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Taliban leader Mullah Umar’s death is a setback for peace in Afghanistan

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Afghan residents watch as security forces keep guard at the site of a huge blast near the entrance of the international airport, in Kabul on August 10, 2015 (Photo: AAP)

In Brief

On 29 July 2015, the news of the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Umar’s death put to rest months of speculation about his life-status and whereabouts. The Taliban Shura quickly appointed Mullah Mansoor Akhtar as Umar’s new successor. Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, a religious scholar of the Taliban Shura, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, commander of the dreaded Haqqani Network, have been appointed as Mansoor’s deputies. This development will have far-reaching consequences for the fledgling Afghan peace process, the future of the Taliban movement, regional peace and Afghanistan–Pakistan bilateral relations.

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While Mullah Umar died in April 2013, the timing and circumstances surrounding the disclosure of this news are critical for the Taliban. It has come at a time when the al-Zawahiri-led al Qaeda Central is struggling to compete with its arch-foe, Islamic State (IS) globally. IS is also rising in influence in Afghanistan and is openly questioning the Taliban’s Afghan-centric approach to jihadism.

Umar’s death could derail the Pakistan-brokered Murree Peace Process between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The peace process was given a formal endorsement on 15 July through Umar’s purported annual Eid message. But the Taliban is split over the peace negotiations and on 30 July the talks suffered a major blow when the Taliban distanced themselves from them. For now, the peace talks have been postponed.

If the talks resume, rather than focusing on the central issues like a ceasefire agreement, the deliberations will inevitably turn towards ascertaining the unity of the Taliban movement and the ability of the post-Umar Taliban leadership to deliver on any promises it might make.

Since the birth of the Taliban movement, Umar has remained its ideological mentor. Given Umar’s towering personality, it will be very difficult for the new Taliban chief Mullah Mansoor to keep the unity of the movement.

It will also be a challenge for Masnoor to build a broad support-base for himself across the wide spectrum of the Taliban groups. Masnoor’s appointment as the new Taliban head has already sparked an internal power struggle. Many senior Taliban figures — including top military commander Qayum Zakir — have opposed his appointment. Mansoor’s ascension has apparently divided the Taliban movement into three groups: one group is led by Qayum Zakir; the second by Muhammad Rasool, who was Umar’s close confidant and governor of Afghanistan’s Nimroz province during the Taliban regime; and the third by Agha Jan Mutasim, who was the Taliban’s Justice Minister.

Masnoor is a staunch supporter of peace talks. In the past, he had serious differences with Qayum Zakir who opposes the idea of negotiations. Now these schisms will sharpen further. The mid-level field commanders and fighters based in Afghanistan are quite sanguine about achieving a military victory, especially after the 2014 drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan. Their recent military gains in northern Afghanistan provide them all the more reason to continue fighting and oppose the peace talks.

Meanwhile, members of the Pakistan-based Taliban Shura are weary of war and exhausted of exiled life and the pressures put on them by the powerful Pakistani security establishment. They are keen to return to Afghanistan after reaching a political compromise with Kabul.

The acknowledgement of Umar’s death will also create new opportunities for IS in Afghanistan. The vacuum resulting from his demise, coupled with the power struggle within the Taliban ranks, will provide IS with the ideal opportunity to fill the void and maximise its gains in Afghanistan. Already, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and some factions of the Pakistani Taliban have pledged allegiance to IS. A hard-line breakaway faction of the Afghan Taliban known as Fidayee Mahazi (Suicidal Faction) also considers IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi a better choice over Mullah Umar or his successor.

The death of Umar will also test the recent thaw in Afghanistan–Pakistan relations, which started with the inauguration of Ashraf Ghani as Afghanistan’s new president. Pakistan’s deafening silence over the issue is raising suspicions about Pakistan’s alleged role in the matter. The Afghan government will certainly be sceptical of Pakistan’s underlying motivations and designs behind the peace process.

In this context, Pakistan’s role as a sincere facilitator of the peace process will come under intense scrutiny. Tough questions will be asked as to whether Pakistan wants to be a peace-broker or a power-broker in Afghanistan. Afghan authorities will confront Pakistan with pressing questions, including who was issuing Eid messages and managing the insurgent fight in Afghanistan if Mullah Umar died in Pakistan two years ago. This will arm the pro-Indian lobby, led by former president Hamid Karzai, with right kind of ammunition to cast aspersions about Pakistan’s intentions in Afghanistan.

The new uncertainties, complexities and security challenges in Afghanistan created by Umar’s death will have a direct bearing on regional peace and stability. It will undermine US plans of exiting the region after ending the violence through a political compromise. The US will have to reconsider its withdrawal plans and move away from a calendar-driven agenda to a condition-based approach that takes into account the ground realities. The abandonment of Afghanistan will only escalate existing conflicts and germinate into further troubles.

Abdul Basit is an associate research fellow at the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore.

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