Taliban leaders have tasked Defence Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of the late Taliban movement founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, and army chief Qari Fasihuddin to create a new army.
“The country needs a small but strong regular army not only to protect and defend the borders but also to counter internal security threats,” Mohammad, one of the Taliban leaders working in the defence ministry in Kabul, told Nikkei Asia.
He requested not to be fully named as the Taliban barred cadres from speaking to the media.
Last month, the Taliban gave all eight military corps of Afghanistan new Islamic historical names, appointed senior Taliban fighters to key positions, and organised military parades with captured American-made armoured vehicles and Russian helicopters in the country’s major urban centres, including Kandahar and Kabul.
The Taliban insurgents have also started wearing conventional military uniforms in place of the usual traditional Afghan clothing.
Attending an event in Islamabad last month, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said the country does not need Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) that were formed by what he called “foreign occupiers”.
“Afghanistan needs a small army that would be made up of faithful and patriotic people, and therefore all ANDSF personnel will not be kept in the new army,” he said.
The more than 300,000-strong ANDSF took over full security responsibility in Afghanistan in January 2015, after the US and Nato ended their international security assistance project.
However, after the withdrawal of US and Nato forces from the country, the ANDSF also collapsed as President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug 15.
The Taliban executed and kidnapped more than 100 former ANDSF members in four provinces in the three months after they surrendered following the insurgents’ seizure of Afghanistan, according to Human Rights Watch’s new research released on Nov 30.
Adopting its strategy in Iraq to absorb thousands of soldiers of Saddam Hussein and its Sunni-dominated Baath Party, the Islamic State’s regional affiliate, known as Isis-K, has also attracted a significant number of former ANDSF operatives, who were left vulnerable after Kabul’s fall, to its organisation.
Analysts said the Taliban want to look like a state by transforming from an insurgent force and forming a regular standing army.
“The decision (to) create a regular conventional army might be linked with the new Taliban administration’s disquiet over gaining international recognition. They want to show the world they are a state, no longer an armed militia,” said Basir Ahmed Hotak, a Paris-based Afghan security expert.
However, as part of the strategy, the Taliban did not publicise the creation of the army as they are under pressure to give priority to feeding the population and resolve problems related to the collapsing economy.
“The Taliban’s soldiers in most parts of the country have been relying on the local population to feed them,” said Abdul Jabbar, a former ANDSF operative in Kunar, Afghanistan’s eastern province.
“To create an army, the Taliban need international support, technical assistance and equipment, and in this regard, they are in contact with Islamabad and Beijing,” said Jabbar, citing sources within the Taliban regime.
As part of their efforts to protect China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects in Pakistan, Islamabad and Beijing have recently succeeded in pushing the Taliban to launch a crackdown on Pakistani separatist groups operating from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan and remove Uighur rebels from an area that borders China.
Islamabad has shown its willingness to assist the Taliban in forming the new army, but has made it conditional on Pakistan recognising the Taliban regime and ensuring the representation of all ethnic communities in the army, according to a recent BBC Urdu broadcast, citing senior Pakistani military officials.
Analysts also believe a conventional army will help the Taliban maintain their border force and combat a growing insurgency by Isis-K.
According to data compiled through Al-Naba, the group’s weekly newspaper, Isis-K has conducted more than 100 attacks since mid-August, mainly targeting Taliban leaders.
On Dec 7, Isis-K ambushed a Taliban police convoy in Nuristan province, killing Mohammad Hanif, a key Taliban figure known for his links to transnational militant groups operating in the province.
“Strengthening Afghanistan’s internal security and border management, are the Taliban’s top priorities for now,” said Mohammad, the Taliban leader working in the defence ministry.
“Forming a specialised intelligence agency on the pattern of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence or Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is also part of the future plan.”