The Taliban fulfilled the plan to create a new army, but the level of professionalism of the armed forces created in Afghanistan is still in question
Author: Andrey Serenko, Director of the Analytical Center of the Russian Society of Political Scientists
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta
In 2022, the main task of the Taliban (an organization banned in the Russian Federation), which came to power in Kabul after the completion of the evacuation of the Western contingent in August 2021, was the creation of a new regular Islamic army in Afghanistan. About a year ago, at the very end of 2021, the Taliban created a special organizing committee from 20 of their influential functionaries to reform the army under the leadership of Defense Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqub, the son of the founder of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Members of the "Committee of 20" took up the development of the organizational structure of the Ministry of Defense and the military reform plan as a whole.
At the same time, in January 2022, the draft of the first state budget of the Taliban was prepared, which formed the financial base necessary for a major military reform: the Taliban directed 42% of all budget funds to the security bloc. Of these, almost 24% went to the Ministry of Defense, and the remaining 18% were taken by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network banned in the Russian Federation and the main rival of Mullah Yaqub in the struggle for influence within the Taliban government. The structure of budget spending left no doubt about the political priorities of the Taliban regime: for comparison, the “furious mullahs” allocated 2.1% of the budget for healthcare, 0.7% for transport and communications, 0.5% for energy, and 0.5% for social services.
Initially, the Taliban leaders announced plans to create a new Islamic army of one Lashkar (100 thousand people). By the way, in the era of the last Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Pakistan, the main political patron of the Taliban, insisted on such a total number of the entire power bloc of Afghanistan (army, interior ministry, security, and intelligence services). In Islamabad, they always wanted to have the weakest Afghan army in order to deprive Kabul of ambitions in terms of challenging the Durand Line (the border invented by the British first with India, and then with Pakistan, which was not recognized by any Afghan ruler). Already on January 2, 2022, the official representative of the Taliban Ministry of Defense, Enayatullah Kharezmi, announced the “completion of 80%” of the process of creating a new regular Islamic army in Afghanistan. That is, it was assumed that the "furious mullahs" had already recruited 80,000 soldiers and officers from the 100,000-strong Taliban army.
At the same time, the structure of the new Taliban army finally took shape: it was to consist of eight army corps stationed in Kabul and seven other large cities of the country (Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, etc.). The number of each corps was approved at 10-12 thousand people. The corps was commanded by Taliban Pashtuns from among the field commanders close to Mullah Yaqub. Badakhshan Tajik Qari Fasihuddin was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the new army, who, however, has almost no real influence on the management of the armed forces of the "furious mullahs". The new Taliban army has a suicide bombing unit.
In mid-February 2022, Mullah Yaqub simultaneously announced the creation of a new army and the adjustment of its initial strength - first to 110 thousand people, and then to 150 thousand (that is, one and a half Lashkar). At that time, according to the head of the Ministry of Defense, the first 10 thousand new soldiers from among the Taliban militants were trained, and 80 thousand volunteers also signed up for the army. Mullah Yaqub emphasized that 90% of the Taliban Ministry of Defense personnel were staffed from the times of the republic, according to him, the Taliban planned to partially mobilize former Afghan army officers who have combat experience and command and control experience.
The reason for the increase in the size of the Taliban army to 150 thousand people was the aggravation of the situation on the Durand Line, unexpected for external observers: starting from the winter of 2021–2022 and then throughout 2022, local clashes between the Taliban and Pakistani security forces. According to incomplete estimates, there are already at least a dozen such skirmishes, and we can expect their increase in the new 2023. Contrary to Islamabad's hopes, the Afghan Taliban turned out to be no less difficult neighbors than their Republican predecessors.
In April, the strength of the Taliban army reached 110 thousand bayonets, in May - 130 thousand, and in October - 150 thousand. Thus, the "furious mullahs" fulfilled their obligations regarding the reorganization of the Afghan army by the end of this year.
The military leadership of the Taliban is trying to form a system for training reservists through the creation of military-religious schools (madrasas), which train teenagers aged 7 to 14 years. These madrasahs are open in almost all 400 counties of the country, and several hundred thousand young people have been studying "jihad" in them for almost a year now. A significant part of military-religious schools is located in the regions of northern Afghanistan, adjacent to the borders of the former Soviet republics.
However, the level of professionalism and effectiveness of the new Taliban army remains in question. In any case, despite all efforts, the Taliban failed to eliminate two important problems for themselves in 2022 - the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA) of Ahmad Massoud and the Islamic State (ISIL) banned in the Russian Federation. The NRFA fighters have maintained the infrastructure of forceful counteraction to the Taliban in the provinces of Panjshir and Baghlan and intend to switch to active hostilities in the north of the country in the spring of 2023. According to various sources, the number of NRFA fighters is 2-4 thousand people. The number of the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, whose supporters carry out terrorist attacks in Kabul and other large Afghan cities, has also grown to 6,000 in a year.
