Very strange things have been happening between the Taliban and the US ever since an American drone killed Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri last July in a Kabul house, which reportedly belonged to the top aide of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a Taliban minister and a leader in the Haqqani network, a powerful faction within the Taliban movement.
Instead of escalating tensions, we saw two diplomatic breakthroughs. Meanwhile, Taliban forces have clashed with Pakistan on the border. And as this has been happening, Mr Haqqani has publicly reached out to India, despite the fact that his network’s suicide bombers had repeatedly struck New Delhi’s Afghan embassy in the past.
For a decade and a half, the Haqqanis have been portrayed in the US and India as little more than an exceptionally violent proxy for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the military's primary intelligence agency, with a side mission of supporting global jihad. But recent events validate the vast amounts of evidence painstakingly assembled by scholars, analysts and journalists over the years, which charts the Haqqanis’ extraordinary rise from obscurity to infamy, and now perhaps respectability in some quarters. This data convincingly demonstrates that the Haqqanis have never been subservient; instead they have fiercely guarded their strategic autonomy by cultivating alliances with a range of players who are often enemies with each other.
The Haqqanis have refrained from threatening vengeance for the American missile strike that killed Al Zawahiri on July 31. They have instead chosen to pretend as if the assassination simply did not happen. This is a sign of shifting priorities, a signal that they value a working relationship with Washington over proving their ideological commitment to jihad. Meanwhile, on the very same day of Al Zawahiri’s killing, Sirajuddin Haqqani gave a high-profile interview to the Indian cable news channel News18, promising security for Indian businesses and promoting cricket ties – he’s a huge fan of the sport.
Recruits march during their graduation ceremony at the police academy in Kabul, Afghanistan. AFP
A recruit performs during the graduation ceremony. AFP
Senior Taliban figures including interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani watch as the recruits march. AP
Recruits during the oath-taking ceremony. AFP
Haqqani and deputy prime minister of the Taliban, Abdul Salam Hanafi, left, attend the ceremony. AFP
One of the Taliban's most secretive leaders, Haqqani was photographed openly for the first time at the parade. AFP
The Taliban minister said in a speech that fighters guilty of "misconduct" were being punished after a string of abuse allegations. AP
Before the Taliban's return, Haqqani was the most senior of three deputies to leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. AFP
Haqqani's appearance suggests the Taliban have grown even more confident of their hold on the country since seizing power. AFP
On September 19, the Haqqanis released an American engineer Mark Frerichs, who they had kidnapped back in January 2020, in exchange for a key Afghan drug lord and Taliban financier named Haji Bashar Noorzai. This is the exchange that the Taliban had sought ever since they took Mr Frerichs captive.
Only a few days earlier, a compromise had been struck on an even thornier issue. The US Treasury transferred some $3.5 billion out of the $9bn former Afghan government’s frozen reserves into a Swiss-based trust fund that is meant to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the Afghan people. This reduces the enormous financial pressures on the Taliban government without putting the money in their hands.
These pragmatic solutions were built on the back of previous overtures. An important one is the tacit co-operation between the US and the Taliban against a common enemy, namely ISIS-Khorasan, the terror group’s offshoot in Afghanistan.
In retrospect, the clearest signal was a February 2020 column published in The New York Times by none other than Sirajuddin Haqqani himself, expressing a desire for "friendly relations with all countries", and for the US to support Afghan reconstruction and development once it withdrew. The Haqqanis' actions appear to have been broadly in line with this thinking.
One explanation for all these developments would be that the Haqqanis have freed themselves from the ISI’s grip. But the evidence from a range of credible sources, including the 97,000 internal Al Qaeda documents retrieved during the 2011 Bin Laden raid and closely analysed by Dr Nelly Lahoud, tells us a very different story, one that pushes us to question prior assumptions.
Published as The Bin Laden Papers, they reveal the Haqqanis' impressive ability to simultaneously maintain trust with both the Pakistani military and Al Qaeda, even as the two spiralled into enmity with each other after 9/11. Similarly, the Haqqanis maintained a close relationship with both Pakistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan even while the Pakistan and the TTP fought each other, round after bloody round from 2007 onwards. Corroborating accounts can be found in Bette Dam’s recent study of Mullah Omar, Looking for the Enemy, as well as works by Vahid Brown and Leah Farrall.
Pakistani leverage over the Haqqanis in the form of material support, medical care and a safe haven has not been enough to get them to give up the TTP. Instead, Pakistan was forced to overlook this while they focused on the common goal of a Taliban victory, which would supposedly protect Pakistan from any hostile power using Kabul’s ability to stir up Pashtun and Baloch people against Islamabad.
What this tells us is that the Haqqanis have always made their decisions based on the strategic needs of their evolving situation. As insurgents fighting the Afghan communist and Soviets – and later the Americans and their Afghan clients – the Haqqanis prioritised long-term relationships that would provide reliable support through the war’s many twists and turns. The ideological force that kept these pipelines open was a shared belief in religious solidarity, especially at a time of war. But now, as they switch from war to governance, the Haqqanis need productive and stable international partnerships that global militant groups cannot provide. And the need to speak for all Afghans means that their ideological perspective is increasingly a blend of nationalism and religion.
An FBI wanted poster of Ayman Al Zawahiri. AFP
But it isn’t just the West and India that misread the Haqqanis. Pakistan's four decades of effort have now culminated in a truly pyrrhic victory. Even though the Haqqanis and the Taliban quietly sacrificed Al Qaeda, they have renewed their commitment to the TTP, releasing thousands from captivity after taking power. To add insult to injury, the Taliban has pressured Pakistan to make constitutional concessions to the TTP while hosting talks between the parties in Kabul.
Afghanistan under the Taliban appears determined to use every available card to equalise the balance of power with Pakistan, even to the extent that it is now publicly speaking of the possibility of training its forces in India. Now, Pakistan is fortifying its border and preparing for the traditional confrontational relationship between Islamabad and Kabul, almost as if the two-generation-long alliance with the Haqqanis and others never happened.
We cannot know what lies ahead – that much is clear from recent history. But what is equally clear is that the US at least gets the present right by recognising that the Haqqanis and the Taliban cannot be reduced to stereotypes or puppets. Instead, the entire international community must engage in the same kind of canny and constant re-evaluation at which the Haqqanis have proved so adept.
The protective shell is covered in solar panels to make use of light and produce energy. This will drastically reduce energy loss.
More than 80 per cent of the energy consumed by the French pavilion will be produced by the sun.
The architecture will control light sources to provide a highly insulated and airtight building.
The forecourt is protected from the sun and the plants will refresh the inner spaces.
A micro water treatment plant will recycle used water to supply the irrigation for the plants and to flush the toilets. This will reduce the pavilion’s need for fresh water by 30 per cent.
Energy-saving equipment will be used for all lighting and projections.
Beyond its use for the expo, the pavilion will be easy to dismantle and reuse the material.
Some elements of the metal frame can be prefabricated in a factory.
From architects to sound technicians and construction companies, a group of experts from 10 companies have created the pavilion.
Work will begin in May; the first stone will be laid in Dubai in the second quarter of 2019.
Construction of the pavilion will take 17 months from May 2019 to September 2020.
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The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
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Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
