A senior Taliban leader informally reached out to New Delhi earlier this week to know if India wanted to keep its embassy  in Kabul open, with a safety assurance, a report in The Hindustan Times said. However, after a “quick security assessment”, India went ahead with the pre-planned evacuation of its staff from the  Kabul mission. 

Abbas Stanekzai, a senior Taliban leader based in the group’s Doha office and a member of the group’s negotiation team, came with a request: “Would India retain its diplomatic presence?” 

But by  last week India had already closed its all four consulates in Afghanistan amid security concerns, and with the fall of Kabul, New Delhi swiftly moved to pull its large embassy staff back home. 

The report also said that Stanekzai also took note of India’s concern regarding the checkpoints in the capital being manned by the cadre of Lashkar-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, the two Pakistan based terrorist groups, responsible for hundreds of attacks in India.

Stanekzai, a graduate of Indian Military Academy when he was an officer in the Afghan military during the 70s, contended that all checkpoints were strictly manned by the Taliban cadre only. Earlier, he had criticized India’s role in Afghanistan, and termed India’s views on the Taliban as “prejudiced”.

However, multiple reports indicated that Kabul is in the grip of fighters belonging to the Haqqani Network, a group that is responsible for complex attacks on Indians, and its diplomats in the past in Afghanistan. Haqqanis--which form one of the most powerful Taliban factions-- is closely allied with the ISI, the notorious Pakistan Intelligence agency. 

“A quick assessment, done by the Indian side and its Afghan counterparts, came to the conclusion that the request from the Taliban side could not be taken at face value and that the evacuation of the Indian diplomats and others should go ahead as planned,” the report said  citing unnamed  sources.

From 2015 to 2018, Stanekzai was the head of the Taliban’s Doha office, until Mullah Baradar, who was released by Pakistan in October 2018, became the political head of the group. Stanekzai and Baradar are considered moderate faces among the group. 

A few months back, Indians had reportedly opened intelligence-level contacts with the Taliban and reached out to leaders like Mullah Baradar, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and Mullah Fazil. However, these were the initial contacts, which were only restricted to the nationalist faction, considered free from Pakistan ISI’s influence, within the group.
  
(SAM)