Oybek MAKHMUDOV^

The last decade in Afghanistan became of geopolitical interest of various external actors: Anglo-Americans, EU, Russian, Chinese, Indian, Iranian, Pakistan, Saudi Arabian, Turkey. External actors try to revive influences for protecting their strategic south frontlines in region through the diversifications of geopolitical models for the sustainable developing of their new “concepts of Great Powers”. The counter terror operation led by West in Afghanistan directed to strengthening their geopolitical and geostrategic interests for completely controlling on the Asian heartland, and the mitigations of the Chinese, Indian, Iranian and Russian influences in region. In addition the weaknesses and doubling functions of regional security organisations provoke anarchy powers in Afghanistan with combination of penetrations of Western and Asian countries to new ‘great game’. The implementation of hard strategy by West is creating the economic stagnation and social escalations for whole Afghanistan with imposing to neighbour countries. In addition it’s formed a favourable environment for increasing of religious militant’s activities inside Afghanistan.

It has been estimated that roughly one half of the small arms currently circu-lating within Afghanistan arrived there during the forty years, most of them from countries involved in the Afghan conflict. The small arms accumulation in Afghanistan came from three main sources: the stocks of foreign state armies, small-scale arms manufacturers in the region, and black-market suppliers from the South Asian region.

At Spring months in 2021 Taliban forces had an estimated 80,000-100,000 fighters, up from 30,000 a ten years ago. Taliban income has been 10 year before at around 400 mln USD by the UN facts. Recently income of the Taliban consists around 1.5 bn USD per year. Also they get support from the Pakistan, Iran.

In addition, from the private citizens from Pakistan and several Gulf countries as the largest individual contributors. According the think tanks report estimated that the Taliban received a hundred millions dollars from the overseas countries, in particular from the Gulf States.

The Taliban have long a taxation system to cover their insurgent operations, including on the illegal drug trade. Unfortunately now Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, which can be refined to do a heroin, with an estimated annual export value of 1.5-3 bn USD, opium is big business, supplying the overwhelming majority of heroin worldwide.

And with such amount of money, Taliban can easily setup a number of political parties, and move them to the occupied and control of all their political systems. Also their political parties can impact also to neighborhood.

The major threat to the Taliban regime could come from inside. The group’s challenge of maintaining cohesiveness across its many different factions of varied ideological intensity and material interests is tougher now that it is in power.

The factions have different views about how the new regime should rule of all dimensions of state: dealing with foreign fighters, including the economic life, external affairs. The most of field commanders is youth, more of them joined to global militants networks, also without personal experience of the mismanaged of primary rules, that are more problematic than key older national and provincial leaders. The main aspects of the Taliban problems would be in bargaining with local militias, actors, promising them that the Taliban would allow them to maintain some access to local economic rents, such as mining in Badakhshan and logging in Kunar.

Therefore one efficient measure for the mitigations of the militant activities in Afghanistan is a banned access of the representatives of religious movements to the politics, and in generally religions should not be involved to the politics.