Last August, the failed US withdrawal from Afghanistan led the news with images of young children being handed over barbed wire walls by parents to American soldiers guarding the airport in Kabul, in hopes of saving their lives. Families fearing for their lives huddled in masses for days outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport hoping for transportation out of the country. Throughout the fall the Biden Administration continued to proclaim the situation across Central Asia was under control. Yet it was only a few weeks after the Taliban regained power that videos and reports about ethnic Pushtun Taliban evicting ethnic Turkmen and Uzbeks from their homes and seizing their livestock started coming in from northern Afghanistan, according to the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Today it is evident that the security environment is continuing to deteriorate further from the events of last August. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan rely heavily on the Taliban to prevent non-state actors from operating in northern Afghanistan and launching cross-border attacks. Bruce Pannier, a longtime journalist working in the region, writes that the ground truth reveals extensive regional instability. “In recent months… the Islamic State has bombed mosques near the border with Central Asia, and [has] claimed to have launched a rocket attack into Uzbekistan.” He points out that “The contest for control of northern Afghanistan between the Taliban, the Islamic State, and other terrorist groups is a major security concern for the states of Central Asia.”
Ethnic minority groups are suffering as the Taliban lose more control to the Islamic state in the northern border areas. As of this week females in Afghanistan are once again forced to wear veils and fully cover their bodies. A modern secondary education is no longer available to girls as it was under the previous regime. Parks are segregated by sex and men who work in government and have a female relative who fails to abide by the rules could lose their jobs. The security situation, compared to that in the late 1990’s when the Taliban were in control, is more dangerous today.
Trade and connectivity among the Central Asian states has evolved over the last 30 years making it almost impossible for the countries to ignore the deteriorating conditions threatening the regions around Afghanistan. The combination of challenges may be well beyond the ability of the Taliban to control it in the coming year. Pannier points out that “Since regaining power, the Taliban have repeatedly assured the governments in Central Asia that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used for attacks against Afghanistan’s neighbors. That is really the foundation of the understanding the Central Asian states have with the Taliban.”
If the Taliban are unable to tamp down the violence in northern Afghanistan, or if a nearby Central Asian state is attacked by terrorists from inside Afghanistan, it is likely to change the political relationships in the region. Pannier suggests it will be very difficult for the Taliban to restore trust or its foreign policies should the Islamic state shatter the fragile truce and be unable to control its territory. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the situation “extremely mixed to negative,” with complications from the blooming meth industry in Afghanistan and increasing demand for the drug from foreign markets. Gandhara News reports that Afghanistan’s Taliban-led Defense Ministry has established several new military units in three border provinces in the country’s north, northeast, and west, and is deploying an estimated 4,400 additional troops in the region in response to outbreaks in violence. Farangis Najibullah, a reporter with Radio Free Afghanistan, points out that various warlords just inside Afghanistan’s borders are rearming and causing concern among the Central Asian states who see this as similar to troop deployments in the past. It raises suspicion among neighboring countries, especially Tajikistan, which frequently voices concern about security issues in Afghanistan and their potential impact on Central Asia. Since the Taliban placed new “special forces” in the border areas, the nearby states are growing more concerned about potential infiltration into their countries. At the same time, they do not want to see drug or religious conflict spread to their states. The dictionary defines a powderkeg as a “dangerous” or “volatile situation.” It is an apt description of the region nine months after the US withdrawal. Any one factor could set off a regional conflict.
Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept
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