The Pulse | Security | South Asia

Is Badakhshan Becoming the Epicenter of Anti-Taliban Resistance?

Mounting resistance and ethnic tension are testing Taliban rule in Afghanistan’s north.

On August 9, Taliban officials claimed to have captured 74 light and heavy weapons that were allegedly being smuggled in from Pakistan to support what they termed “subversive and destabilizing activities.” Islamabad strongly denied the claim as baseless and urged Kabul not to let Afghan soil be used against Pakistan. 

The Taliban’s claim insinuated that Pakistan was supporting the resistance movement that has been brewing for some time in northern Afghanistan but has escalated to alarming levels since July. The movement is especially strong in the strategically important northeastern Badakhshan province, which borders not only Pakistan but also China and Tajikistan. 

Groups like the Ahmad Massoud-led National Resistance Front (NRF) and the Yasin Zia-led Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) announced resistance to the Taliban soon after their return to power in August 2021. But the resistance has remained limited and inconsequential until the more recently established Qayyum Malang-led Sipahiyan-i-Mihan, or the Homeland Guards, launched a far more aggressive campaign against the Taliban in Badakhshan last month. In mid-July, the Sipahiyan-i-Mihan even briefly captured Yaftal-e-Paeen district in the province. A few weeks later, the AFF claimed to have killed four members of the Taliban in two separate attacks in Jalalabad and Nuristan provinces. It has also been reported that Taliban personnel leave their posts at night in certain parts of Takhar province because of increasing attacks.

As trouble brews for the Taliban in Badakhshan and some neighboring provinces, ethnic Tajik groups like the Sipahiyan-i-Mihan, NRF, and AFF are not the only challenge the Taliban is facing in the region. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), which has launched several high-profile attacks against the Taliban since the latter’s return to power, is also an ongoing source of concern. A couple of weeks after the district headquarters in Yaftal briefly fell to the Sipahiyan-i-Mihan, ISKP assassinated Badakhshan’s well-connected Taliban director for information and culture, Zabihullah Amiri, in the province.

The Taliban have responded to the challenge with increasing restrictions on movement in the province and by sending in largely Pashtun reinforcements to the Tajik-majority province. The Taliban are also having to rely on hardline but recalcitrant local powerbrokers within their ranks like Juma Khan Fateh. A former small-time shopkeeper from the Shakhdara village in Nusay district, he rose through the ranks of the Taliban since 2013 to become one of the most powerful figures in Badakhshan, and yet Fateh has remained an enigma for the Taliban leadership. 

Reported to have stated that he has around 10,000 armed men under his command, Fateh has been consolidating his power in Badakhshan through gold mining revenues since becoming administrator of his home district upon the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. His ideological rigidity, leading to reported cruelties against........

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