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An Afghan policeman keeps watch near a poster of the slain Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul
Last week the already fraught peace talks in Afghanistan received a devastating blow with the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president of Afghanistan. Indeed the destabilizing effects of Rabbani’s assassintation have already been felt both within Afghanistan and across the region.
Rabbani, who was leading Karzai’s efforts to build a relationship with insurgent forces in the country and had fought with the Taliban during the civil war, may have been a polarizing figure in Afghanistan’s political scene, yet with him gone, Karzai stands increasingly isolated when it comes to his peace-building strategy for the country and the region at large.
Rather than transcend the ethnic fault lines that so complicate negotiations in the country, Rabbani’s death has already reinforced the position of hardliners from his ethnic Tajik community who vehemently oppose negotiations with the majority Pashtun community in the country. According to a report by the Financial Times, a governor from the northern Balkh province illustrated their disdain with his announcement that “for every drop of his blood, thousands of soldiers will rise up and come to the battle field.”
Moreover, Rabbani’s assassination has also frayed relations with Pakistan, who many blame for having harbored his assailants, presumably the Taliban. During Rabbani’s funeral on Wednesday, which was attended by Karzai, mourners chanted “Death to America, Death to Pakistan, Death to the ISI.”
Interestingly, however, the Taliban has refused to comment on the killing of the peace negotiator suggesting that his killer, a former Taliban fighter who had been invited to talks at Rabbani’s home, may have acted without their knowledge. Whether the Taliban or Pakistan’s Haqqani network are to blame for Rabbani’s death is of little importance. Rather, its impact already speaks to the long term affects his assassination will have on negotiations in the country at a time when the eminent withdrawal of US military forces is leading many to rethink the advantages of negotiating a peace deal.
Unfortunately for the peace talks in Afghanistan, Rabbani’s death is yet another casualty topping a list of other leaders in the talks who have been assassinated by the Taliban in an attempt to further undermine reconciliation efforts. In addition to the July assassination of Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai one of the most influential leaders of the South, this marks but the seventh assassination of an Afghan politician this year.
Indeed as an article by Al Jazeera demonstrates in their survey of the history of assassinations in the country, the pervasiveness of political killings is one of the many challenges that stand in the way of reconciliation.
