Since Taliban split after the announcement of death of Taliban founder Mullah Muhammad Omar last year, the main faction led by Mullah Mansoor has been struggling to boost influence and powers of the new leadership of the group. Since then, the faction led by Mullah Mansoor has been waging a bitter war against rival groups along with reaching out to senior militants and other influential members of the group to garner support for the new leader. Since the formation of the rival group led Mullah Rasool, the movement is no longer considered as unified insurgency. It was expected that the split would lead to inevitable gradual attritions from the Taliban that eventually would debilitate the insurgent group into some sort of disintegration.
The split of the Taliban marked a new chapter in Taliban’s history. The once unified Taliban movement has since undergone profound changes since it was appeared that the former leader and founder of the group had actually died some years ago. Surprisingly, the Taliban have not only been weakened but grown stronger and fiercer in their insurgency against the government. It is rather ironic that the movement that is considered as disunited after the recent split within the group has grown more powerful in waging the insurgency against the Afghan government. Despite the turmoil in Taliban leadership, the group has managed to expand the insurgency into more areas across the country. Given the current state of the Taliban leadership and war capabilities, a Western diplomat in Kabul has truly stated that “the Taliban leadership is fragile, but the movement is not”.
However, the ‘fragile’ leadership has also performing well in surviving the split within the group which was expected to result to disintegration of the movement. Mullah Mansoor faction has been battling on many fronts with rival groups such as another Taliban faction led by Mullah Rasool and the Islamic State group. Since the start of the infighting, the main Taliban group – as it leads vast majority of the Taliban – have had uncompleted victories in the turf war with rival groups in some eastern and southern provinces. The main group has crushed militants loyal to Mullah Rasool faction in many provinces including Zabul, Ghazni, Nimroz and some other southern provinces. While other groups such as Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have also been also allied with Mullah Rasool faction, the faction under Mansoor has had the upper hand in the infighting.
In the very initial days of announcement of Mansoor as successor to the Taliban founder, most of the Taliban leaders pledged allegiance to the new leader. Still, some high-profile figures of the Taliban leadership refused to accept his leadership, accusing him of betraying the movement by hiding the death of Mullah Omar. There have been immense efforts going within the Taliban and by some pro-Taliban independent clerics and tribal leaders to reconcile senior members of the Taliban with the main faction. The efforts have been paying off in many cases with senior militants rejoining the main group. According to media reports, the Taliban have been recently trying to bring about disgruntled members around Mansoor and establish a broader unity among the movement. And the efforts have been successful to large extent with increasing number of senior militants including Abdul Qayoum Zakir, a top military commander of the group, Mullah Hassan Rahmani, a member of Quetta Shura and many others joining Mullah Mansoor faction. This could be meant growing influence of the main Taliban faction and a reunification of the movement.
So the question hovering in mind is that what this would mean for the peace process. What will be the impacts of gradual reunification of the Taliban movement on the peace efforts? The Afghan government has always been cautious about the impacts of the Taliban split and the current infighting among the militants over the peace process. Many expect that a prolonged bitter infighting among the Taliban would provide the opportunity for the government to crash the militant groups militarily. This is while others were anxious about the Taliban split, worrying that it could further complicate the efforts to reach a peace settlement with various Taliban groups and end the long-lasting conflict in the country.
The four-nation initiative – comprised of Afghanistan, Pakistan, US and China – has now established a roadmap for negotiating peace with the Taliban. The four-nation coordination group now expects the Taliban to agree a date for first peace meeting. It is too early to predict the course and the successes and failures of the upcoming peace negotiations with the Taliban. The growing power of the main Taliban faction and the ongoing reunification efforts going on within the movement would present profound challenges for the peace process when it is at its early stages. Disregard of being weaker or stronger, the Taliban would anyway discuss demands such as withdrawal of foreign forces, establishment of Sharia system in the country and nullification of the Afghan constitution along with other political concessions such as power-sharing.
A stronger Taliban group negotiating peace with the Afghan government would demand more concessions in return for ceasefire and peace. This would make the peace efforts very difficult. It would fail the whole process. In this scenario, it would be easier for the government to discuss peace with weaker but various militant groups. This is because it would be possible to reconcile some factions by granting political concessions and confronting irreconcilable factions militarily. However, if there is a real possibility of making peace with all the Taliban groups particularly the main faction the government obviously would prefer to make peace with all or as many more militant groups as possible. Gen. John Campbell, NATO commander in Afghanistan, just warned the Taliban that they would not be allowed to come back to power in Afghanistan. The NATO commander stressed that the Taliban should accept the Afghan constitution and respect the achievements of the past fifteen years. The question will be the extremist groups agree a peace deal with these conditions. well, it is hard to answer now.