The Taliban terror leaders running Afghanistan celebrated their expanding international influence on Sunday, claiming to control 16 embassies around the world representing the “Islamic Emirate.”
Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Mawlawi Abdul Kabir’s claim of the jihadists maintaining over a dozen international outposts occurred days before the terrorist organization marks the second anniversary of returning to power in Afghanistan. Following far-left American President Joe Biden’s decision to extend the 20-year Afghan war beyond its originally agreed-upon deadline of May 1, 2021, the Taliban swept through the country, conquering territory with little to no pushback from Afghanistan’s largely nonexistent armed forces. On August 15, 2021, Taliban leaders arrived in the national capital, Kabul, prompting then-President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country and leave it in jihadist hands.
The Taliban had ruled Afghanistan for much of the 1990s before being deposed in an American invasion following the jihadist terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The Biden administration has made no progress in dislodging the terrorist group at press time. While the international community vowed in 2021 not to recognize the Taliban and no country has formally identified them as the government of Afghanistan, multiple nations have accepted Taliban representation in their countries.
Iran, Russia, and China, among others, have taken to addressing the Taliban as the “interim” government of Afghanistan, while the United Nations greenlit cooperation with “relevant Afghan political actors” shortly after the fall of Kabul, resulting in a situation in which investigators say the Taliban has hijacked the distribution of U.N. aid in the country.
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“[I]t is no longer a question of whether the Taliban are diverting assistance from our programs to help the Afghan people, but rather how much they are diverting,” U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko wrote in a quarterly report released last week. “[M]y staff and I find the degree of interference and the apparent inability of the UN to protect its programs deeply troubling.”
To celebrate the Taliban’s growing global influence, the deputy prime minister, Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, held an event on Sunday with students returning from study abroad programs, according to the Afghan outlet Tolo News.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is committed to protecting the Islamic government. We continue to provide security and ensure diplomacy and we will continue to engage with the world,” the terrorist official said.
“The world knows it and timely reaches a hand for engagement with the Islamic Emirate. You know that our embassy is open in 16 countries,” Kabir claimed.
Tolo News noted that another top Taliban leader, Anas Haqqani, used the opportunity of the event to warn the world not to expect the Taliban to fall from power anytime soon.
“Many people are thinking — due to propaganda — some are of this mindset– that this government will not endure and that this government is like a guest for only some nights. Many good people are worried about it,” Haqqani reportedly said. “Many investors and major traders, academics and those who are outside are worried that it is possible that (the Islamic Emirate) is a guest for only some days.”
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Neither Kabir nor Haqqani listed the 16 countries allegedly hosting Taliban embassies at a time in which zero countries recognize the Taliban as a legitimat government. Prior to the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan operated 65 embassies, consulates, and other foreign representative offices. Many of those embassies still had Afghan diplomats representing the defunct Ghani government present there as of April, attempting to counter the Taliban’s attempts to control Afghan foreign policy.
“We are the last front of the Islamic Republic beyond the control of the Taliban,” Ashraf Haidari, the Afghan ambassador to Sri Lanka, told Foreign Policy in April. “We were the victims of a colossal betrayal of democracy. We did not expect our democratic allies to betray us the way that they did, and now these democratic allies are indifferent towards our diplomatic missions.”
Nazifullah Salarzai, the Afghan ambassador to Belgium, said he had experienced Taliban officials attempting to sway his embassy underlings to no longer follow his orders and instead recognize the Taliban’s rule, which remains uncontested in Afghanistan at press time.
As of March, Taliban jihadists were claiming to control outposts in 14 countries.
“The Islamic Emirate has sent diplomats to at least 14 countries and efforts are underway to take charge of other diplomatic missions abroad,” top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at the time. “Diplomats of the former government are continuing their activities in coordination with the Foreign Ministry.”
Mujahid listed Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan as countries hosting Taliban representatives, but did not list all 14 countries. At least five countries – China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkmenistan – have handed over the Afghan embassies in their capitals to the Taliban.
Iran and China, both of which border Afghanistan, were two of the countries to most rapidly recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government. In October 2021, their respective foreign ministries began referring to the terrorists as the “interim government” of the country. Other neighboring countries, such as Russia and India, chose to organize meetings and maintain contact with the Taliban without formally recognizing it.
Some Taliban diplomatic ties emerged as a result of longstanding relations prior to the end of the Afghan war. The Taliban has maintained a “political office,” for example, in Qatar for over a decade, where its terror chiefs negotiated a deal to end the war with the administration of former President Donald Trump. The deal required the Taliban not to attack Americans or American assets in the country and to cut ties with other terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, in exchange for American troops withdrawing by May 1, 2021. Biden extending the American presence beyond the deadline in April of that year prompted the ultimately successful Taliban campaign to overthrow the U.S.-backed government.
The Taliban has spent much of the past two years attempting to expand relations beyond the few countries willing to engage them. At the beginning of this month, Taliban “Foreign Minister” Amir Khan Muttaqi organized a meeting in Qatar with diplomats from eight countries to discuss “the latest political, economic, security, good governance, and drug policies of the Afghanistan government,” according to the Taliban’s Bakhtar News Agency (BNA).
“The IEA delegation answered the questions and concerns of the ambassadors of different countries in detail and stressed saying instead of carrying out their mission for Afghanistan from afar,” Bakhtar reported, “this representation should come to Afghanistan, and see themselves closely at the current realities of Afghanistan.”
America sent a representative to that meeting, BNA claimed. Among the other countries in attendance were South Korea, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain.
“The participants of the meeting stressed the continuation of such meetings and interaction and involvement with Afghanistan,” BNA reported.
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