MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS AND THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF THE
TALIBAN”
Zhyldyz Oskonbaeva
(RIEAS Senior Advisor & Eurasian Liaison)
Daniel Little
(RIEAS Senior Advisor)
Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (www.rieas.gr)
Publication date: 13 December 2021
Originally published on 25 July 2015, we made the prediction that ISIS would be in
Afghanistan and attempt to subjugate and take over the Taliban. We based this
assessment on a number of curious facts. When we started, we found a geographic
anomaly in terms of terror allegiance. We started with Africa in the West and worked
eastwards towards China. What we found was alternating Yes-No-Yes affiliations
between ISIS and al-Qaeda. From Boko Haram in Africa (ISIS),1 to al-Qaeda in the
Magreb and points East, this perfect alternating symmetry left us skeptical that both
were truly at odds with one another.
2
Then we devoted a significant portion of the article to a Central Asian Commander
that left Government security service in Tajikistan and appeared in Syria to fight for
ISIS. The reason that Gulmorod Halimov was crucial to the story was his role in
commanding Tajikistian’s Internal Security Forces or OMON (Otryad Mobilny
OsobogoNaznacheniya- Special Purpose Mobile Detachment).
3 By looking at a map
of Northern Afghanistan, the porous borders leading through Tajikistan splinters into
all directions: Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley northwards towards Russia, eastwards
towards China and westwards circling the Caspian Sea north through Russia and
Iran in the South. Who better for ISIS than Halimov to control the hub
where illicit commodities such as heroin, weapons and Improvised Explosive Devices
(IEDs) were traded?
By the time of his death, the al-Qaeda strongholds of the Caucasus and Central Asian
territories had given way to ISIS provinces named Khorosan and Mawarannahr. With control of the world’s heroin hub, the former Taliban toll gates offered both
Khorasan and Mawarannahr a self-funding, self-sustaining venture. Since Central
and Northern Afghanistan falls within Khorosan’s territory,4 the Taliban massed an
armed presence to counter them. With the appearance of ISIS in Badakhshan, as well
as the border areas shared with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan,5 the Taliban stood to
lose distribution of the drug trade and their ability to trade for weapons.
Now with the absence of the U.S. and greater NATO today, the Taliban seized power
but have a number of strategic issues to sort through. Having finally realized the
opportunity to establish unencumbered Sharia Law and self-determination, the last
thing they want is for outside jihadists to draw a foreign troop presence back into
Afghanistan. Coupled with the historic loss of sovereignty, they have also grown to
disdain outsiders desiring to dictate Sharia Law to them instead of allowing them to
rely on their own interpretation.
The dilemma for the Taliban is that they need Chinese investment but ISIS prevents
the two parties from doing business with each other. Chinese authorities have long
reported that members of the minority Uighur population were supporting ISIS in the
Middle East and true to their warning, returned home to propagate domestic
terrorism.6 So far Chinese investments in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI) have only drawn suicide bombers, some of the Uyghur, to Chinese work sites
in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.7
In terms of appearance, the notion that the plight of fellow Muslims could be
sacrificed in the pursuit of investment appears contradictory given their own efforts to
drive the Former Soviet Union out. For their part, the Chinese are content to wait
however this may be short lived. Afghanistan is estimated to contain $1 trillion in
mineral wealth. While iron, copper and gold are scattered throughout and subject to
the laws of supply and demand, the world’s supply of lithium is another matter.
Needed for cell phones and clean, rechargeable energy devices, China, Democratic of
the Congo and Australia are currently mining it.8
Peru is not far behind.9
This means that eventually they cannot afford to wait for the Taliban to get their
security house in order. Even with the world’s largest military, history has taught
them that military occupation is the classic geo-political trap. The reason is that there
are never any solid partners to work with. During the waning days of the Soviet
occupation, KGB General Oleg Kalugin was sent to meet with the leadership
installed by Moscow. Having surmised that they were also communicating with the
CIA, the entire leadership was eliminated soon after.10
The U.S. legacy in Afghanistan did not turn out all that different. By 2011, the Prime
Minister’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai was long implicated as a top leader of the
opium trade. Despite these two brothers working both sides of the conflict,11 Ahmed
Wali Karzai was assassinated by the Taliban for renting rural compounds to the
CIA.12 While this tendency to bargain with multiple sides simultaneously is not new,
it has always remained a deadly game for elite and innocent alike.
One of the options the Chinese have that Russia and the U.S. did not is the close
relationship between China and Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s contentions border with
India, China has the political and economic leverage to coerce the Taliban and
Pakistan to secure Chinese sites with Pakistani private contractors. The reason is the
knowledge of Pakistani’s Intelligence Service, the ISI, in Afghanistan. Having
worked with the CIA and the forerunner of al-Qaeda in driving the Soviet Union out,
the ISI has the means now to establish their own version of the Wagner Group. The ISI has one asset that others do not, namely the presence of crime boss Dawood
Ibrahim. Ibrahim is the crime boss of Karachi, Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore and
Malaysia. He also pays the ISI $1 billion annually in protection money in addition to
employing ISI’s undercover agents and retirees,13 Ibrahim runs his own terrorist group
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) which is widely considered ‘the sword of the ISI.’14 By
controlling the largest routes for 75% of the world’s opium,15 the hawala credit
system and Bollywood,
16 Pakistan’s Central Bank was bailed out by Ibrahim instead
of the IMF in 2000. To use the routes through which he later escaped Afghanistan
into Pakistan, it was bin Laden who paid Ibrahim.17 Ibrahim was later implicated in
the export of uranium and missiles on behalf of the A.Q. Khan network.18
Although this arrangement ultimately benefits the Taliban, the Pakistanis and
ultimately the Chinese, the real problem remains the fluid loyalties of the Taliban
itself. For those that have committed themselves to the struggle of jihad, taking on the
third world superpower, especially one engaged in genocide against fellow Muslims
is too good to pass up. In this scenario, nothing short of drawing the Chinese military
in will do. Once they are fully deployed, neutralizing Karachi means that those sitting
on the fence will have to cast in their lot with those engaging the Chinese military in
a war of attrition. The question now is whether Pakistani contractors and the Chinese
military can withstand Mao’s ‘War of Attrition’19 by those that have applied this long,
protected approach for literally decades.
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