Hidden Conflicts within the Taliban: From Internal Attacks to External Threats

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Taliban militants (file photo)

8am: One day after the UN Security Council meeting on the ISIS threat from Afghanistan, a suicide attack at the Kabul Bank branch in Kunduz province killed around seven Taliban fighters and seven civilians. Although the exact number of casualties is still unknown, the Taliban have confirmed and described the attack as a suicide bombing. Previously, the group referred to its suicide attacks as “martyrdom operations.” Security analysts believe the Taliban are unable to control suicide attacks within their ranks. They note the presence of over 20 terrorist groups within the Taliban regime, each with its tactics and ideologies, which will continue their attacks on the group. Analysts also highlight the existence of training centers in Kunduz that provide instruction to foreign fighters and terrorists. According to security experts, there are numerous facilitators within the Taliban apparatus who prepare suicide attacks against this group, enabling them to carry out attacks in sensitive locations.  Click here to read more (external link).

Russia Maintains Taliban Terrorist Designation Amid Ongoing Security Concerns

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Afghanistan International: Despite earlier indications that the Taliban might be removed from its list of terrorist organisations, Russia has so far kept the group on its list, citing unresolved security concerns. In late December 2024, President Vladimir Putin signed a law permitting the temporary suspension of terrorist groups’ activities. This legislation allows Russian courts to conditionally remove organisations such as the Taliban from the terrorist list. However, no such action has been taken regarding the Taliban to date. Click here to read more (external link).

Russian FM: Situation in Afghanistan poses serious threat to neighboring countries

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Lavrov

Ariana: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed concern over the situation in Afghanistan, saying it poses a serious threat to neighboring countries. During a meeting with Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister, Lavrov emphasized the need for cooperation to address security threats in the Central Asian region, particularly in Afghanistan. He specifically mentioned Russia and Tajikistan as countries that could be affected by the instability in Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).

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Taliban chief claims Afghan governance rooted in divine commands

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Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
February 13, 2025

ISLAMABAD — The leader of Afghanistan’s governing radical Taliban has defended his policies, including banning female access to education and employment, asserting that they are derived from the “commands of Allah.”

Hibatullah Akhundzada’s assertions came days after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced he was seeking arrest warrants for the reclusive Taliban leader, holding him “criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women.”

A Taliban statement said that Akhundzada addressed teachers, staff and students at a public university in the southern province of Kandahar on Wednesday during his first known visit to a modern education institution, where he also discussed the significance of his edicts.

“The esteemed supreme leader stated that every decree he issues is based on consultation with scholars and derived from the Quran and Hadith [sayings of Islam’s prophet], and represents commands of Allah,” the Taliban chief was quoted as saying.

Akhundzada seldom leaves his office in Kandahar and rules impoverished Afghanistan from there through numerous decrees he has issued over the past three years. He has barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and blocked female students from accessing university education.

Afghan women are banned from most public and private sector employment nationwide. They are not allowed to travel by road or air without a chaperone and cannot visit public places such as parks, gyms or beauty salons.

The Taliban supreme leader stated in his speech on Wednesday that religious schools and universities are essentially the same and emphasized the importance of supporting and safeguarding both types of educational institutions in the country.

“Now it is your turn to make Afghanistan competitive globally with your knowledge and wisdom. Work hard so that foreigners come here to learn from you and use your knowledge to succeed globally,” Akhundzada said. “Professors and students, you must acquire religious and worldly education but serve religion solely.”

The Taliban government, not recognized by any country, has established dozens of new Islamic seminaries, known as madrasas, to promote their strict interpretation of Islamic beliefs and laws, according to observers.

In his Jan. 23 declaration, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan stated that his decision to seek Akhundzada’s arrest warrants was based on a thorough investigation and evidence collected.

“Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable. Afghan survivors, in particular women and girls, deserve accountability before a court of law,” Khan said.

The Taliban condemned Khan’s action as “devoid of just legal basis, duplicitous in nature and politically motivated.”

The international community has refused to accept the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, mainly over their harsh treatment of women and other human rights concerns.

The United States and other Western countries have slapped economic sanctions on the country and primarily isolated the Afghan banking sector since the Taliban takeover. Several senior leaders of the Taliban are still listed as terrorist entities by the United Nations.

An international conference of Muslim leaders hosted by Pakistan last month condemned “extremist ideologies” and religious edicts, known as fatwas, that are rooted in cultural norms obstructing girls’ education as a “grave misuse of religious principles to legitimize policies of deprivation and exclusion.”

The conference declaration, without naming the de facto Afghan rulers, noted that anyone who rejects or opposes Islamic principles mandating equal education for men and women “is considered outside the framework of the Islamic Ummah’s [Islamic world’s] concepts and cannot be regarded as part of it.”

Afghan Man Detained In Munich Car Attack Sparking Fears Among Rest Of Community

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi and Ray Furlong
February 13, 2025

MUNICH, Germany — Police in Munich arrested an Afghan asylum seeker after he rammed a car into a crowd in the German city, injuring 28 people and leaving many Afghans in the country on edge amid calls during an election campaign for tougher immigration laws.

Despite a heavy police presence in the city a day before many high-profile leaders such as U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend the Munich Security Conference, the man, identified by German media as 24-year-old Farhad N., drove his vehicle into a demonstration held by trade unionists.

“The suspect will be brought before an investigating judge tomorrow [February 14]. We are still at the crime scene with our forensic team and specialists,” Munich police said.

Police said they fired one shot at the vehicle, a Mini Cooper, and arrested the man at the scene where victims, clothes and even a stroller were strewn around the street.

Munich police said authorities have “indications of an extremist motive” and that prosecutors are investigating. Several news outlets, including Der Spiegel, cited sources as saying the man is thought to have posted Islamist content online before the attack.

“Afghans living in Germany are deeply saddened and worried about their future due to this and similar incidents,” Rahmatullah Ziarmaal, an Afghan journalist who lives in the city of Limburg, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

“Many Afghans feel particularly distressed by such events, fearing that anti-immigration parties will exploit them for political gain, making life even more difficult for refugees.”

Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister for the state of Bavaria, said the suspect’s application for asylum had been rejected, but he hadn’t been deported because of security concerns in Afghanistan.

The incident is likely to enflame already heated rhetoric as Germans prepare to vote in parliamentary elections on February 23.

Germany has the largest Afghan community in Europe with an estimated 377,000 Afghan citizens residing in the country at the end of 2022, according to the country’s statistics agency.

“We have to continue with deportations…even to Afghanistan, a very difficult country,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters in Munich.

Several violent incidents involving immigrants have bolstered far-right candidates, who narrowly trail center-right conservatives.

Both have been critical of Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz, accusing him of being soft on immigration, which they blame for an increase in violent crime rates.

Yousuf Rahimi, an Afghan resident of Munich who is awaiting approval of his asylum application, told RFE/RL that many Afghans come to the country because of the open immigration policies but fail to assimilate and end up getting involved in crime and drugs.

“People like this create difficulties for Afghans like me who genuinely seek asylum, want to contribute positively to German society, and hope to build a future here,” he said.

With reporting by dpa and Reuters

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Two Killed In Botched Suicide Bombing Attack On Taliban Ministry

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By Abubakar Siddique
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
February 13, 2025

A suicide bombing attack on the Taliban-led Ministry for Urban Development office in the Afghan capital, Kabul, has killed two people and injured three more.

Taliban authorities said the attacker was one of the people killed in the February 13 attack.

“The suicide bomber was identified and eliminated at the entrance of the ministry,” said Mohammad Kamal Afghan, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Urban Development Ministry.

He told journalists that the attack happened just before noon local time.

No group has immediately accepted responsibility for the attack.

But the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), an ultraradical rival of the Taliban, claimed credit for a separate attack earlier this week.

On February 11, at least eight people were killed in a suicide bank outside a bank in the northern city of Kunduz. IS-K said it targeted the Taliban government employees while they collected their salaries.

Earlier on December 11, an IS-K suicide bomber killed Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani, the Taliban’s refugee minister. Five more people were killed in the attack inside the Refugee Ministry compound in Kabul.

Haqqani, in his 60s, was the most senior Taliban figure killed by IS-K since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

IS-K has repeatedly targeted Afghanistan’s Shi’ite minority and followers of the moderate Sufi orders.

In recent years, the group has embarked on terror attacks internationally. Last year, it claimed credit for attacks in Iran and Russia. Individuals linked to the group have also been detained in the United States and Europe.

On February 10, a meeting of the UN Security Council declared the group a significant threat to global security.

“We remain concerned about IS-K’s capabilities to plot and conduct attacks as well as sustain recruitment campaigns, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Dorothy Shea, the interim U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The Taliban promised security after returning to power three years ago but has not been able to stamp out attacks by the IS-K. It launched a brutal crackdown against the IS-K and claimed to have killed or detained hundreds of its members.

Afghanistan’s tiny Salafist minority, however, has complained of being on the receiving end of the Taliban clampdown on IS-K as its members were unjustly persecuted.

In 2015, the IS-K emerged as the local branch of the Islamic State, which ruled vast swathes of territories in Syria and Iraq.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, VOA, Reuters, and AFP

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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Taliban halt broadcast of political programs on domestic media

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Amu: Taliban have issued a new directive banning all domestic media organizations from broadcasting political programs until further notice, sources told Amu on Thursday. According to the sources, the order was issued by the Taliban’s intelligence agency and the Ministry of Information and Culture. Media executives are expected to meet with Taliban officials on Saturday to discuss the matter. Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have intensified restrictions on the media and freedom of speech. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban Divisions Laid Bare As Power Struggle Intensifies

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By Mustafa Sarwar and Frud Bezhan
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
February 13, 2025

The Taliban has for years presented a united front to the outside world and kept a tight lid on dissent within its ranks.

But unprecedented displays of discord have laid bare the rifts in the secretive militant group and exposed an intensifying power struggle.

The internal divisions could spill over into violence, experts warn, and trigger a new civil war that would further destabilize the volatile region.

“Despite a culture of secrecy and unity, recently there have been public shows of disunity,” said Michael Semple, a former EU and UN adviser to Afghanistan. “These suggest that the movement is under real strain.”

‘Chaotic And Uncertain’

In December, the Taliban’s Refugees Minister Khalil Haqqani was killed in a suicide bombing. He is the most senior official to be killed since the hard-line Islamist group seized power in 2021.

Privately, most of Haqqani’s supporters accused his rivals in the Taliban of ordering his assassination, according to experts.

In January, a senior Taliban official left the country soon after appearing to criticize the Taliban’s spiritual leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has the ultimate say under the group’s clerical-led system.

“Follow him, but not to the extent that, God forbid, you grant him the rank of prophethood or divinity,” said Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, according to an audio recording released last month. “If you deviate even a step from God’s path, then you are no longer my leader, I do not recognize you.”

Stanikzai also criticized Akhundzada’s ban on girls’ education, which has provoked international condemnation.

He confirmed that he was in the United Arab Emirates, but said it was due to health reasons. Reports suggest Stanikzai fled Afghanistan after Akhundzada issued a warrant for his arrest and ordered a travel ban.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Taliban members have openly complained about delays to the payment of their salaries.

The Taliban has denied that there are any rifts in the group. Chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the private Tolo News that the group “will never engage in disagreements, become a source of division, or take actions that could lead to misfortune or bring instability back to the country.”

But several sources in the Taliban, who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, described the current atmosphere as “chaotic” and “uncertain.”

The sources also said that officials were banned from leaving the country unless they received authorization from Akhundzada.

“These developments suggest a real challenge to the movement’s unity, between those Taliban who feel marginalized and those who feel empowered,” said Semple, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast.

“We are now in new territory. The political and military opposition to the Taliban is weaker than in the 1990s,” added Semple, referring to the Taliban first stint in power. “But the expectations of the Afghan population are much higher and the levels of popular frustration with Taliban performance are unprecedented. Unhappy Taliban know this.”

Internal Competition

The internal rifts in the Taliban have increasingly come to the fore since the group regained power in 2021.

Akhundzada, who rarely leaves his stronghold in the southern city of Kandahar, has monopolized power, marginalized more moderate figures, and enforced hard-line policies that have made Afghanistan an international pariah.

Among Akhundzada’s rivals is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s defense minister and leader of the Haqqani network, a powerful faction that wields significant influence in eastern Afghanistan.

Others include Mullah Mohammad Yaqub, the interior minister and son of the group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, as well as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who headed the group’s political office in Qatar and is the deputy prime minister in the Taliban cabinet.

“Recent events, particularly tensions between different factions within the Taliban, are a significant challenge to their unity, but they are not the only or necessarily the biggest threat,” said Hatef Mukhtar, director of the Afghanistan Center for Strategic Studies.

There are splits in the Taliban along ideological lines. Some Taliban leaders want international recognition and economic investment, while others prioritize enforcing strict Islamic rule, even at the cost of isolation, said Mukhtar.

The growing influence of the Kandahar-based leadership at the expense of former battlefield commanders and the political office is also a source of tension, Mukhtar said.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group continues to pose a threat to the Taliban, testing the group’s ability to maintain security.

Underscoring that threat, IS-K claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside a bank in northern Afghanistan on February 11 that killed five people, the Taliban said. But two Taliban sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said at least 14 were killed in the attack, including members of the group.

The Taliban’s cash-strapped and unrecognized government has also come under increasing financial pressure.

U.S. President Donald Trump has frozen all foreign aid, including to Afghanistan. That is likely to aggravate the devastating humanitarian crisis in the country. Meanwhile, the value of the national currency, the afghani, has plummeted in recent weeks, triggering price hikes.

Experts say that while the Taliban has shown resilience in managing internal disputes, escalating tensions could threaten the group’s cohesion.

The most likely scenario is “low-level infighting, assassinations, and internal purges rather than an open military confrontation,” said Mukhtar.

“But if the Taliban fails to address its internal divisions, Afghanistan could eventually see another cycle of intra-Islamist conflict,” he added.

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.