Afghan, Pakistani Taliban diverge on goals

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan | Both go by the name “Taliban,” but militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan are increasingly diverging in their ultimate goal. The Pakistanis have joined al Qaeda’s campaign to attack Western targets and spread radical Islam while the Afghans want to rid their country of foreign troops but harbor no global ambitions, according to a number of prominent analysts.

The split potentially complicates U.S. strategy in the region while opening a route toward negotiations in Afghanistan. U.S. forces are battling a nationalistic Taliban in Afghanistan, but the internationally more ambitious Taliban, as well as al Qaeda, are located across the border in Pakistan, where the U.S. operates only with drones.

In a recent interview with a Pashto-language TV channel, Afghan Taliban commander Abdul Manan (also known as the Mullah Toor) condemned the Pakistani Taliban for targeting innocent civilians as “un-Islamic and wrong.”

He also denied that al Qaeda influences the Afghan Taliban, a stark change from the 1990s when the Afghan group hosted Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda training camps and became the base for the Sept. 11 attacks.

White House National Security Adviser James L. Jones said last month that fewer than 100 al Qaeda members are left in Afghanistan and that most of al Qaeda is now based in Pakistan.

A U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan might make it easier for al Qaeda to re-establish itself in Afghanistan, but some analysts question whether al Qaeda would be welcome.

Ashraf Ali, a specialist on the Afghan Taliban movement, told The Washington Times that some former Taliban leaders, such as Afghanistan’s former foreign minister, have been allowed to live freely in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to represent the Taliban in negotiations with other Afghan factions and potentially the U.S.

Mr. Ali noted that Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former foreign minister, also has stated that the Afghan Taliban does not share al Qaedas global agenda of terrorism and that his Taliban was not a threat to the world peace.

“Afghan Taliban know well that it would be very difficult for the Americans to negotiate with them unless they clearly distance themselves from al Qaeda and its new allies, the Pakistani Taliban,” Mr. Ali said.

Indeed, one of the key distinguishing factors between the two Talibans is that the Afghans insist they have a strictly local agenda of “liberating” their homeland, many analysts say. Beyond that, they would prefer to be left alone.

In contrast, the Pakistani Taliban has embraced al Qaeda’s vision of pan-Islamic rule, and it has increasingly targeted the Pakistani state instead of helping its Afghan brethren.

A Pakistani Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, has said that his organization aims to establish a strict fundamentalist Islamic system, not only in Pakistan, but also throughout the world starting from South Asia.

Rifatullah Orakzai, a Peshawar-based analyst, said the Afghan Taliban is trying to create good will by showing its differences with al Qaeda. For example, Mr. Muttawakil recently stated “that if the Taliban came into power, girls would be allowed to pursue education in segregated institutions,” Mr. Orakzai said.

The Afghan Taliban, he said, wants to show “that the religious militia is no longer as radical-minded as it had been during its rule [from 1996 to 2001]. Moreover, such a statement is also an attempt to distance Afghan Taliban from Pakistani Taliban,” which destroyed more than 400 girls schools when militants controlled Pakistan’s Swat valley earlier this year.

Not everyone accepts the premise of a complete rupture between the two Talibans.

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