Why is Hamid Karzai moving to meet Sirajuddin Haqqani?
Author: Sameer Bedrud, analyst (Afghanistan)
Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, visited Sirajuddin Haqqani under the pretext of the Eid al-Fitr holiday. This was not Mr. Karzai’s first meeting with Haqqani; previously, he had also visited the Haqqani family residence to attend a memorial ceremony for Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani, the brother of Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The meeting and the former president’s efforts to move closer to the Haqqani network raise several questions, the answers to which may help clarify the future trajectory of Afghan politics. A key point is that Karzai had earlier, in a television interview, explicitly described the “Haqqani network” as a spy structure and agents of ISI.
Nevertheless, why is Karzai now seeking to improve his relations with the Haqqani network? Do these efforts indicate an attempt to bypass the Kandahar-based Taliban faction?
Karzai is a politician originating from the Kandahar region. His father, the late Abdul Ahad Khan Karzai, was one of the elders of the Popalzai tribe and was killed in Quetta (Pakistan) during the first Taliban regime. It is believed that this event led Karzai to distance himself from the Taliban and move closer to the anti-Taliban resistance. In this context, he traveled to territory controlled by the Islamic State of Afghanistan, where he met the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan’s national hero.
In 2001, following the fall of the Taliban regime by international forces and the United National Front, leadership of the interim administration was entrusted to Karzai, and he remained at the head of the republican system until 2014. However, during those years, intense fighting continued in the south of the country, particularly in the Kandahar region. Kandahar, as the center of Taliban power, never accepted Karzai as its “elder” (mashar). In the early years of his rule, he became the target of an assassination attempt in Kandahar—this was the first and strongest response from the Kandahar faction.
After that, Karzai could only rarely visit Kandahar and only under heavy security measures. The region, once again a hub of Taliban insurgency, viewed him as the leader of a system born out of hostility toward them. Despite increasingly criticizing the United States after the 2009 elections and sidelining, as much as possible, his political allies from the anti-Taliban camp, he was never able to establish himself as the “elder” of Greater Kandahar.
In 2021, at the time of the fall of the republic, Karzai, together with his family, went to the residence of Abdullah Abdullah. Reports suggest that he initially intended to seek refuge at the Iranian embassy in Kabul, but after speaking with Abdullah, he agreed to go to his home instead. His very presence there at the time reflected a lack of trust in Taliban security guarantees.
At the same time, Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani acted as an intermediary between the Taliban and remnants of the former republican authorities, providing a form of personal security guarantee for Karzai and several other former officials who had remained in Kabul.
At present, the Kandahar-based Taliban faction, led by Hibatullah Akhundzada, constitutes the core power of the Taliban regime. This Kandahar-led leadership has not only failed to achieve internal legitimacy but has also become increasingly isolated internationally.
In recent months, harsh punitive measures by Pakistan against both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban—accompanied by the tacit acquiescence of the international community and political forces opposed to the Taliban—have called into question the very survival of the regime. The organic and irreversible ties between the Taliban regime and the TTP make any restoration of relations between Pakistan and the regime virtually impossible. Modern Afghan history has repeatedly shown that hostility between the ruling regimes in Kabul and Pakistan has ultimately worked to Pakistan’s advantage.
Moreover, economic decline, the plundering of natural resources, arms and narcotics trafficking, and the Taliban regime’s defiance of the international order—recently described by the United States as a “hostage-taking regime”—are key indicators of its deterioration.
Against this backdrop, the Haqqani network, which played a significant role in the war against the republic but was sidelined after the Taliban’s return to power, has in recent years shown signs suggesting Sirajuddin Haqqani’s inclination toward reform within the Taliban system—even at the cost of bypassing the leadership of Hibatullah Akhundzada and engaging with the movement’s opponents. At one point, the situation even escalated to discussions of a possible coup against Hibatullah.
Hibatullah’s response was to curtail Sirajuddin Haqqani’s authority within the Ministry of Interior and to build a powerful military force in the Kandahar region loyal to him personally, to secure his position in the event of such a scenario.
In this context, Karzai’s efforts to draw closer to the Haqqani network become understandable. On the one hand, he has failed to secure a dominant position in the Kandahar region in the presence of the Kandahar-based Taliban. On the other hand, given his political experience, he views the decline of the Hibatullah-led regime as irreversible.
Thus, by maintaining and strengthening his ties with the Haqqanis, Karzai seeks to bypass the Kandahar faction and, after more than two decades, play a major political chess game in Kandahar to his advantage.
However, the challenges he faces are multidimensional. First and foremost, bypassing figures such as Hibatullah Akhundzada, Abdul Ghani Baradar, Yusuf Wafa, and Mullah Yaqoob, along with other key actors, will be крайне difficult for Karzai.
At the same time, mistrust from segments of domestic political forces, as well as his negative political legacy in relations with the West, make his chances of achieving a dominant position in the Kandahar region and returning to power uncertain and fraught with serious challenges.
