The new polarization within the Taliban, alongside the growing prominence of South Asia’s two hegemons, India and Pakistan, together with Iran, Russia, and the Central Asian states, marks yet another chapter in a bloody rivalry with destructive consequences. As has been observed over the past five years, Pakistan, following the Taliban’s return to power, sought to use its influence and ties with the group to secure its security and political interests. After roughly two years, however, India also began drawing part of the Taliban into its own circle of political and security engagement.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch separatists stand on one side of this security equation, working against Pakistan’s key security interests. On the other side, radical Central Asian groups and Jundallah, linked to the Islamic State (ISIS), have entrenched themselves against the interests of Iran, Russia, China, and the Central Asian states. Yet the recent rift between the Durrani and Ghilzai wings of the Taliban, or more precisely between the Kandahar circle and the Haqqani network, has further exposed the extent of intelligence infiltration and the intensity of this rivalry within Afghanistan’s fluid, multilayered geopolitical environment. The rivalry’s main objective, despite efforts to contain security threats, is essentially an exercise in threat balancing.
Five years after seizing power, the Taliban, operating within a tense internal environment, is now moving along two separate paths. These two diverging trajectories have made the footprint of rival powers in Afghanistan’s complex and opaque security equation more visible than before, further inflaming the multilayered environment that remains suspended amid intense security, intelligence, and geopolitical competition.
Although official data and documents point to escalating threats on the ground in Afghanistan, a result of intense security competition and diverging views among involved countries regarding the country, deciphering the rules of the game and the hidden objectives of the key actors remains extremely difficult. Still, available evidence and a series of recent analyses suggest that the Taliban’s two poles, the Kandahar circle and the Haqqani network, are increasingly diverging from one another due to existing disputes. This divide has grown stronger within the broader context of security rivalry and conflicting interests among regional and neighboring powers, prompting each faction to seek political and security backing from different powers.
Given the Taliban’s recent tensions with Pakistan, Islamabad’s repeated contacts with Taliban opponents, and its attempts to shift the current balance of power in its favor, the Haqqanis have initiated new contacts aimed at securing a meaningful relationship, drawing on the network’s intact capacity and Islamabad’s support. Given its long-standing ties with Pakistan, the Haqqani network views the current conditions as favorable for shifting the balance of power within the Taliban’s internal structure, and for preserving part of its own capacity should the current situation collapse and give way to a new government composed of opposition figures and part of the Taliban.
According to published reports, the Haqqanis have also proposed a new set of terms to Islamabad as an incentive to secure Pakistan’s support. These proposals reportedly include establishing a border commission to address recent tensions over the Durand Line, relocating TTP fighters to the north of the country, providing security guarantees that they will not operate against Pakistan, and maintaining and expanding trade routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, independent of the political situation.
This proposal, however, falls short of fully satisfying Pakistan, which seeks complete control over the situation in Afghanistan and wants to use a strategic asset such as the Taliban to build a wall against any security game targeting India in Afghanistan. Still, the central issue at stake is the Haqqanis’ effort to find a backer capable of supporting the network’s survival and preservation against the Kandahar circle in any future power-sharing arrangement.
On the other hand, the Kandahar circle’s effort to counterbalance the Haqqanis has pushed this faction of the Taliban closer to India. It is reported that Abdul Haq Wasiq, head of Taliban intelligence and a trusted figure within the Kandahar circle, has traveled to India in an effort to secure Indian support in this ongoing contest against Pakistan, or at least against the Haqqanis. As a result, Pakistan is backing the Haqqanis and India is backing the Kandahar circle in a new security and intelligence contest.
In terms of international backing, however, these two longstanding South Asian rivals both enjoy support from the United States and the United Kingdom. Both countries continue to rely on external backing in security calculations to advance this old game in a new form. Regionally as well, India, through close contact with Israel and Russia, and Pakistan, backed by Arab states and China, are once again shaping the balance of this contest.
Given the new configuration of power in its rivalry with India, Islamabad has also launched efforts to disrupt the current status quo against the Kandahar circle, which enjoys Indian support, is in contact with Iran, and has also been recognized by Russia. Published reports indicate that Islamabad’s new security and military activities, in addition to supporting and mobilizing part of the anti-Taliban forces, are also focused on establishing direct ties with American officials and Blackwater, in an effort to manage the equation in its favor this time through Blackwater.
There is, admittedly, doubt and uncertainty about Blackwater’s direct presence in Afghanistan and its military involvement, but the discussion around training, the use of new operational and military technologies, and the management of this project continues to move forward in close coordination with Pakistan. The United States, in close understanding with the British, is also closely monitoring developments in Afghanistan and the northeast, and maintains close cooperation with Pakistan.
Given the current situation, Pakistan has taken up various military and intelligence options to counter India’s influence and its alignment with the Kandahar circle. Having harbored concerns for decades over direct Indian influence and the fear of being encircled by New Delhi and a New Delhi-friendly regime in Kabul, Pakistan is determined, at any cost, to use every available and active tool and option to build a targeted front against New Delhi.
New Delhi, for its part, given the divisions within the Taliban, particularly between the Kandahar circle and the Haqqanis, is making the necessary efforts to counterbalance Pakistan and its plans. India, however, is proceeding with great caution to avoid positioning itself against Western plans, avoid creating obstacles, and avoid provoking Western sensitivities. On one hand, it seeks to carefully account for Western and American interests in the region, while on the other, any security vacuum in northeastern Afghanistan would pose a fresh challenge for China.
This same situation offers New Delhi an opportunity to indirectly compete with its other rival, China, on the Afghan stage. This unwritten security understanding between India and the West will move forward as a kind of agreement to create overlap between the two sides’ interests, an overlap that, should the Taliban’s internal rifts persist and regional rivalries intensify, could usher the power configuration in Afghanistan into a new phase.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis article here:
