One of the most significant geopolitical changes in South Asia was the return of Taliban after twenty years of insurgency on August 15, 2021. The change has shocked the entire region, particularly India. Because India has a considerable security interest in Afghanistan. Since the return of the Taliban 2.0, India's national security has been extensively and profoundly impacted by the situation in Afghanistan. The present article examines the return of the Taliban 2.0 and its security impact on Jammu & Kashmir.

The presence of AQIS, the so-called Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISK-P), (LeT), (JeM) and other Kashmiri militants in Afghanistan is mater of serious concern for India. This has raised threats of terrorist infiltration in the Indian administered Kashmir just as in the first Taliban rule the country was turned into a safe haven for the anti-India terrorist groups. Return to that scenario is alarming for the Indian state which aims to protect its territorial integrity and counter terrorist group as well such as AQIS who might target the Indian administrated Kashmir (Abbas, 2023). Committed to this objective, the paper aims to shed light on the return of Taliban 2.0 to power and its impact on Jammu and Kashmir Security.

This paper is mainly based on secondary data and the method of this study is descriptive and analytic. As the prime aim of this paper is to discuss the impact of return of Taliban on Jammu and Kashmir Security, the research followed secondary sources such as articles, books, journals, newsletters, annual reports of different organizations.

Resurgence of the Taliban

In the follow-up of the U.S attack on Afghanistan in 2001 which led to the collapse of first Taliban regime, it seemed everything was over for the Taliban movement. There was a belief among all the political circles within and outside Afghanistan the Taliban movement was over. The assumptions later proved wrong. In fact, after the fall of their regime, the Taliban commanders and fighters had disposed or hidden their weapons. Their fighters and low ranking commanders returned home and enjoyed general amnesty and their high profile leadership fled to Pakistan (Farrel & Giustozzi, 2013) and were sheltered in the erstwhile Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan. Indeed sheltering of these Taliban leaders by Pakistan gave them another chance of life. Later they allegedly regrouped and gathered in the town of Quetta (capital of Balochistan province of Pakistan) (Bazai, et al, 2019).

After regrouping they started underground activities. By 2007, step by step or gradually from 2002 onwards the Taliban had staged a spectacular recovery (Giustozzi, 2008) and had adopted the strategy of hit and run and suicidal attack (Kumar, 2011). Meanwhile, between these years their supreme leader, late Mullah Mohammad Omar, founder of the movement formed Shura -e- Rahbari (leadership council) to lead the fight against the foreign forces in Afghanistan. For this purpose he appointed late Jalal-ud- din Haqqani founder of Haqqani network to lead the insurgency in south – eastern region (Paktika, Paktia and Khost Provinces)  and late Mullah Dadullah as a commander for the southern (Kandahar, Zabul, Helmand and Farah) provinces (Bizai, et al, 2019). Following the forming of council the Taliban initiated rebuilding of their military capability, they started recruiting, training of fighters, collecting of funds and publishing of their goals through interviews (Kleiner, 2014) with national and international medias. Notably, for recruiting of fighters Pakistani religious madrasa and refugee camps in Pakistan remained “as key Taliban recruiting pads just as in 1994” (Davis, et al, 2012). This time has been marked as the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan (Bazai, et al, 2019).

For the revival of their operative capability they adopted step-by-step different approaches and also at the same time they tried to expand their activities inside Afghanistan. For this purpose first they moved towards those districts and areas which were vacated by the coalition forces and secondly to the Pashtun rural areas for the “co-opting of some local people” to re-establish their controls over the Pashtun areas (Kleiner, 2014). By 2007 they had got a significant recovery, during this period large areas of south and south-eastern provinces mainly Pashtun areas had fallen to the Taliban (Deshpande, 2008). When the Taliban re-grouped and re-equipped themselves they led to deterioration of the security situation and caused huge destabilisation of the country (Tennyson, 2011) through launching of guerrilla war in the country side and suicidal attacks on the big cities. At the same time they also expanded their activities towards the north and north-eastern provinces of the country.

The notable point in this period is the transformation of the Taliban from a “monolithic” group into “a composition of loosely affiliated and diffused unit” comprising of multi anti-government armed groups like elements from Hizb –e- Islami, Haqqani Network, Al-Qaeda and its affiliated drug traffickers, religious clerics, tribal militants and some self-interest people in the FATA. Indeed, post 9/11 Taliban had transformed into the Taliban led-insurgency or Neo-Taliban (D’Souza, 2016).

Factors that Led to Resurgence of the Taliban

The factors which led to the resurgence of the Taliban are following: the first was absence of “state-building” and inability of the government to establish its presence across Afghanistan; secondly the government failed to secure the rural areas and to make the development reach to the people in rural areas (Johnson, 2007). Third, the U.S had left the Taliban out of the Bonn deal in 2001. According to Barnett Rubin (former senior adviser to the special representative of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S Department of State between 2009 and 2013). “The original sin was the rejection by the U.S Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld of a political agreement between Karzai and what remained of the Taliban leadership in 2001. At that time the Taliban were weak and defeated, including them in political process to establish a stable government would have signified having the Taliban on board in proportion to their true numbers and influence (small but real) in the drafting and implementation of the constitution” (Boni, 2022). So, some people believe rejection by the U.S left no option for the Taliban, except war. Fourth, Pakistan the sole supporter of the Taliban played a significant role in the Taliban's military resurrection. According to Richard Armitage, a former assistant to the U.S secretary of state, the U.S “had substantial information that there was direct assistance from Pakistan government to the Taliban between 2002 and 2004. Some members of Inter - Service Intelligence (ISI) provided weapons and ammunition to the Taliban and paid the medical bills of some wounded Taliban fighters. They also helped train the Taliban and other insurgents destined for Afghanistan and Kashmir in Mansera, Parachinar, Quetta, Shamshatto and other areas” (Jones, 2008). However the western countries repeatedly warned Pakistan to avoid making provision of any kind of funding or organising any organisations that undermine the Kabul regime. Despite these warnings, Pakistan continued its covert support to the Taliban, in 2003 alone granted US $20 million for the Taliban leadership to build Quetta Shura (Jones, 2008). Besides financial assistance, Pakistan also provided intelligence, and military assistance to the group. In addition to the above factors, poor governance, corruption, wrong political choices, internal political conflicts and neighbouring disagreements with Kabul and the United State over Afghanistan issues resulted to the revival and eventual return of the Taliban to power.

Doha Agreement

In 2011 the U.S allowed the Taliban to open their political office in Doha, Qatar to begun negotiations with the government of Afghanistan. But the Taliban always denied to negotiate with Kabul and preferred direct talks with the U.S. In response the U.S always instructed them to negotiate with Kabul and refused any direct engagement with the Taliban. This policy continued till 2016. With the change of administration in the U.S in 2016 and election of Donald J. Trump as new U.S president, the U.S policy towards the Taliban has also changed. Trump was against the continuation of U.S mission in Afghanistan. He even he frequently expressed his unwillingness about the continuation of U.S war in Afghanistan during his election campaign and in his interviews with different media platforms.

When he was elected as the President of the United State of America (USA), he made his decision to end the U.S war in Afghanistan. For this purpose he selected Zalmai Khalilzad, an Afghan – American citizen, as his special representative for Afghanistan Peace negotiation in 2018 (Ayobi, 2018) to kick off negotiations with the Taliban.

For reaching this goal the U.S special representative begun negotiations with the Taliban. Eventually after 18 months of mysterious negotiations (Boni, 2021) behind the closed door with the Taliban he reached an agreement with the Taliban to end the U.S – Taliban war in Afghanistan. Their agreement resulted in the signing of a peace accord between both sides on February 29, 2020 (Verma, 2020). The accord was signed by Zalmai Khalizad, U.S Special Envoy and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, former deputy of Taliban Political Office in Doha (Verma, 2020).

The agreement contained four main provisions:

Halt attacks against the US: Based on the accord the Taliban committed, that they would halt their military attack against the US forces in Afghanistan. As well as committed not to allowed any group to use Afghanistan soil against “the security of the U.S and its allies” (Mehvar, 2020).

Reduction of troops from Afghanistan: the U.S committed to downsize its forces from 12,000 to 8,600 "within 135 days" and zero by the end of April 2021 (Heistein , et al, 2020).

Inter Afghan Negotiation: the Taliban committed, that they would begin peace negotiations with the Afghanistan government by March 2020. Before signing the accord Taliban had always refused any kind of talk with Kabul and referred to them as puppet regime. After reaching an agreement with the U.S, they accepted to begin talks with Kabul (Maizland, 2020).

Prisoner Exchange: The U.S committed to facilitate the exchange of prisoners between Kabul and the Taliban as a "confidence building measures" (United States Department of State, 2020). As per the U.S commitment, Afghanistan government and Taliban agreed to exchange 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 Afghan National Army (ANA) members (United States Department of Stat, 2020). It is worth mentioning, “Including these provisions, the agreement also contains some secret annexations, the contents are secret between the parties” (Boni, 2021).

Based on the peace accord, the U.S agreed to withdraw its remaining troops (5,400) from Afghanistan, to close its five military bases, and to terminate permanently its military presence in 14 months, if the Taliban remain steadfast on their promises regarding preventing of any terrorist organisations from using Afghanistan soil against the U.S and its allies (Verma, 2021). Meanwhile, Taliban promised they would remain committed to the agreement. Likewise, Scot Miller, the U.S top military commander announced his resignation on July 12, 2021 (Zhang, 2022). His resignation transferred message about the end of U.S war in Afghanistan. When the U.S and its allies completely ended their combat role, the Taliban captured province after province and halted their forces at the gates of Kabul (Boni, 2022). While they reached on the skirts of Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani, fled from the country and the Taliban forces entered Kabul on August 15, 2021 (King, 2022). The last U.S soldier left Afghanistan in the mid-night of August 30, 2021 (King, 2022) and the Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid announced the creation of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) (Zhang, 2022). Likewise the Taliban returned to power after twenty years of insurgency and often having killed thousands innocent people.

Return of Taliban 2.0

Eventually the Taliban made their way into Kabul on mid-august 2021 and took the power after their ouster by the U.S and NATO forces about 20 years back (Arab Center for Reseach & Policy Studies, 2021). The return of the Taliban and downfall of democratic government of Afghanistan have been seen as significant events in the history of the contemporary world. Imran Khan, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, has described it as “the success of the Taliban for breaking the chain of slavery,” while Joe Biden, the president of the United States, described it as the inability of the Afghan Defence forces to combat the Taliban (Kumar, 2011). And the people of Afghanistan observed the return of the Taliban, as a betrayal by the U.S by signing of mysterious accord, in the absence of the people and government of Afghanistan.

It has been two years the Taliban have been in the centre of power in Afghanistan, and the international community is trying to persuade them through different incentive schemes to abandon their radical policies and to adopt flexible behaviours toward normalisation (Sawal, et al, 2022). But it seems the Taliban are firm and unchangeable in their political and theological views. This scenario is against the expectations the world had from the Taliban. The world believed the Taliban had changed and had become moderate people, but all the assumption proved to be false when the Taliban returned and established their so-called Islamic Emirate and imposed their harsh Sharia rule. Furthermore, the U.S and its allies had mistakenly believed their withdrawal would bring relaxation and relative stability to the country. In contrast, their withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the return of radicalism and number of social, political, economic, and security problems (Sawal, et al, 2022). Today Afghanistan is the most dangerous and unstable place in the world due to the presence of extremist groups who firmly had faith in the global Jihad and establishment of Islamic caliphate.

Security Repercussion on Jammu & Kashmir

Since the 1980s, Afghanistan has been a long standing nurturing ground for the Kashmiri Islamic militants. The militancy in Kashmir has started during this time which is also known as Afghan-Soviet war era (Siyech, 2022). After beginning of militancy in Kashmir the militants travelled to the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan to receive training from Pakistani army personal and Afghan Mujahideen. When the Taliban 1.0 had seized power in Afghanistan in 1996, they had given refuge to these groups inside Afghanistan. So, there is an apprehension leading to belief that the security situation in Kashmir could worsen as a result of Taliban return especially often their long history of cooperation with Kashmiri militants (Siyech, 2022).

According to CIA fact book (2022) currently the following terrorist groups are operating in Afghanistan: Haqqani Taliban Network; Harakat –ul- Mujahideen; Harakat – Jihad – I - Islami; Islamic Jihad Union (IJU); IMU; ISK-P; JeM; Jayesh al Adl (Jandullah); Lashkar -e- Jangavi (LeJ); LeT; AQIS; Tahreek -e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP). All these terrorist groups except the ISK-P are allies of the Taliban and haven earlier fought shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban for the last twenty years against the U.S and erstwhile Afghan forces. Ever since Taliban has returned to power, it has provided safe havens to these extremist groups inside Afghanistan.

Among these groups Indian Mujahieen; Sipah -e- Sahab Pakistan (SSP); ISK-P; JeM; LeT; AQIS (Basit, 2020) are India centric terrorist groups. These groups are posing a direct or indirect threat to India's national security. Even most of their senior members have received their training in Afghanistan, especially LeT; JeM; SSP; and Indian Mujahideen; who have launched multi terror attacks against India’s interests both, inside and outside of the country (Siyech, 2022).  Since the return of the Taliban there is a strong belief these groups will once again concentrate on Kashmir.

Another concern is joining of foreign fighters joining hands with the Kashmiri militants in their struggle against Indian army. Joining of these fighters can pose the most immediate threat to India and can worsen the security situation in Kashmir. Based on some reports about 30 militants of foreign nationalities having been discovered in Kashmir only in August 2021 (Siyech, 2022). In addition to foreign fighters’ infiltration in Jammu & Kashmir, the Kashmir police had also discovered cache of American M4, M16 and other US – made arms and ammunition from Kashmir valley that fell in the hands of the Taliban and their allies in Afghanistan after the U.S forces withdrawal (Kathju, 2023). Similarly a video released by a group named People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), had shown that its members were equipped with M249 automatic rifle, 509 tactical guns, M1911 pistols and M4 carbine rifle. It seems the leftover ammunitions have been sold openly by the Taliban. And the terrorist groups are buying these weapons and have sent them across the border to the Kashmir valley (Lone, 2022). In a recent incident, the Indian army in Poonch district, Kashmir arrested an Afghan national who is a member of the Al-Badr military unit (India Today, 2023). Al-Badr is a Haqqani military unit. The name is derived from Badruddin Haqqani, the third son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who was killed in an American drone strike ten years ago in North Waziristan (Rohani, 2023).

Due to these threats, India wants containment of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and has called itself as victim of Islamisation in the region (Mustafa et al, 2020). Because of its troubled history with the Taliban during 1990s and Pakistan’s significance leverage on the Taliban, India is deeply concerned and worried since the return of the Taliban 2.0 (Sarkar, 2020). Therefore, India had cut off its diplomatic relation with Afghanistan and had closed its embassy during takeover of Kabul by the Taliban 2.0. However, later India reassessed its ties with the Taliban 2.0 and moved toward engagement with the Taliban 2.0 (Abbas, 2023). For instance, six months later, after the Taliban takeover in February 2022, India sent a delegation to Kabul to meet with Taliban authorities (Bhattacherjee, 2022). Following the meeting, in June, India sent technical teams to re-establish its diplomatic presence for the first time after the overthrow of Afghanistan’s democratic government by Taliban. In addition to opening of India's embassy in Kabul, “under the aegis of the India Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC), Taliban authorities and diplomats were invited to attend a four-day virtual course on Indian legislation and the business climate” (Kaur, 2023). Since then, back channel talks have been ongoing between India and the Taliban. In spite of reassessing policy, India has been very cautious about any engagement with the Taliban de-facto government (Sarkar, 2020). Increase of engagement with the Taliban 2.0 would depend on the fact that Taliban does not to nurture any anti-India group in Afghanistan so as to mitigate any threat of terrorism in the country (Abbas, 2023). For the time being, it seems unlikely that the Taliban 2.0 will turn into a strong ally of India in Afghanistan, as the previous government of Afghanistan had become (Pant & Pandey, 2021).

The disastrous Doha agreement and the unconditional withdrawal of U.S and NATO forces in August 31, 2021 converted Afghanistan to become hub and haven for international terrorism once again. Since then more than 20 terror networks had set up bases in Afghanistan and thousands of fighters across the South, Central and West Asia have flooded the country. However, in Doha the Taliban committed to end their ties with all terror networks and not to host any group in Afghanistan. Contrary to their commitment in Doha, they hosted Al-Qaeda leader Ayman –al- Zawahiri in a guest house in Kabul a mile away from the presidential place until he was killed by the U.S drone strike last year. Even the reports from international security agencies and the United National Security Council (UNSC) also confirmed the presence of these terror networks and flood of foreign fighters in Afghanistan. Today’s Afghanistan under Taliban is more dangerous than any other time.

The return of the Taliban 2.0 not only facilitated safe havens for terror networks in Afghanistan, it also motivates all the terror networks around the world particularly Kashmiri militants to continue their fight to the end. The notion of the Taliban’s so-called victory gave them a mind set to believe if the Taliban can defeat a super power like U.S in Afghanistan they can also defeat Indian army in Kashmir. Additionally, there are thousands Jihadi fighters in Afghanistan who live under protection of the Taliban and interested in moving towards Kashmir and wage Jihad against India. The mass movement of these people could worsen the security situation in Jammu & Kashmir. Although the reports from Indian security agencies already confirmed the infiltration of these Jihadist in Kashmir. India should be prepared and take formidable steps to counter any possible infiltration of these Jihadist in Jammu & Kashmir. Moreover, India should not trust Taliban’s false commitments regarding not allowing activity of any anti-India terror networks in Afghanistan soil. Since the Taliban has violated Doha agreement they will not remain committed to any agreement. Taliban are ideologue people their nature will never change. They will always keep their affiliation and their sympathy for their ideologue fellows. Moreover there is an unconfirmed information which shows the Taliban are getting ready to equip the militants from Kashmir to Central Asia. Considering to this report, a silent storm is in gathering.

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