Saturday marks five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, and armed opposition to the movement is no longer confined to a single front or leadership structure. Since the fall of the previous government in August 2021, several groups operating under different names and banners have emerged, claiming responsibility for attacks on government forces in a number of provinces. Their presence online has also increased noticeably in recent months, marking a shift in how these factions attempt to project influence.
A key question has emerged: Does the growing number of fronts represent a genuine expansion of armed opposition, or does it reflect fragmentation and divisions among those seeking to challenge the status quo? The issue has taken on particular significance following renewed clashes in Badakhshan province, where the Afghanistan Freedom Front fought government forces in the Zebak district. Fighting later shifted to limited operations and intermittent clashes in different locations. The clashes continued for several days – a notable development compared with the opposition’s usual pattern of operations – before the intensity of the fighting subsided.
The United Nations says armed groups opposed to the government remain active, but have been unable to pose a significant challenge to Taliban control of Afghan territory. The Taliban maintains that it controls all Afghan territory and has the ability to deal with any insurgency or armed group that emerges in the country. Mohammad Nouri, an expert on digital media and armed conflict, told Al Jazeera that social media had become a second battlefield, with armed groups needing to demonstrate their existence online as much as on the ground.
The National Resistance Front was the first major armed formation to emerge after the fall of Kabul. As the previous government collapsed, hundreds of members of the former security forces retreated to the Panjshir Valley. The front sought to turn the valley into a centre of resistance against the Taliban, but the Taliban seized the provincial capital and most of the area, forcing the resistance to adopt a more dispersed strategy.
Security affairs researcher Karim Amini told Al Jazeera that political and military figures from the former Afghan government sought to establish armed fronts after the US withdrawal as a means of putting pressure on the Taliban, “but they were unable to turn these projects into an influential force on the ground.” Amini partly attributes that to most of these groups being formed outside Afghanistan, limiting their ability to establish a field presence and build a social base.
Their reliance on armed confrontation with the Taliban also “ran up against an Afghan society exhausted by decades of war and no longer prepared to become involved in another cycle of conflict”, he said. According to Amini, several opposition forces also failed to understand the changes Afghan society had undergone after four decades of conflict. They treated the population as a static entity rather than one that had evolved amidst the chaos of war.
Afghan society is tired of war, he said, and many of these groups have therefore failed to find the local environment needed to establish a lasting presence. “An opposition that does not emerge from Afghan realities and the needs of the people will struggle to establish a foothold inside the country, regardless of the experience or military leadership it possesses abroad,” Amini said.
The challenge facing these groups, he added, is not merely their ability to carry out sporadic attacks, but whether they can regain domestic trust, build a social base and present a convincing political project – conditions he considers more important than the mere possession of weaponry or foreign backing.
In July, the Afghanistan Freedom Front said it attacked Taliban positions in Zebak district, seized military positions and inflicted losses on the movement. The Taliban, for its part, said it repelled the attack and killed a number of the assailants, while the front said it had beaten back counterattacks. Afghan security affairs researcher Abdul Karim Khan told Al Jazeera that the Zebak fighting was significant because it tested the ability of anti-Taliban groups to move beyond hit-and-run operations towards longer confrontations.
But he said it could not be considered a strategic shift unless similar fighting was seen elsewhere. “The real measure is not controlling a position for a few hours or days, but the ability to hold it, secure supply lines, expand the network of fighters and force the Taliban to alter its military deployments on a sustained basis,” Khan said. He noted that previous experience had led broad sections of the population to reject a return to armed conflict, viewing such groups as potential precursors to the return of warlords.
The opposition fronts, he added, are “active in cyberspace”, but that activity has not translated into a military presence capable of changing realities on the ground. Rafiullah Kakar, an expert on armed movements, also told Al Jazeera that the opposition does not initially need to control large areas to exert pressure on the Taliban, but it does need to maintain a level of operations that forces the movement to continuously adjust its security posture.
Writer and political analyst Khalid Ahmadi told Al Jazeera that “the main problem is that the armed opposition exaggerates its ability to carry out operations, but has so far failed to present a unified vision for a post-Taliban period. At the same time, the Taliban maintains control, but faces challenges over political legitimacy and foreign relations.” The growing number of armed fronts therefore does not necessarily mean Afghanistan is heading towards “a new civil war”, but it does show that conflict did not end with the collapse of the previous government, he added.
Verifying claims of responsibility, he said, requires comparing photographs and videos, the locations of attacks, testimony from residents and statements from the different parties, because a statement alone is not suffi
Away from the battlefield, the opposition landscape appears increasingly crowded.
Verifying claims of responsibility, he said, requires comparing photographs and videos, the locations of attacks, testimony from residents and statements from the different parties, because a statement alone is not sufficient evidence.
None of the groups opposing it has succeeded in establishing a sustainable area of territorial control.
Continuing attacks nevertheless impose a security cost on the movement, requiring it to deploy forces in mountainous and remote regions and pursue small groups capable of carrying out surprise attacks.
The opposition’s immediate objective may therefore be less about capturing cities and more about wearing down the Taliban and keeping an active security front open.