The Taliban Mafia
Shawn Snow
The recent selection of a new leader for a splinter group within the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Rasool Akhund, on November 2, 2015, highlighted the ever evolving conflict in Afghanistan. The fractious Taliban movement is a symptom of the changing economic and political dynamics within Afghanistan.
Once regarded as a monolithic entity during their brief rule from 1996-2001, the Taliban have begun to disintegrate into various warring factions, after the revelation of Mullah Mohammad Omar’s death two years ago.
Afghanistan’s current political landscape is eerily reminiscent of the war lord period that proceeded the 1979 Soviet invasion and subsequent destruction of the subsistence agricultural economy that dominated Afghanistan. The Taliban presented themselves as the answer to the chaotic war lord period, a single entity capable of uniting Afghan’s under a religious banner.
However, the Taliban have evolved since their overthrow during the 2001 U.S. lead invasion, and have slowly adapted themselves to the political landscape and ever changing battlefield. Once regarded as the saviors of Afghanistan’s sectarian and economic bloodshed, the Taliban have reorganized themselves into a criminal enterprise, taking advantage of the withdrawal of U.S forces and a weak central government in Kabul.
The Taliban’s current fighting season has sought to dominate Afghanistan’s black market economy, the smuggling of gems, timber, and opium. Northern Afghanistan, considered to be the most stable region of Afghanistan through much of the US led campaign from 2001-2014, has witnessed large scale attacks by Taliban militants, the fall of Kunduz, and the large seizure of land in Badakhshan province by insurgent forces.
Badakhshan province is home to much of Afghanistan’s gem and emerald wealth, and various smuggling networks that dominated Afghanistan’s black market economy after the Soviet withdrawal, making it a key strategic province. These smuggling networks were once controlled by Ahmed Shah Massoud, the famed commander of the Northern Alliance, who utilized the smuggling of gems and rubies from Badakhshan and Panjshir valley to finance his war against the Taliban.
It is no coincidence that the Taliban’s efforts this fighting season have been centered on strategic locations with valuable resources. Insurgents have launched massive coordinated attacks in Helmand, a center of poppy cultivation; Badakhshan, a region rich in lapis lazuli gems; Ghazni, the center of chromite and copper mining; and Kunar, the central location of much of Afghanistan’s timber industry.
Sources of income stemming from Afghanistan’s black market economy have facilitated the decentralization of the Taliban movement, and created an uneven distribution of funds across various provinces. In essence, various Taliban commanders have risen to become separate war lords, focusing less on driving the old religious ideology of the Taliban, and more on profiting from criminal enterprises.
The central government in Afghanistan appears complicit in these activities, as if the competing factions in Afghanistan see the writing on the wall and are attempting to jokey for control of strategic and valuable assets. Afghanistan’s new mining law, signed in 2014, highlights this changing political landscape. The new law has serious issues regarding transparency, as the participation and control of lucrative mining contracts amongst public servants are allowed to remain confidential, facilitating the control of mines by the Afghan Local Police and raising the prospect of future conflict between government-backed militias for control of resources.
Afghanistan is on the path to repeating history, as Russian foreign aid ended in Afghanistan, the country devolved into warlordism, fighting for control of Afghanistan’s lucrative resources and black market economy. As NATO and the U.S. withdraw from the region and reduce financial aid, key groups are already staking a claim on Afghanistan’s lucrative black market operations. War lords are once again rising, sometimes with complicit support of the U.S.