If Russia does not support the anti-Taliban resistance, it will again lose the "Great Game" in Afghanistan and the region as a whole.
Author: Andrey Serenko, Head of the Center for the Study of Afghan Policy (Russia)
Published in “Sovershenno Secretno” ("Top Secret")
Russia has stepped up informal contacts with various Afghan resistance groups. Information about this comes from sources associated with the armed groups of the Afghan opposition. It is curious that this is happening right now, two years after the Taliban regime* (the terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) came to power in Afghanistan, with which Moscow tried to build constructive relations, though avoiding official recognition of the Taliban junta as the legitimate Afghan government. Now it seems that Russia's stake in cooperation with the Taliban has ceased to be uncontested.
As it became known, at the very beginning of August, one of the leaders of the Afghan Freedom Front (AFF), an armed group of the Afghan opposition, commanded by General Mohammad Zia Yassin, visited Moscow. The AFF spokesman spent a week in the Russian capital, where he said he met with some influential interlocutors close to the Kremlin.
In the second half of August, an unofficial visit to Moscow is expected of the leaders of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), another group of the armed Afghan opposition, whose political leader is 35-year-old Ahmad Masood, son of the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud - Panjshir Lion. According to sources close to the leadership of the NRFA, Ahmad Masud himself, as well as his associate, the former chief of Afghan intelligence Amrullah Saleh, who also held the post of first vice president of Afghanistan until August 2021, plan to arrive in the Russian capital in August.
The appearance of representatives of the armed Afghan opposition in Moscow can be regarded as an adjustment of the Russian strategy towards Afghanistan. Obviously, the leadership of the Russian Federation is beginning to seriously reconsider its attitude towards the dictatorship of the Taliban and their opponents, who are ready to fight the Taliban * and other terrorist organizations that have settled on Afghan soil with weapons in their hands. In this regard, it is important to know what the Afghan resistance is, what goals it is fighting for, and on whose support it relies and counts.
PANJSHER POLE OF RESISTANCE
The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA) is today the most well-known group of the Afghan armed opposition. The official birthday of the NRFA is August 15, 2021 - it was on this day that the Taliban gangs entered Kabul, overthrowing the republican regime of the last Afghan president Ashraf Ghani by force. Ghani himself and his entourage left the capital by helicopter, then went into exile in the UAE. Their example was followed by most of the Afghan political elite, veterans of Afghan politics. Unexpected stubbornness and refusal to surrender to the mercy of the victorious terrorists were shown by 33-year-old Ahmad Masud, who moved to his native province of Panjshir and announced the beginning of a new popular resistance to the Taliban and the creation of the FNSA. Masud was joined by some of his countrymen (in particular, Amrullah Saleh), most of whom fought against the Taliban * back in the 90s of the last century under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, father of the founder of the NRFA.
The Taliban, who took control of the entire country, quickly assessed the threat from the son of the Panjshir Lion. Therefore, they first sent envoys to Panjshir, offering Ahmad Massoud to recognize the power of the "furious mullahs" in exchange for receiving a ministerial post in the Taliban* government. When Ahmad Massoud refused, several thousand Taliban fighters, as well as Pakistani special forces, were transferred to Panjshir. Their goal was to destroy the newly proclaimed National Resistance Front of Afghanistan and Ahmad Massoud himself. Unfortunately, there were traitors among the Panjshir Mujahideen who helped the Taliban capture most of the province, which forced Ahmad Massoud to leave his homeland and move to neighboring Tajikistan. There today is the residence of Masoud and the political headquarters of the NRFA.
“In Panjshir and Andarab district of Baghlan province, there are now up to 5,000 NRFA fighters, who are divided into about 700 combat cells with an average of 3-5 people,” say sources in the NRFA. “They report on the ground to field commanders, the main of which is 36-year-old General Khalid Amiri. This is a former officer of the Afghan special forces, who actually leads the combat wing of the FNSA inside Afghanistan. The Taliban pulled up to 30,000 fighters to Panjshir in order to block the fighters of General Amiri and prevent them from leaving high-altitude shelters for operational space. Nevertheless, the NRFA is expanding its area of activity today. In July 2023, the NRFA fighters carried out about 13 actions related to the attack on individual Taliban, militant groups, posts, and mobile patrols of the Taliban *. In fact, the attacks of the NRFA soldiers were carried out every other day, not only in Panjshir and Baghlan but also in Takhar, Kapis, Parvan, Nangarhar, and other provinces of the country.
Ahmad Masoud, in addition to Dushanbe, regularly visits Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, according to sources familiar with the situation: “In Iran, Masoud meets with former Afghan officers who left their homeland after the Taliban came to power, but who are ready to return to Afghanistan and join the resistance forces. Since June, many former Afghan security officials began to return illegally to Afghanistan, which gave observers grounds to talk about the beginning of a new stage in the development of the Federal Tax Service. There is reason to expect further growth in the military activity of the Massoud Front, which is trying to enlist the support of local leaders in other northern Afghan provinces, primarily in Badakhshan.”
“Speaking about the goals of his struggle, Ahmad Massoud repeatedly emphasized that the main task of the NRFA is the liberation of all of Afghanistan from the dictatorship of the Taliban terrorists,” said Sultan Ahmed Shoaib, a political activist of the NRFA, in an interview with Sovershenno Sekretno. - Massoud himself has repeatedly suggested to the leaders of the Taliban * to give the Afghan people the right to decide what kind of power, what kind of political system they want to see in their country, holding general elections under the control of the UN for this purpose. The Taliban reject these proposals of the NRFA leader, refusing to share the seized power with anyone. Therefore, the NRFA continues the armed struggle.”
IDEOLOGY OF THE NRFA: DEVELOPMENT OF A HEALTHY CIVIL SOCIETY
According to Alam Izedyar, a member of the NRFA political bureau, “The ideology of resistance is to liberate the country from the Taliban, gain independence, create a state structure chosen by the people so that representatives of all nationalities can participate in politics and make decisions for the fate of their own and the country, and also for the establishment of a healthy civil society”: “Looking at the historical experience and political regimes of our country, we prefer decentralized power, that is, parliamentary, in which the people will be able to participate in government decision-making both horizontally and vertically so that the bitter experience will not be repeated previous years. All our citizens, regardless of gender, religion, and age, should have the right to education, medical care, work, and participation in the civil life of society. Today we are all deprived of these rights and freedoms. Our country is in complete isolation from the countries of the region and the world, which harms it in all areas today and in the future. To save our homeland from isolation and to guarantee that our country will no longer pose any threats in the form of drug trafficking, terrorists, or illegal arms trafficking is also one of the goals of the resistance.”
“The resistance in Afghanistan today is a struggle not only against the Taliban terrorists but also against all terrorist groups that operate under their auspices, all together they threaten the stability and security of the region and the world,” Alam Izedyar emphasized in an exclusive interview with Sovershenno Sekretno. – Resistance is widespread and operates in three directions: armed, civilian, and political. In my opinion, all of our people participate in the resistance in one way or another, and all live under the pressure of the Taliban terrorists and their threats. Millions of people have fled the country and many more are waiting for such an opportunity, which is an indicator of the hatred and disgust of the population towards the Taliban terrorists. The holding of rallies and other civil protests against the Taliban in various occupied territories and abroad prove the unwillingness of the people of Afghanistan to put up with the occupiers. A particularly striking indicator of the struggle is the historical opposition to the Taliban terrorists by Afghan girls and women, who cannot be broken in this struggle either by threats or reprisals.
“The armed struggle launched by the FNSA immediately after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban terrorists and the subsequent civil protests and political statements became a source of hope and support for the resistance from various walks of life from different parts of the country and the world,” Alam Izedyar notes. “The political resistance has already achieved quite a few achievements. So, today our neighbors, the region, and the world as a whole have radically changed their view of the Taliban terrorists, they have realized the essence and the threat posed by them, they no longer believe in the Taliban's fairy tales* about the possibility of changing it.
Sources in the NRFA note the presence of a “pro-Russian party” in Ahmad Masud’s entourage: “We are talking about Afghan politicians who are not so much emotionally sympathetic to Russia as they really, pragmatically assess the situation and understand that without taking into account the “Russian factor” and Moscow’s interests, it is impossible to resolve the Afghan crisis impossible. These politicians are acutely aware of the betrayal of Afghanistan by the United States and NATO, which left the country at the mercy of the Taliban* terrorists. Therefore, they are afraid to deal with the Americans, but, on the contrary, they are counting on the support of Russia.”
“The Russian Federation today has weight in the region and the world, and in relation to our country is of particular importance,” says Alam Izedyar. - It is impossible to get out of the situation in Afghanistan without the participation of Russia. Moscow should no longer be indifferent to what is happening in our country. Russia, unfortunately, at first believed in the lies of the Taliban * and lobbied for some of its issues, was optimistic about the Taliban. But I believe that now Russia, as well as Iran, have already learned the Taliban's lesson and understood the whole truth about the Taliban*".
RESISTANCE OF THE AFGHAN SPECIAL FORCE
The Afghan Freedom Front (AFF) of General Zia Yassin is also called the “Special Forces Resistance” by its representatives. “Most of the fighters and potential supporters of the FSA are former Afghan commandos,” one of the top political functionaries of the AFF, a former high-ranking official of the apparatus of the National Security Council of Afghanistan, told Sovershenno Sekretno. – We estimate the combat reserve of the AFF at 50,000 people. Among them are those who are already opposing the Taliban inside Afghanistan with weapons in their hands, as well as those who expressed their readiness to join our struggle and return to their homeland from exile at the first signal. The leadership of the AFF maintains constant two-way communication with these people, and these are thousands of soldiers and officers.
The Afghan Freedom Front began operating on February 4, 2022, in the provinces of Takhar, Kunduz, and Badakhshan. Then his fighters began to attack the Taliban in the provinces of Kandahar, Nangarhar, and Kabul. Until recently, the AFF fighters were the only ones who carried out daring actions against the Taliban militants * in the capital of Afghanistan. The level of combat training of the AFF soldiers allows them to do without losses, successfully destroying both mobile and stationary posts and groups of the Taliban, and conducting “targeted eliminations” of specific Taliban commanders and functionaries * almost anywhere in Afghanistan.
“Zia Yassin’s soldiers are masters of urban guerrilla tactics, operating on the principle of “hit and run,” say experts from among the former officers of the Afghan intelligence services. - This allows the AFF to keep their fighters, to avoid casualties among them. AFF of Zia Yasin has a more extensive network of fighters and intelligence agents throughout the country, and not just in Northern Afghanistan, where the NRFA is active. In addition, the regional and ethnic emphasis in the AFF is less noticeable, which is in the NRFA of Masood, which is largely tied to the Panjshir region (Panjshir and Baghlan provinces). The NRFA in general largely depends on the "Panjshir factor". Unlike the NRFA, where Afghan Tajiks dominate, the AFF represents almost all ethnic groups in the country. Zia Yassin focuses primarily on the past service of the fighters in the special forces and other active combat units of the Afghan security forces, and not on their ethnic origin.
In fact, the NRFA and the AFF today successfully complement each other, independent external observers say: “Both fronts do not compete with each other, but, on the contrary, are looking for opportunities for political cooperation and combat interaction. There is information that Ahmad Massoud and Zia Yassin, as well as their combat commanders inside Afghanistan, have already held several meetings, the purpose of which is to increase the level of coordination in the fight against the Taliban, as well as with the Afghan branch of the Islamic State ** (IS/ISIS, a terrorist organization is banned in the Russian Federation)".
WHY DOES MOSCOW NEED TO BE FRIENDS WITH THE RESISTANCE
Despite the attempts of the Taliban * to destroy the Afghan resistance, it not only continues to exist but is gaining strength. One of the signs of this is the growing interest in the NRFA and AFF from different countries. If, until recently, only Dushanbe and Tehran maintained close contact with the NRFA of Ahmad Masoud, now the leader of the NRFA is a welcome guest at various international venues in France, Austria, and Turkey... British experts, analyzing the results of the two-year rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, are now openly recommending to their government start "active support" of the Afghan opposition. We are talking, first of all, about the NRFA of Ahmad Massoud, as well as the AFF of Zia Yassin and the combat group of General Sami Sadat, another Afghan general who in the past commanded an army special forces corps, who announced his intention to return to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.
The strengthening of the Afghan resistance is unnerving American diplomats and the military, who are still betting on the "gradual re-education" of the Taliban and therefore refuse to support the armed Afghan opposition. According to an informed source in the NRFA, some time ago, the Americans thwarted an attempt at agreements between Ahmad Masud and Salahuddin Rabbani, one of the leaders of the Badakhshan Tajiks: “As soon as the United States became aware that Massoud and Rabbani could make an agreement, they immediately put pressure on Rabbani and forced him to refuse from the deal. The Americans have made it clear that they do not want to strengthen the positions of the NRFA in Afghanistan.”
Obviously, Russian interests do not coincide with those of Washington. And, probably, this is precisely what can explain the appearance in Moscow in August 2023 of high-ranking representatives and leaders of the two main Afghan Resistance Fronts. Yes, so far these talks seem to be taking place informally, without immersing the public in unnecessary details. However, according to independent outside observers, Moscow's cooperation with the main Afghan armed resistance groups is inevitable. And not only because Russia should not put all its political eggs in one (Taliban) basket in Afghanistan. Moreover, the Taliban friends do not hide their priority interest in friendship with the United States and other countries, to put it mildly, that have no sympathy for the Russian Federation. It's just that if Russia does not become a great friend of the NRFA, the AFF, and other resistance groups in Afghanistan, then Moscow's enemies may become their friends. And then the Kremlin will once again have a broken trough in the "Big Game" in Afghanistan and the region as a whole.
* The Taliban is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.
** "Islamic State" (IS/ISIL) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.
