The fragmentation of resistance in Afghanistan

It’s been five years since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, and once again the country’s exiled media (Opens in new window) are brimming with resistance.

Armed fronts announce attacks from Badakhshan to Helmand, opposition outlets trumpet battlefield body counts, and Western advocates (Opens in new window) celebrate an expanding cast of commanders and militias as evidence that Taliban rule is, finally, beginning to crack.

Perhaps. But it is getting hard to see the wood for the trees.

Afghanistan does not have an armed resistance so much as a collection of armed groups, operating separately under ambitious leaders with different constituencies, patrons and political ambitions.

That fragmentation mirrors the Afghan opposition (Opens in new window) abroad: plenty of organisations and aspiring leaders, with no common command, coherent political program, or agreement on who should govern if Taliban rule ends.

That disunity is helping keep the Taliban secure. No resistance movement controls territory, and the recent uptick in attacks falls far short of a sustained national insurgency.

What happens if some of these groups begin to take – and hold – territory?

“There are a dozen fronts, which makes things difficult to coordinate between them,” a former Afghan general with men operating inside the country told me. “My fear is they will start fighting each other.”

The divisions are stark. The Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) is led by General Yasin Zia, a former Afghan Army chief, deputy defence minister and deputy head of the national intelligence agency, who also served as governor of Takhar province. He has cultivated a reputation for seriousness rather than political theatre. He has used his years in exile to develop a detailed political manifesto (Opens in new window) addressing the structure of a post-Taliban state. Whatever the prospects of implementing it, Zia at least has an answer to the question that dogs much of the opposition: what comes after the Taliban?

AFF fighters have concentrated much of their recent activity (Opens in new window) in the north and northeast, including Badakhshan, where clashes around Zebak district in July lasted several days – unusual in a resistance campaign often characterised by hit-and-run attacks. AFF political adviser Daoud Naji said the war against the Taliban has entered a “new phase (Opens in new window)” and noted the Taliban had acknowledged the fighting. The two sides predictably differed on outcomes.

The National Resistance Front of Ahmad Massoud, son of the famous anti-Soviet commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, is the best-known armed opposition movement and draws heavily on the political symbolism and networks of the old Northern Alliance. The NRF regularly claims (Opens in new window) attacks across northern Afghanistan and Kabul. It operates apart from the AFF.

Then there is Sami Sadat, the cigar-smoking former commander of Afghanistan’s special forces, who leads the Afghanistan United Front from exile. Sadat presents himself as a national leader-in-waiting, promising (Opens in new window) to “take back Afghanistan” and restore constitutional government. His organisation advertises political, civil and military wings, and a leadership drawn from former generals, intelligence officers and politicians. It does not provide a bridge between the disparate armed fronts.

A plethora of smaller groups are popping up under different banners across the country. Some appear to be little more than a handful of armed men under local command; others possibly tribal networks spanning several provinces. Claims of attacks stretch from Badakhshan and Takhar in the north, through Kabul and into the Pashtun south.

Numbers and geographic proliferation should not be misconstrued as military strength or cohesion. Small, scattered attacks might expose weaknesses in Taliban control but they also tell the Taliban where their weaknesses lie, allowing the regime to reinforce local security and identify threats before they become serious.

There is no obvious external patron capable of uniting these groups into a cohesive anti-Taliban fighting force. The anti-Soviet mujahideen, by comparison, had Pakistan, the United States, Saudi Arabia and others supplying money and weapons.

Today’s anti-Taliban groups have sympathisers abroad and might find new opportunities as relations between the Taliban and their former patrons in Islamabad continue to deteriorate. So far there is no apparent pipeline of sustained foreign military or financial support.

This could change, as could the military balance. But an influx of money and weapons would immediately raise the question: Who gets them?

The men leading Afghanistan’s resistance fronts are not just military commanders; they are prospective political leaders, with their own ideas about how the country should be ruled, and by whom.

Five years of exile have not produced a credible, unified political opposition.

Afghanistan has seen this movie before. The Taliban emerged from a protracted civil war fought by powerful men, each convinced he should lead the country. In Kabul alone, an estimated 25,000 (Opens in new window)people were killed as rival warlords fired rockets and artillery across frontlines sometimes separated by the width of a street.

Today’s armed groups lack the firepower and the manpower of the strongmen of the 1990s, many of whom are living in Europe or the United States with retinues and dreams of a triumphal return.

For now, the divisions among the Taliban’s enemies are helping protect the regime. If that changes, Afghanistan’s resistance fronts might find that overthrowing their common enemy was only the beginning. The hardest part might be deciding who among them should inherit the state.