
Number two, they will not respect Afghanistan’s signature on international conventions and treaties. They are against even the United Nations Charter, let alone other documents, legally binding documents that Afghanistan as a state has signed over the past 70-60 years, they will not do that.
And number three, they will not open up a constitutional path because the moment they do this, they think they will fragment from within and there will be a lot of external pressure on them and their fragmentation will speed up. And the last is they will not agree to hold negotiations with their opponents. This, they will not, these are the four things they will not do.
So, the question comes, if they do not do these four things, will Trump because the Taliban secretly help US, supposedly counterterrorism, will Trump recognize them? No. He will not recognize them.
So, the stalemate between the Taliban and the United States very likely, let me repeat, very likely may continue and it will not be in the interest of the United States to recognize the Taliban.
Because if they recognize them, they have to engage with them more openly and the Taliban is nothing but a point of embarrassment. It is a stinking stain on the forehead of the Western civilization. So, they will not recognize them. And also, if they recognize them, it will tie their hands from potential drone operations against the Taliban in the future because you do not bomb any state, you bomb banana state entities. So, the Taliban are not designed to become a state, they are designed to be what they are. And that, that, that’s a more nuanced answer to your question.
SG: How do you suggest India deal with the Taliban?
AS: Let’s be honest and let’s not envelope our words, or abstract it. India, in regards to the situation of Afghanistan, is going to have a conduct of its foreign policy with complete strategic autonomy, full independence, not affected by policies of Western countries and other countries in the region. Will India have a policy of, of its own, as I said, India’s unlinked to what the West thinks, unlinked to what other major countries in the region think. That’s one scenario. The other scenario is India not taking the risk of having a policy of its own, but it will have a policy of its own, largely shaped by the worldview of what is happening in Afghanistan. So, we are talking about these two different scenarios. Let’s first of all, look at scenario one, where India says, ok, West is West, China is China, Russia is Russia. We as India want to handle it the way we would like. In that scenario, India is seen by Afghans as a civilization, as a united diversity as a country of values and principles.
They should not associate India with the Taliban, they should deal with the Taliban as a group, but they should also communicate to the Afghan people—we do not treat them as your representative. It’s a group which has military control for now. But we also respect the diversity of Afghan society. We respect the diversity of your culture, your history.
It would be extremely disappointing if India treated the Taliban as the representative of the Afghan people.
I hope India does not disappoint the tens of millions of Afghans because the Taliban is a temporary episode in our history and they will be gone. The image and standing of India in Afghan society has survived so many turbulences in the past, it should not become a victim of engagement with the Taliban now. But if India wants to align its policy with the rest of the world, then India has a very weighty voice in the UN and in the West and elsewhere, they have to modify the Doha Agreement and they have to put their weight and lobbying for modification of the Doha process. Open up the space for other Afghan political entities to have a role and India can do it. And the hope is that India does it independently and it doesn’t become, you know, just a spectator of the Afghan situation. Can India be indifferent to Afghanistan? No, because Afghanistan is in a way linked by land to India. I told you about the disappearance of tens of thousands of weapons. I mean, where have they disappeared? We have civilizational ties, we have cultural ties, we have religious ties and these ties are not just, you know, with the remote land that do not know each other and they have exchanged ambassadors during the course of history. No, it’s not like that. So, Afghanistan must be a priority for India and in which the Taliban is a small part and a part which has already signed for its own disappearance with these very bad repressive policies.
TRUMP PRESIDENCY, FUNDS TO TALIBAN AND ‘MAGA’
SG: So, Amrullah, you said Biden is not a billionaire. We know that, but Biden’s successor is a billionaire. And in any case, Biden’s successor is not known to give anybody his own money, but you think he will continue to give the Taliban American money?
AS: You see there is no black and white situation in the West. I am following the Western dynamics and politics. I also follow the voices from the Global South to the extent possible. I speak Russian, so I also hear the voices of leaders who are trying and advocating for a new world order. So, let’s from the West, let’s say, let’s first of all concentrate on geopolitics. If the calculation is that we are feeding tens of thousands of venomous snakes in Afghanistan called Taliban militia, this is an opportunity for us, and it is a problem for the region and the neighborhood. It’s good that we are far away from evil. But evil is our proxy, and it’s going to hurt others. And it’s not so distant from us that it cannot hurt us. There is this type of theory as well.
SG: Yeah. So, keep them busy. Basically, then this becomes protection money.
AS: Well, not necessarily protection money, protection there’s one aspect, but this is also, you know, feeding this monster against others. You feed them and you nourish them, but they are distant from you, but they hurt us. So, this is one aspect if America was to act based on principles, values and ethics.
They [the US] should suspend the shipment of cash to the Taliban a day after Trump is in the office.
But if they disregard ethics and values, and they act very selfishly, and they justify a secret alliance, a proxy alliance with a group like Taliban, merely because they will not hurt Washington and everybody else, if it is hurt that Washington doesn’t care, that will mean collapse, total collapse, of morality in the western power structure. Will Trump be a man of ethics? Or he will step over ethics, and he will follow Biden in a way, and be influenced by the deep state? I don’t want to make a judgement right now,
SG: You know, Trump is definitely not a man of ethics that we know, but will he really reverse this just because Biden was doing it? Or will he be convinced by the deep state to say, listen, this is costing us some money. It’s not too much money. It was costing us trillions to go fight it. Well, let them be. It’s the Afghans. They want to keep their women under shrouds. How is it our problem?
AS: You see, the thing is, superpowers are superpowers not because they can kill a lot or they can generate wealth and money. It’s about morality too. It’s too easy to say, you know, because they are superpower, they can be a moral power they wish, and they can be an amoral power as they wish. The standing and reputation of America post Afghanistan is not as it used to be. Not because America is less powerful, not because America is poorer, but because the world believes that America is compromising its ethics. It’s compromising the basic things, compromising basic principles. If Trump continues the path to compromise, principles and values, his slogan that ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’ will actually mean ‘Let’s Make America Lesser and Lesser Again’. Greatness is in morality.
You know, people around the world, no matter which religion, no matter which belief system, no matter which political system, they respect Gandhi ji. He was not a boxer, he was not a billionaire, and he was not a masculine man. You know, he was all bare skin, ribs and barefoot. What is Gandhi all about? An embodiment of values. So therefore, we have to be very careful in definition of power. America has a chance to repair its image. And America has an opportunity to follow the path of becoming eviller and eviller.
US WITHDRAWAL, KHALILZAD, IMRAN KHAN AND TTP
SG: We’ve seen these congressional hearings with Waltz asking questions, giving Sullivan a hard time on Afghanistan. We’ve seen Trump saying to every General, every officer who was involved, senior officers who were involved in the disgrace of Kabul, “I want their resignation. Resignations on my desk on day one.” Trump’s choice of Secretary of Defense is interesting. How do you read all of that? Does all of that add up to something?
AS: You see, first of all, the people who were some somebody during the withdrawal or the time leading to the role, then they are no longer there. The CENTCOM commander is no longer there. General Miller is out. Blinken will be out. Inevitably. Tom West was sidelined. His office was abolished. Ambassador Richard, the last Charge affairs in Afghanistan. The worst ever diplomat I have ever met in my life, a complete liar, is out. Khalilzad as Trump himself once called him a conman. He is out.
I think it’s a good headline, if we read it, President Trump wants all those responsible to resign day one. That’s history. What people expect Trump to do is shape the future. Shaping the future comes from articulation and engendering new policies and creating mechanisms for implementation of those policies and reaching out to the Afghan masses and Afghan political groups and correcting what they have caused.
America has caused a mad human disaster post 2021. I am not inviting American troops back.
I am not inviting American military infrastructure in my country. I am saying another thing, they are America. Please stop cash shipments to the Taliban.
They are America. Do not try to silence the Afghan opposition voices. They are America. Do not be hypocritical in my country, which you are today, under the disgraceful rule of Biden. It doesn’t matter how you know much if this guy or that guy is to present his or her resignation to President Biden. It matters, really too much, and very much, what will happen in March, April, May, June, July, 2025 and the big policy of the United States of America, that’s more important.
SG: You mentioned Khalilzad. Zalmay Khalilzad, who’s been around for a long time. He has suddenly become very active on Twitter, and he’s addressing the Pakistani constituency a lot. He’s supporting Imran Khan. Are these job applications for the Trump administration? He wants to be some kind of an Aft-Pak job ambassador job or something again?
AS: You see, Khalilzad has skills, but he has no soul,
SG: But does Trump care whether somebody has a soul or not?
AS: Well, you asked me about Khalilzad, not Trump’s view of Khalilzad.
I say, Khalilzad, he has the skills. He has no soul. He has no dignity.
If he had dignity, he would have not facilitated the handover of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the country his mother told him to respect. He says, “My mother asked me to respect my country of birth,” but he sold the country of his birth to strengthen the narrative of the country of his passport. So, this person has no soul.
SG: Did you deal with him very much? Did you interact with him very much?
AS: Yes, I did interact with him very much. In mid-2020 to the fall of the Republic, the American policy was to sideline me, to not engage much with me. Because I was a voice of reason. I was a voice of logic, and my reasoning and logic was not my imagination amongst the Republic leaders. I had intelligence, a possession background, and I knew the Taliban had not changed. And I also knew Khalilzad was lying to us all the time, all the time. So, they were trying to minimize contact with me. I was not in their list of favorites. Yes, I did interact with Khalilzad. I hope to find time to write my own takeaways from the so-called peace process, which was not a peace process.
I want to give you very briefly, two, three examples of how Khalilzad acted more on the side of the Taliban. We wanted to create a de-confliction cell. He did not allow it because in those days, you know, there was a blame game, and Khalilzad had advocated for a very foolish term called ‘reduction in violence’, RIV, which never happened. He and [Mike] Pompeo, they produced a letter for us, saying, with the release of 5,000 prisoners, there will be an unofficial ceasefire. It never happened. The intra-Afghan negotiations never happened. Khalilzad’s very famous tweet ‘that either everything or nothing’–was a very public lie. It’s still, I think it’s not deleted from his Twitter account. There were four agendas. There was the US’ withdrawal, ceasefire, counter terrorism, Afghan settlement of Afghanistan problem. And he had famously said either all of these four points or nothing, and he didn’t stick to his vow. And when you ask him now, he says, no, yes, I did say that, but I might work for US and he implies that he has no soul, and he was rented for his skills, not for his integrity.
SG: You think he wants a job back now in the Trump administration?
AS: Well, I mean he sort of presents himself and projects an image that he wants a job, but it will be a massive mistake for the Trump administration to reinstate people like him in any position.
SG: What’s with his support for Imran Khan?
AS: You see, he, Imran Khan and the Doha process. They were aligned. They were in the same frequency.
Imran Khan was a co-conspirator of the fall of the Republic.
It was Khalilzad, it was Imran Khan. It was ISI. It was the Qatari state. They all fooled Washington. But Washington wanted to be fooled. Yeah, they wanted to be fooled.
SG: So now, how do you read what’s happening between the Taliban administration and Pakistan? Because it looks like Pakistan’s bet has gone wrong.
AS: Pakistan’s bet went wrong in 1947. The second bet of Pakistan which went wrong was 1971. That third bet of Pakistan which went wrong was when they said Masood and Rabbani are unacceptable, and they tried to impose Hekmatyar. Pakistan’s bet went wrong again in 2006 when they created a secret alliance with couple of other countries and they started to assist the Quetta Shura (Supreme Council of Taliban) and the Haqqani Network and Pakistan’s bet again went wrong in 2014 when Ashraf Ghani, the then President of Afghanistan in 2015 went there and said, Look, I’m here to negotiate and we can negotiate everything and anything. And Pakistan’s last bet went wrong when they thought that when the Taliban come, the world will deal with them, logistically, diplomatically, financially and strategically through us.
SG: So, they thought all that stardust will fall on them?
AS: That was their calculation. They thought that Pakistan would remain the sole gateway for the Western and Arab world to interact with the Taliban.
SG: Are you aware of the concept of octroi?
AS: No, I am not.
SG: So octroi is what governments charge before letting a truck or any goods into a city or into a country. So, I call Pakistan’s ambition to be an octroi state for Afghanistan–that anybody going into Afghanistan has to pay them for any goods or anything of value going there has to pay them something.
AS: You know while I say all those things, I disagree with the notion that the Taliban are anti-Pakistan, or that Pakistan has lost control, or that Pakistan regrets its decision, or that the strategic depth backfired. I disagree with all these analyses.
SG: That’s fascinating. And why do you say so?
AS: Okay, I want to count a number of circumstantial and logical pieces of evidence to tell you why all of these reasons are not valid. Number one, I have profiled over 30,000 Taliban personnel after 2021. None of them are graduates from Afghani madrassas. They are all linked to the madrassa education system in Pakistan. They see Pakistan as a land which empowered them, which educated them, which fit them, which clothed him. That’s one. I mean, in the Taliban system, there is only one guy who spent a couple of years in India and he is sidelined. His name is Sher Mohammad Stanikzai, their deputy foreign minister. So, except him, he then fled to Pakistan, and he became an ISI agent for the rest of his life. Show me a single person in the Taliban system without an ISI link. So, the notion that ISI was so stupid, so fool that they fit, educated, empowered, installed all these guys only to let their own hand be bitten, it will be a very dangerous conclusion for anybody. So, this is reason number one.
Reason number two, there is the problem of the TTP, which the Pakistanis use as to why they are not on good terms with the Afghanistan Taliban. Actually Mr. Gupta for Pakistan it’s not the TTP.
The TTP legitimizes Pakistan’s crackdown of the Pashtuns. The TTP gives them legitimacy for the operations to divide the Pashtuns.
The TTP gives them legitimacy and a license to maintain a massive army presence in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The actual problem is not the TTP. The actual problem is Pakistan lacks resources to manage a country of 250 million people, while it is strategic, relevance is less than it was in 70s or 80s, and it expects to be treated like Pakistan of ‘81 or Pakistan of 2002. It is not. And while Pakistan lacks financial and political strength to manage itself, there is a Pashtun awakening, who are demanding that they should not be treated in a status in politics, in economy, etc., etc., less than the Punjab elite. And there is smell of fragmentation, there is the smell of balkanization, and for Pakistan to crash this sentiment, then use the level of terrorism as a universal stamp to suppress these voices.
TTP is a terrorist organization. It is a terrorist organization because it has been killing like the Taliban. But how come the Afghanistan Taliban are not terrorists but the TTP are terrorists? How come? The fact is that the Pakistani state is unable to subsidies Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is unable to subsidies Baluchistan. It is unable to subsidies even Punjab. So, it’s a country heading more and more towards massive budget deficits, financial disparities and discrepancies and obviously there is a tendency for breakup, for fragmentation. And in this situation, they cannot say we want to crush every Pashtun who wants to have more autonomy. We want to crush every Baluch who wants more autonomy. They say we fight terrorism and they have created a mixed-up situation. So that’s how I see it. That’s reason number two.
Reason number three, Haqqani’s, they still maintain a massive business in Rawalpindi, Karachi and Peshawar today. I’m not talking about prior to 2021. Number four. Have you heard the Pakistanis naming any person in the Taliban system as not being helpful? No, they are criticizing the Taliban in very vague terms–they say the de-facto authorities are not helping us. Who are the de-facto authorities? Is it Hibatullah? No, he is very close to them.
Is it Haqqani? He is their boy. Is it Mullah Yaqoob? He still has his family in Karachi. I mean, who in the Taliban is harboring TTP? Any particular person? Is it the intelligence department of the Taliban? Taj Mir Jawad was in cohort for 20 years running an IED making laboratory with very, very direct assistance from the SSG Special Services Group. Who in the Taliban dares to support the TTP? Why are they not naming him or naming them?
Is the TTP hurting Pakistan? Yes, absolutely. It is hurting Pakistan, and the TTP is exploiting the hypocrisy of the Pakistani establishment. The TTP is exploiting the ethnic divisions in Pakistan. The TTP is exploiting the policy contradictions of the Islamabad government. Those are the reasons for the existence of the TTP. So, the TTP says to Islamabad, “If you for 20 years backed Mullah Omar, Mullah Mansour, Haqqani to implement Sharia in Afghanistan, why is Sharia invalid east of the Durand Line” and the Pakistan government has no answer to it.
SG: Good point, yes.
AS: Therefore, we must be careful in saying that Pakistan has given up on the Afghan Taliban. It has not. It may very well be a trap. You know why a trap? Let me explain to you the Taliban claim that over 40 percent of the Republic era weapons have been missing. What is the meaning of missing?
They [Taliban] have easily leaked the serial number of these weapons.
If a disaster happens somewhere, and you catch one of some of these weapons, they can say these were missing. We had lost them.
SG: Let me interrupt you, is the implication that they have gifted these weapons to Pakistan?
AS: I tell you what, right, the Pakistan border, despite all the cries from the Pakistan side, That, you know, we have problems, and the problems emanate from Afghanistan, etc., the Pakistan Afghanistan border remains the most porous border even today. Another example. What happened to the Kashmiri militants who were with the Taliban all the way to the fall of Kabul? And then mysteriously they disappeared. Why don’t we hear about al-Badr? Why don’t we hear of Jaish-e-Mohammed anymore, why don’t we hear Lashkar-e-Taiba anymore? Where are they? Has Pakistan changed its policy of sponsoring radical groups or is there something in motion? Let’s be watchful.
SG: What’s your hypothesis?
AS: My hypothesis is number one, Pakistan remains a country which has deep, deep links with the Taliban.
Number two, Pakistan has not changed its policy of assisting, sponsoring and training radical groups.
Number three, Pakistani religious establishment sees the rise of Taliban and their power in Afghanistan as a triumphant episode of their history.
Number four, those who over analyses the differences between the Taliban and the Pakistanis, they have to be very watchful, because a surprise does not come with loud voices, “I am a surprise and am on the way.” So therefore, a surprise is inevitable.
DEALING WITH TALIBAN, MADRASSAS AND INDIA-AFGHAN TIES
SG: So, what is it that India should watch out for?
AS: The first thing is during the Republic, and I suspect even now, the Afghan masses, regardless of who they are, whether they are a Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, all the Afghan masses regarded, and I hope they are regarding India as a friend of Afghan people and Afghan nation. A friend very respectful of our diversity. My suggestion is India should not associate itself with the Taliban. If it wants to have engagement with the Taliban, there has to be engagement with diverse segments of the Afghan society.
The Taliban should not dictate to India, who to talk to and who not to talk to, where to invest, where not to invest and who to give a visa to, who to not give a visa to.
They should maintain its image which it had earned, not overnight, but 70 years and thousands of years of people-to-people relationships. India should not put at risk that reputation and that image by engaging with Taliban only that will be God forbidden, that will be copying Pakistan. Because it was Pakistan’s approach to associate itself with a group at the expense of, ignoring the plight that demands the aspiration of a population. India should find a balanced approach to retain the goodwill of the Afghan people; to sustain the image it has built over many decades. In the meantime, if they have engagement, that’s fine.
SG: But does India need to worry? Because India has had sort of peace from terrorism now, at least since Pulwama, which is more than five years, and that was also one incident after many years of peace and respite. Should India worry or should India now settle down and think that this threat is receding?
AS: If I’m not sure, any amount of terror attack will undo India, or it will derail India, or it will divide India, or it will weaken India. No, India is a massive idea. India is a massive country. India is a massive military. India is the fifth largest economy in the world. India is a word frequently pronounced by leaders across the globe. Terrorism cannot hurt India. Terrorism can only create a bad headline for India. We should not narrow down India’s mission to prevent Pulwama’s. We should broaden India’s mission to stay behind it as allies, to strengthen values, to show India respects diversity, and in the case of Afghanistan, I’m not seeing much communication. What does India want to say to the Afghan people? Eight million of whom have fled the country due to the Taliban, where is that message? I mean to say that India has not allowed another Pulwama. That’s a very tiny part of India’s mission to stop Pulwama’s. But people look to India as a country of principles, values, ideas, etc., etc. You know, it should not sacrifice one part in favor of another part.
SG: But should India worry about a recurrence of terrorism at any scale?
AS: You see, Afghanistan has historically been a naturally very, very friendly nation towards India. I ask you a very simple question, can we play Indian songs on Afghan streets?
SG: No longer.
AS: Can we invite a cultural team from India?
SG: No.
AS: India has lost Afghanistan. India’s engagement with the Taliban is not engagement with a friend.
SG: We know any Afghans will not carry out a terror attack in India. But do you think the Pakistanis have given up that project? And if not, what should India be careful about?
AS: You see it is now three years since the Taliban are in power, and they have built, as they say, they have built over 12,000 madrassas. So, do you think in these madrassas, they are teaching diversity, respect and multiculturalism, etc., etc., or what is the curriculum of these madrassas? If the Taliban, as I told you, is a product of the Pakistani assets. So, what is the curriculum of their madrassas?
SG: Yeah, it’s the same. It’s the same.
AS: Yeah, of course, you know. You think an Afghan character is a solid rock character, and he will not be, let us speak metaphorically he will not be influenced by any factor, because he’s an Afghan, that is simplifying. An Afghan can be a communist, he could be a democrat, he could be a Taliban, he could be a radical. He could be Taliban, you know, anything.
SG: He can be a very good cricketer that I know.
AS: Exactly. We understand the pragmatism of engagement, but engagement with the Taliban should not be viewed as a continuation of the last 70 years or last thousand years before the advent of the Taliban. This is a very unnatural episode of our history.
ISI, PAKISTAN ARMY AND THE ‘MISSING WEAPONS’
SG: So, Amrullah you are a security and intelligence czar at a very young age. You’re still 52, in the Indian bureaucratic system you will not even be an additional secretary. At a very young age, you became the head of NDS, and you’ve seen the ISI closely. You’ve locked horns with them. They’ve obviously played a part in many attempts on your life, serial attempts on your life. You’ve lost three siblings, two brothers and a sister. So, you’ve seen all of that from close up, what do you think the ISI is thinking now? And what do you think the Pakistani establishment is thinking now, vis a vis India?
AS: Number one, I have not engaged with ISI since 2010 because ISI has a habit, and it is part of their profession.
They [Pakistan] think that the Afghans out of power they become weak, vulnerable and easy to exploit.
So, they tried, after 2001 they thought I was in the same category. I was easy to exploit, easy to approach. Or they could, you know, exploit this security situation I was surrounded in, or, etc., etc., I have not engaged with ISI. My last engagement with ISI was a couple of months before I resigned from my position, and my last engagement with ISI was when General Bajwa and General Hameed came to Kabul and we had a meeting with them when I was vice president. What do I want to say to you? I have dealt with ISI only from a position of strength. I have never sat across the table with ISI about regrets, pasts, mistakes, etc. That’s one.
Number two. They have a lot of complaints about me and I regret none of it. Absolutely none of it. The statements I have made about them, the disclosures I have made about them, the embarrassments I have caused for them and the international fora. The interviews I have given about them and I have defeated them in several public debates. I regret none of them. They do not regret what they have done to my country, to my family, to myself.
SG: They might regret seeing all those assassination attempts against you failed.
AS: That’s right. I know they regret that, so I have no regrets. You know that they are now in a stronger position, etc. I do not regret anything. That’s one. Number two, what hurt me a lot during the days and the time that we had the opportunity to engage with them, they never understood really, despite having massive engagement with Afghan people, really, really massive engagement with Afghan people. You know, there was a time there would be a total number of people crossing the border between the two countries would be 200,000 people per day. Despite all that experience and opportunity to learn, they never understood and analyzed our persona, our psyche, as a nation, as individuals.
So, every time in our bilateral discussions, every time they [Pakistan] brought India as an agenda, it hurt me.
It hurt me because I thought, you know, as if I don’t exist and I’m here to discuss a third country. And it hardened and hardened and hardened my position. And it hardened my position to the extent that I called on India to enter into an alliance, not the other way around. Because they disrespected our independence, they disrespected our spirit, they disrespected our psyche and aspirations. So, they are an India-centric system, when it comes to their philosophy of their existence, philosophy of their creation, and philosophy of their army as the largest, most powerful political party in Pakistan.
SG: That’s the Pakistani Army.
AS: Pakistani army is the most powerful political party in Pakistan.
SG: What are they thinking about India? Because they see India moving ahead. They see Pakistan falling behind. They see the gap increasing. They see Pakistan’s geopolitical importance having come down. You know, how much intellectual ability, or how limited intellectual ability they might have, depending on how you see this. So, you know their minds. What are they thinking?
AS: First of all, if you read the, you know, if you read the internal, the domestic opinion in Pakistan. It’s not what you say, it’s not exactly what you say. What you say is the truth. But Pakistan does not influence the minds of Pakistanis with the truth. They manipulate the truth; they manipulate the facts. So, they are thinking that Pakistan has the attempt to rise. I believe that the geopolitics and big power rivalry will once again, give them a relevance to be a partner of one power or another power, and you know, to fasten their quest for parity with India.
They [Pakistan] are clearly seeing in Bangladesh the collapse of a pro-India system.
They clearly see India has lost Afghanistan’s friendship. They are, you know, they are not necessarily currently sharing your view or my view, that they have lagged so much behind, that’s not the case.
But of course, there is a very wise minority in Pakistan. This wise minority is not necessarily in academia only. They are in academia. They are in the sphere of culture. They are in the economy, who are seeing their country heading towards a dead end, and they are seeing their country stuck in a stalemate, and with this approach, nowhere to rise back, let alone be in the quest for parity with India.
But here is what I believe. I believe that Imran Khan was an invention to create a different path for Pakistan, and that invention failed.
Pakistan is back in a square one which was created in the 80s, with the Nawaz family back in power.
There’s nothing new about them. They have suffered so much at the hands of the army that they will not offend them again.
So, there’s nothing new. In Pakistan, there is no Erdogan factor in Pakistan. There is no Modi factor in Pakistan, there is no Trump factor in Pakistan. There is no Putin factor in Pakistan. Pakistan is basically using its recycled politicians, and it’s using their recycled policies which is not rescuing it from the situation.
SG: How long before they think that to get attention again, somebody might think of a 26/11 kind of spectacular, quote unquote, thing in India?
AS: You know as a person with an intelligence background, I have to provide hard evidence. I share the speculation. I share being alert, the sense of being alert, but at this moment of time, for various reasons, I don’t have hard evidence on my hand.
SG: But just reading their minds, you think they’ll be tempted, or you think they’ll be tempted to buy peace and quiet for some time, until the time is right?
AS: From the statements that I read from there, from persons in power there, definitely they are not in favor of going quiet. No.
SG: What happens to these weapons which have supposedly disappeared from the Taliban, and how many are those?
AS: I am trying to trace them. I have the list. I have the list I’m working to find out. You know, were they smuggled out piece by piece or container by container. I’m trying to find out. It’s that many weapons.
SG: How many are missing?
AS: 70,000.
SG: 70,000 will be American weapons?
AS: It’s mixed, but mostly American.
SG: Your suspicion would be that mostly the Pakistanis have them?
AS: Which other borders are porous?
SG: So, the Pakistani Pakistanis can use them?
AS: As I said, I’m trying to find out what happened to those weapons. These are the 70,000 officially lost weapons. How many are unofficially lost?
AMRULLAH SALEH’S INCOMPLETE MISSION
SG: Amrullah, you are a young man. What’s your day like? What are you working on? What’s it that gets you in the gut, and what’s it that drives you and what is it that you’re looking forward to?
AS: You see my situation has changed but my aim has not. My aim is that we have a pluralistic Afghanistan. We have an Afghanistan which is owned by all peoples of Afghanistan. It’s not Taliban Afghanistan. We have to have an Afghanistan where diversity is respected.
I am not advocating for a secular Afghanistan, but I am against the clerical system which the Taliban have imposed.
I see myself as a, you know, as one dot in the history of our country. It is not easy, after all this happened, to do what I do, what I say, but I’m a believer, and I’m a very deep believer. I believe in the Almighty and Allah, and if I’m still struggling, yes, I have the skills, yes, I have the experience. Yes, I have this and that, but also, I am kept alive for a mission, and the mission is not accomplished despite the displeasure and disappointment of the enemies, including, as you said in the circles in Pakistan.
I communicate with many thousands in Afghanistan through a system which I have created in the diaspora and also inside the country. We have infiltrated the Taliban system. We publish examples of our infiltration. Once in a while, we put it on our website. And there’s so much to learn, both from history and what’s going to be available in the future, or right now. I have age. I am in good health. I have energy. I have the networks. I’m disturbing the Taliban. I have infiltrated their system and I enjoy causing grief to them. I believe in their toppling.
SG: Do you worry about yourself, your safety? Given the kind of close shaves that you’ve had?
AS: I’m a believer. I believe in the Almighty. I believe in Allah. I think the reason I am alive is because my mission is not completed. So, no, I don’t worry.
SG: I think that’s wonderful. Amrullah, you have other things to do. What exactly did you say your age was, because I read something on the internet. What exactly is your age now?
AS: I was born 15 October 1972.
SG: So, you’re almost exactly 52-years-old now.
AS: Yes. That’s my exact date of birth.
SG: That’s right.
