A senior Taliban leader in Afghanistan condemned Iran’s repeated bombing of Arab Gulf states in remarks on Monday, describing the violence as a “concern” for Kabul and unfair to the victims of Iranian aggression.
The Taliban is a jihadist terror organization that has served as the undisputed federal government of Afghanistan since the demise of the legitimate government of the country on August 15, 2021. Taliban leaders have endeavored, with mixed results, to maintain friendly ties to Iran, with whom they share a long border. The ongoing conflict between Iran and the United States has caused major problems for Taliban terror leaders as a result of both a massive influx of returning Afghan refugees fleeing Iran and commercial traffic being halted in the Strait of Hormuz, damaging Afghanistan’s economy.
“Around 10,000 containers carrying Afghanistan transit goods have been stranded at Jebel Ali Port due to escalating tensions involving Iran, the United States, and Israel, traders said,” the Afghan outlet Khaama Press reported in March.
Despite these issues, the Taliban remains publicly grateful to Iran for being one of the few countries to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate, though “interim,” government of Afghanistan. Top Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid declared shortly before the beginning of this year’s conflict between America and Iran that Afghanistan would offer “various forms of solidarity and support to their Iranian brothers,” which does not at press time appear to include military support.
While both the Iranian “revolutionary” regime and the Taliban junta in charge of Afghanistan are jihadist terrorist entities, they have for years squabbled over the treatment of each other’s migrants and sharing of the water supply on their border, each side accusing the other of hoarding water during droughts. Accusations of hoarding across the Helmand River border have prompted Taliban jihadists to share viral content threatening to “conquer” Iran. Iran’s regime is a Shiite jihadist entity, while the Taliban is a Sunni jihadist terror gang.
While struggling to balance relations with Iran, the Taliban has successfully made inroads in improving its ties with fellow Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others in the Gulf, most recently engaging in diplomatic exchanges with Saudi leaders in mid-April.
Speaking to the Emirati newspaper The National at a foreign policy event in Turkey, Taliban Foreign Ministry official Zakir Jalaly emphasized that the Taliban did not support attacking Gulf states as a side effect of the war between Iran and America.
“We made it clear to the Iranians that this is a concerning point for the Islamic Emirate [of Afghanistan, the Taliban], that they are expanding this conflict to include some other regional countries,” Jalaly was quoted as saying. “It’s not fair to continue rocketing, targeting these countries.”
Jalaly lamented that conflict between Iran and its Gulf neighbors “will definitely limit our options,” adding, “At this moment, this sort of mistrust and problematic relations between Gulf countries and Iran adds more complexity to our regional relations.” He expressed optimism at the progress in attempting diplomacy with the Gulf states, most of whom also have friendly relations with the United States.
Iran’s terrorist military began bombing over a dozen countries shortly following the launch of Operation Epic Fury, an American military engagement to degrade Iran’s missile capabilities and protect U.S. allies. The first countries targeted in late February with Iranian drones and missiles were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Tehran subsequently attacked other nations unrelated to the conflict including Cyprus, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, prompting international outrage. Iran has not at press time bombed Afghanistan as part of this conflict.
The Taliban Foreign Ministry held a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Kabul, Faisal Talal Al-Bogami, on April 15 in which the jihadist terror regime extended support to Riyadh in the context of Iran’s airstrikes.
“[Taliban Foreign Minister] Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi described the relations between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as positive and expressed hope,” the Foreign Ministry relayed on social media, “so that relations between the two friendly countries expand further in the political, security, and economic spheres.”
Afghanistan has also struggled to process the flood of its own citizens returning home from Iran, now fleeing active war. According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), Afghanistan experienced a 56 percent increase in returnees from Iran in the first quarter of the year, in addition to fielding mass deportations from Pakistan, which declared war on the Taliban this year. While conflict continues, the hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan have temporarily subsided after mediation by their mutual ally China. Estimates suggest that 100,000 people were displaced by the initial active period of hostility this year between the two countries, however, creating a lingering crisis.
In March, immigration experts estimated that about 2,000 Afghans a day were returning from Iran alone.