Four years after seizing Kabul and returning to power, the Taliban’s message during their new era has been simple: that Afghanistan is united and now under their dominion. But events that have happened in Badakhshan since mid-2025 question the Taliban’s claim of national unity. Badakhshan, being a strategically mountainous province in the northeast, bordering Pakistan’s Wakhan border, Tajikistan, and China, has seen growing tensions. What began as minor disagreement over mining money and local leadership has escalated, by 2026, into district takeovers, violent clashes between Taliban groups, a major rift with one of the senior northern commanders of the movement, and the first real signs of a local insurgency since 2021.

Badakhshan has resisted central rule before. During the 1990s, it was one of the few provinces that the Taliban government could not keep a tight leash on, and was under the control of the Northern Alliance led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. The rugged landscapes, predominantly non-Pashtun population, and the distance from the Taliban’s power base in Kandahar made it difficult and costly to control then, and the same tension between center and periphery has shadowed Taliban rule since 2021. The recently evolved group called Sepahiyan-e Mihan, or the Homeland Soldiers Front, briefly usurped the district center of Yaftal-e Payin in Badakhshan before withdrawing. The Taliban admitted losing control of the area for a short period and blamed the attack on fighters who infiltrated while local commanders were on leave. After some time, a claim was made by the Afghanistan Freedom Front of killing 21 Taliban fighters in a joint offensive against the Taliban bases in Zebak district. Separate attacks have also been claimed by the Islamic........

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