While New Chief Is Known To Do Pakistan's Bidding, His Deputy Is Close To ISI
The new Taliban has `Made in Pakistan' stamp all over it. And it's not merely the new leader Akhtar Mansour who has been doing Pakistan's bidding for years and received Masood Azhar, released during the 1999 Kandahar hijack. The new deputy leader of the Taliban is Sirajuddin Haqqani, best known in India for his role in bombing the Indian embassy in Kabul in July , 2008, which resulted in the deaths of 58 people, including Indian diplomat V V Rao and the military attache.
Sirajuddin also led the attack on Serena Hotel as well as an attempt against former Afghan president Hamid Karzai.It is believed Haqqani will be given charge of operations of the Taliban, which would mean Indian interests in Afghanistan would be particularly vulnerable.
Haqqani, who along with his father Jalaluddin Haqqani, became the face of the Taliban resurgence by heading the brutally violent Haqqani network operating out of North Waziristan in Pakistan, has also been known to be very close to the ISI over the years. It was only in 2012 that the US notified the Haqqani network as a “foreign terrorist organization“. With Haqqani part of the Taliban top leadership now, his presence at any future peace talks with the Afghan government may well be with US and Chinese representatives in the room, a potentially piquant situation.
Mullah Mansour, who it is said, has been handpicked by the ISI, is believed to be slowly consolidating his position, even though Mullah Yaqub (Mullah Omar's son) and his brother, Abdul Manan, are opposed to him. Rahimullah Yousafzai, a well-known Taliban watcher, said Mansour has received support from a longtime opponent, Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, who, it is said, was ousted by Mansour. In addition, a letter, apparently by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who may have also died, surfaced supporting Mansour. In another little noticed development, Ta liban's chief cleric, Maulana Abdul Hakim, was arrested by the Pakistanis on July 23.
Sources believe this was intended to silence opposing voices when the change in leadership was announced.
In fact, Taliban leaders originally close to Mullah Omar are nowhere in the picture. Mullah Baradar was taken into custody in 2010 when he wasted opportunity to open talks with Karzai. He was released in 2013, but has remained out of sight.
Obaidullah, another Omar acolyte, was killed while Muktasim Agha Jan moved to Turkey . That left Mansour who was put in charge of operations three years ago. Mansour's position may even be used to bring in line another Taliban leader Tayyeb Agha, who leads their Doha office and has been at the forefront of the peace talks. Mansour was primed by Pakistan to be the one to push peace talks. While India does not really figure in the big power struggle taking place in Pakistan-Afghanistan, what does the leadership change mean for the players concerned? Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Monday he would not talk to a “parallel“ outfit, meaning the Taliban.Mansour, in his first message, said he would go for peace talks along with “jihad“, which is seen as a sign to the apparent warring factions that he would continue the fight against US.
Is Pakistan a credible interlocutor? Nobody is willing to bet on that. In 2010, Pakistan led the US on a wild goose promising to meet senior Taliban commander Mansour -the man concerned turned out to be a grocer.
Pakistan has a long history of being able to manage different extremist groups simultaneously , but the real question is whether they want the peace process to continue in its present form, with China and the US looking on, or whether they are looking at a different set-up.For the Afghan government under Ashraf Ghani, it will be more difficult to rely on Pakistan as a credible interlocutor.Pakistan, because of its continuing control over the Taliban will play the US and China.
India will remain a big target for this new Taliban. If anybody in India had even thought that they could reach out to the Taliban, that's not going to happen anymore, with the new leadership in the grip of the ISI.
