A major road to weakening the Taliban goes through Islamabad and its notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Anti-Taliban strategy can’t work without dealing with the ISI. One such possibility could be to offer to recognize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal as a fact in exchange for suspending support for the Taliban; however, that would upset India.
“The United States of America had previously had humanitarian interventions and have gotten into conflicts to nations abroad. This time, it is not just humanitarian intervention but also [a] national security matter,” Habiba Marhoon, a former assistant to ex-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, told me.
In fact, the Haqqani network that controls Kabul takes its name from the school. Just prior to the Taliban’s storm across Afghanistan and the destruction of the U.S. and NATO-backed Afghan government, at least 4,000 jihadis resided in Pakistan and received free food and clothing.
Pakistani paramilitaries helped the Taliban during the last days of mopping up in the face of opposition.
Putting pressure on the ISI should be accompanied by covert actions to support Afghans opposed to the Taliban to provide armed resistance to Taliban efforts to brutalize them.
The United States and other allied nations should offer covert assistance to the Afghan people in the face of increasing Taliban brutality and oppression of its women.
Sources inside Afghanistan urge the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies to provide covert assistance to foster organizational development and leadership for Afghans who want to resist the Taliban. They don’t want another disastrous American intervention any more than Americans want one. They suggest that money should be spent on such covert actions to bribe corrupt Taliban leaders to part with their captured American weapons, work to exacerbate tensions among the Taliban factions, and promote inter-factional fighting using propaganda and psychological operations.
This includes giving funding and training to groups such as the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), which includes members of the former Afghan National Army, to carve out safe zones throughout the country free from Taliban rule. The Syrian Civil War offers a precedent in which fighters backed by foreign intelligence agencies carved out Assad-free zones across Syria.
The NRF largely consists of Tajiks and Uzbeks in the north. Its leaders say that it’s the only option for building Taliban-free safe zones for Afghanistan’s women and oppressed populace. The NRF’s goal is for the Afghan people to restore the former government and army. The remnants of the Afghan National Army have gone underground and require leadership and organization, according to people inside Afghanistan who I’m in communication with, which the CIA’s paramilitary arm can assist with helping to reconstitute.
The NRF needs money, and with money and logistical assistance from the CIA along with bridge-building with disaffected elements of Afghanistan’s Pashtun communities, it could spread to a nationwide resistance movement. Psychological warfare strategies could be used to undermine support for the Taliban among Afghanistan’s Pashtun population.
A Pashtun source claims that the Pashtuns are ripe for rebellion against the Taliban, and Pashtun women are a key part of that. Exploiting inter-clan rivalries among the Pashtuns can contribute to undermining Taliban control, the source said.