The Taliban leadership continues to arrive in Kabul.
Anas Haqqani is the son of the Jalaluddin Haqqani and younger brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani Network. He is part of the Taliban negotiation team in Qatar. Today he and a high level delegation of Taliban met with former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, the Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation.
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Also coming to Kabul is currently Khalil-ur-Rahman, an uncle of Sirajuddin Haqqani, for whom the FBI offers a $5 million reward because he collected donations for the Taliban.
Yesterday deputy Taliban chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban, arrived from Qatar in Kandahar.
Kabul seems to have a normal day except at the airport where thousands still try to get out of the country. The Taliban let people pass to the airport but try to prevent a big rush and new chaos by holding off masses.
There were small protests today in Khost and Jalalabad where people took down the white Islamic Emirate flag and put up the black-red-green flag of Afghanistan. The Taliban soon removed the protesters and corrected the issue.
The flag will be something that needs, as many other things, to be negotiated. One could probably take the Shahada ('There is no god but god'), which the Taliban put onto their white flag when they founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and add that, in white, onto the black-red-green national flag of Afghanistan. That would express the unity of the nation.
As another sign of reconciliation they today appointed Humayoon Humayoon, a former deputy speaker and a one time close ally of the fugitive former president Ashraf Ghani, as police chief of Kabul.
Meanwhile some are trying to form a resistance against the Taliban:
[V]ideos from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, a stronghold of the Northern Alliance militias that allied with the U.S. against the Taliban in 2001, appear to show potential opposition figures gathering there. It's in the only province that hasn't yet fallen to the Taliban.
Those figures include members of the deposed government — Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who asserted on Twitter that he is the country’s rightful president and Defense Minister Gen. Bismillah Mohammadi — as well as Ahmad Massoud, the son of the slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. It's unclear if they intend to challenge to the Taliban, who seized most of the country in a matter of days last week.
The Afghan embassy to Tajikistan seems to support the move:
Afghanistan's Ambassador to Tajikistan says, 'with Ashraf Ghani having escaped the country, VP Amrullah Saleh is the legitimate leader of Afghanistan'.
Saleh is an old CIA asset. Around 1995 he was trained as a spy in the U.S. and then worked as intelligence chief, first for the Northern Alliance and later for the U.S. installed government in Kabul. There are many in Afghanistan who dislike or hate him for very sound reasons. He is not a good leader. Ahmad Massoud is not a fighter, too young and lacks credibility to be the head of a resistance.
To raise a resistance army Saleh will need money, lots of it and soon. But who would be the national sponsor he could work for? I doubt that the U.S. is interested to push for another civil war in Afghanistan. It will also not accept Saleh as another powerless Juan Guaido. Even India, which sees the Taliban as a proxy of its archenemy Pakistan, seem to lack interest in more struggle. There is also the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with all Afghan neighbor countries plus Russia and India, which will press for no more war.
Still, the Taliban would be well advised to send a bunch of troops into the Panjshir Valley and to smoke Saleh out before he starts to create new trouble.
The Taliban are currently only an improvised caretaker government. They need to form a kind of new representative structure and a true coalition government. Both, even while not elected, are acceptable to the outer world.
The issue is urgent because all governments of Afghanistan, even a Taliban led one, do need money.
The U.S. as well as Russia and other states, still have the Taliban on their terrorist list. The U.S. has blocked Afghanistan's Central Bank (DAB) reserves and any large cash flow. Afghanistan's former(?) Governor of the Central Bank Ajmal Ahmady, who fled on Sunday, explains what issues that creates:
Ajmal Ahmady @aahmady – 6:40 UTC · Aug 18, 2021
This thread is to clarify the location of DAB (Central Bank of Afghanistan) international reserves.
I am writing this because I have been told Taliban are asking DAB staff about location of assets.
If this is true – it is clear they urgently need to add an economist on their team.First, total DAB reserves were approximately $9.0 billion as of last week.
But this does not mean that DAB held $9.0 billion physically in our vault.
As per international standards, most assets are held in safe, liquid assets such as Treasuries and gold.The major investment categories include the following assets (all figures in billions)
(1) Federal Reserve = $7.0
– U.S. bills/bonds: $3.1
– WB RAMP assets: $2.4
– Gold: $1.2
– Cash accounts: $0.3
(2) International accounts = 1.3
(3) BIS = $0.7
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Given Afghanistan’s large current account deficit, DAB was reliant on obtaining physical shipments of cash every few weeks.
The amount of such cash remaining is close to zero due a stoppage of shipments as the security situation deteriorated, especially during the last few days.
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Given that the Taliban are still on international sanction lists, it is expected (confirmed?) that such assets will be frozen and not accessible to Taliban.
I can’t imagine a scenario where Treasury/OFAC would given Taliban access to such funds
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Therefore, my base case would be the following:
– Treasury freezes assets
– Taliban have to implement capital controls and limit dollar access
– Currency will depreciate
– Inflation will rise as currency pass through is very high
– This will hurt the poor as food prices increase
It would be bad for the Taliban's and Afghanistan's future to let that happen. There is no hope that other countries will help with the problem.
Russian Embassy, UK @RussianEmbassy – 10:53 UTC · Aug 18, 2021
Lavrov: We have stated repeatedly that we are not in a rush to recognize the Taliban’s authority, just as the rest world.
We are observing positive developments on the streets of Kabul, where the situation is reasonably calm and the Taliban are effectively ensuring order.
Pakistan, which does have a motive to help the Taliban, is itself an economic basket case.
Access to money will soon become a serious issues as the Afghan economy will now go into a deep dive.
The Taliban's best move now is to form a provisional government in which they are not (openly) in the lead. The face of the government should be an internationally known one, probably former president Hamid Kazai who is no longer a U.S. stoogy.
If there is a provisional cabinet the Taliban should take only a few positions, for example as ministers for education, culture, security and defense, and leave the internationally more visual jobs to other people. They should also ask Ajmal Ahmady to return to the Central Bank.
With a provisional government installed and accepted internationally a Loya Jirga, a legal assembly following Pashtun traditions, could be called up to create a new constitution based on the monarchic one from 1964.
Under a modified 1964 constitution the 'King', replaced by something like the Supreme Leader in Iran, would be the formal head of the state. There would be an elected House of a the People (Wolesi Jirgah) and a House of the Elders (Meshrano Jirgah). The second one would have a third of its members appointed by the 'King' and two-thirds by provincial councils and provincial voters. Both together would vote for confidence in a Prime Minister and a cabinet designated by the 'King'.
The Taliban will insist on some religious/legal committee, like the Guardian Council in Iran, that tests every new law for being consistent with Islamic jurisprudence. This could either replace the House of the Elders or become a new institution next to the parliament.
The process to decide on such a system and to hold new elections will probably take a year.
Until then a provisional government must work under some kind of consensus agreement. The Taliban are currently working on forming both.
