The Taliban became the de facto rulers of Afghanistan on 15th August 2021 after the fall of Kabul. Although the fall of Afghanistan did not transpire overnight, the pace at which it occurred and the defeat of the Ghani regime’s security forces surprised the US and the world alike.
Over the last 20 years, the Afghan security forces have received USD 85 billion worth of military equipment from the US. As Afghan forces collapsed, there were serious concerns about what will become of this military equipment which the US reportedly left behind and that the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) gave up. While the nature of this equipment stirred heated debate, comparatively little was said about the future functioning of Afghan security personnel that the US intelligence and elite military units had trained. According to an assessment, the number of Afghan military personnel was over 350,000. This included Afghanistan’s Army, Air Force, Special Operation Forces and a variety of police branches under the Ministry of Interior.
The uncertainty about the future of these forces presents a grave threat, as does the wrong use of the US military equipment. Overlooking this factor can yield dreadful outcomes for the region. Experts have been warning repeatedly that neglecting the battle-hardened Afghan army can lead to an Iraq-like situation, where the disbanded forces of Saddam Hussein helped in the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), leading to a disastrous era of violent extremism.
The feeling of abandonment, fears of being on the Taliban’s hit list, economic woes, an unfolding humanitarian crisis, poverty and hunger across the country can naturally coerce these former soldiers to clutch at straws. The dilemma here is that the latter is being extended by the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), the group that shares in the Afghan forces grievances against Taliban. Former Afghan army and intelligence troops have, reportedly, already started to defect to IS-K. According to the Wall Street Journal, major incentives for these ex-soldiers include receiving ‘protection against Taliban as well as significant amount of cash.’ The experience in modern warfare and intelligence-gathering techniques that Afghan soldiers bring with them can strengthen the lethality of IS-K. Moreover, there are also reports that extremists affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda started to move to Afghanistan, even before the complete US withdrawal.
This development forecasts a bleak future and lays bare a daunting reality for the Taliban. All the resources spent on anti-terror efforts over the last two decades will be considered squandered if the world does not act now. IS-K’s stronghold in Afghanistan has equally irksome repercussions for the US, Pakistan, China, Iran as well as the Taliban, among other actors. The group has extreme ideological differences with the Taliban. The intensifying power struggle between these two inside the country will be chaotic for the region also, with particular consequences for Pakistan and Iran, owing to the sectarian dynamics in these two states. Furthermore, the group will reportedly also
be able to launch external attacks, including on the US, within six months. Therefore, although quite disconcerting, this development serves as a unique opportunity for the concerned stakeholders to engage so as to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a breeding ground of terror.
To preserve the country against a catastrophic future, to prevent former government employees’ vulnerabilities from getting manipulated, to avoid an Afghan civil war, to avert a worsening humanitarian crisis, to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terror base yet again, and for the Taliban to avoid a bloody power struggle with IS-K, the most viable option available with the world and the Taliban is to sit together, and talk about ending the instability in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are more answerable for what transpires viz-Ă -viz the future of IS-K than any other actor. They have declined to work with the US on quelling the IS-K threat in Afghanistan. But they must realise that Afghans simply cannot afford another round of conflict and instability. The budding IS-K threat gets more concerning when coupled with the looming threat of a humanitarian crisis and with the fact that this is set to remain unresolved if the current economic woes continue and the Taliban continue to stay disengaged from the world. Therefore, the new Afghan rulers must seem open to negotiate with the international community on terrorism and make sincere efforts to establish an inclusive government in the country.
Meanwhile, the international community must also play its part to cease the suffering of the Afghan people. The US, IMF, and the World Bank must bargain the release of withheld finances direly needed by the Afghan people rather than the Taliban. This release can be conditioned on the protection of women and minorities’ rights, the formation of an inclusive government, mainstreaming former workers, as well as confronting IS-K, and many others.
But the prerequisite for this is to engage; no matter how unpleasant the fact is, it still remains a fact that both the Taliban and the global community need each other for curbing the new terror threats and for the smooth functioning of Afghanistan as a state. After all, if they could engage with each other for withdrawal of foreign forces, which served the interests of both sides, why can they not do the same for the people of Afghanistan?
Khansa Qureshi is a researcher at Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS), Islamabad, Pakistan. She can be reached at [email protected].
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The Cover-up: IAF Narrative of the May 2025 Air Battle
Even after one year since the India-Pakistan May war of 2025, the Indian discourse regarding Operation Sindoor remains uncertain under its pretence of restraint. The Pahalgam attack on 22 April, which killed 26 people, triggered an escalatory spiral. New Delhi quickly accused Pakistan-linked elements, while Islamabad refuted the allegation and demanded an independent investigation. On 7 May, India launched attacks deep inside Pakistan under what it later termed as Operation Sindoor. The political motive was intended to turn the crisis into coercive signalling by shifting the blame onto the enemy and projecting a sense of military superiority.
This episode, however, began to fray immediately as war seldom follows the intended script. Within minutes PAF shot down 7 IAF aircraft including 4 Rafales. On 8 May, Reuters reported that at least two Indian aircraft were shot down by a Pakistani J-10C, while the local government sources reported other aircraft crashes in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir
Why the IAF’s Post-Sindoor Spending Surge is a Sign of Panic
After Operation Sindoor, India is spending billions of dollars on new weapons. This is being taken by many people as an indication of military prowess. It is not. This rush to procure weapons is in fact an acknowledgement that the Air Force in India had failed to do what it was meant to do. The costly jets and missiles that India had purchased over the years failed to yield the promised results.
Sindoor was soon followed by India in sealing the gaps which the operation had exposed. It was reported that Indian Air Force (IAF) is looking to speed up its purchases of more than 7 billion USD. This will involve other Rafale fighter jets with India already ordering 26 more Rafales to the Navy in 2024 at an estimated cost of about 3.9 billion USD. India is also seeking long-range standoff missiles, Israeli loitering munitions and increased drone capabilities. Special financial powers of the Indian military were activated to issue emergency procurement orders. The magnitude and rate of these purchases speak volumes.
Indian media and defence analysts have over the years considered the Rafale as a game changer. When India purchased 36 Rafales aircrafts at an approximate cost of 8.7 billion USD, analysts vowed that the aircraft would provide India with air superiority over Pakistan. Operation Sindoor disproved all those allegations. Indian aircraft did not even fly in Pakistani airspace when the fighting started. India solely depended on standoff weapons that were launched at a safe distance. The air defence system of Pakistan, comprising of the HQ-9 surface-to-air missile system and its own fighters, stood its ground.
May 2025: Mosaic Warfare and the Myth of Centralised Air Power
Visualise a modern-day Air Force commander sitting in the operations room, miles away from the combat zone, overseeing every friendly and enemy aircraft and all assets involved in the campaign. In a split second, he can task a fighter, reposition a drone, and authorise a strike. In today’s promising technological era, he does not even need an operations room; a laptop on his desktop will suffice. The situation looks promising as it offers efficiency, precision, and control. The term used for such operational control is ‘centralisation’, which has been made possible with advanced networking, integrating space, cyber, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and seamless communication, enabling a single commander to manage an entire campaign from a single node. Centralised command and control, championed by the Western air forces and then adopted by many others, has thus been seen as a pinnacle of modern military power.
The concept of centralisation, enabled by state-of-the-art networking, may seem promising, but it is nothing more than a myth.
