Mazar-i-Sharif city in Afghanistan’s Balkh province is the fourth largest city in the country and the centre of political and economic life in northern Afghanistan. On 14 August 2021 Mazar fell to the Taliban and its political elites fled across the border with Uzbekistan (Reuters, 2021). In the absence of strong political leadership, the Afghan National Army (ANA) 209th Corps surrendered after only sporadic resistance (Al Jazeera, 2021), and the Taliban gained access to ANA weapons depots located on the outskirts of the city. One day later, on 15 August 2021, Kabul fell to the Taliban.
Balkh province is ethnically diverse and shares borders with Uzbekistan (with the main border crossing spanning the Amu Darya River in Kaldar district), Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The province hosts ethnically diverse Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Turkmen, and Uzbek communities, while both Dari and Pashto are widely spoken.
Historically, power in the northern regions, especially Balkh province, has rested with non-Pashtun communities, particularly Tajiks and Uzbeks, who are led by Uzbek and Tajik warlords and militia that possess significant weapons and ammunition stocks.
The inability of the Taliban to locate and seize these stocks stems from the profound distrust of the group exhibited by the local non-Pashtun population, who view the Taliban as a foreign entity. Unlike their Pashtun counterparts, who reside in Pashtun districts and tend to cooperate with the Taliban, the non-Pashtun populace in Balkh remains deeply mistrustful of the Taliban government. This mistrust dates back to 1997 when, during the Taliban’s initial period in power, General Abdul Malik, a prominent anti-Taliban commander, briefly allied with the Taliban before being betrayed. Malik then orchestrated a violent uprising in Mazar-i-Sharif that resulted in the massacre of Taliban fighters.
The Taliban are currently constructing the 285 km Qosh Tepa canal on the Amu Darya River, based on a feasibility study launched in December 2018 during the era of the Western-supported government. The canal is designed to irrigate parts of northern Afghanistan that have been devastated by climate change and persistent drought. Once completed, it will be the Taliban’s first major infrastructure project; however, it currently faces some technical challenges in the absence of international assistance and has raised concerns among some regional states that also depend on the Amu Darya River for irrigation.
Over the past two years the Taliban have developed more robust weapons management practices, but these rules appear to be unevenly applied across provinces and particular communities (Fleischner, 2023; Jackson, Maiwand, and Weigand, 2023). In Balkh the Taliban have been able to secure weapons stockpiles left by the ANA 209th Corps. Based on interviews conducted for this Situation Update, however, privately held stockpiles of major power brokers and political elites remain largely unaccounted for.
As previously reported, a portion of weapons seized by individual Taliban commanders and fighters during the collapse of the previous government were privately held and sold prior to the establishment of strict Taliban weapons management practices (Fleischner, 2023). While the Taliban have sought to formalize the process for obtaining weapons permits under the Ministry of the Interior (MoI), limited formal procedures are in place for individuals to obtain weapons permits in the provinces. Interviews suggest that individual Taliban commanders may continue to issue unofficial (previously handwritten but increasingly letter-based) weapons permits signed by local Taliban officials, based on individual affiliations with the Taliban. Despite the Taliban’s official ban on informal permits, they remain valid in the province.
Groups designated as terrorists with diverse agendas continue to operate in northern Afghanistan, including the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), which seeks to undermine Taliban authority. On 9 March 2023 the Taliban’s governor in Balkh was killed during a suicide attack inside his office that ISKP later claimed responsibility for (Al Jazeera, 2023). Other armed opposition groups with a foothold in northern Afghanistan include the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) (CRS, 2024; ICG, 2022). Although researchers did not find evidence of any activity linked to either of these groups in Balkh, armed groups like the IMU have strong cross-border links to Central Asian states, especially among Tajik and Uighur majority communities. This connection has led to violent incidents, particularly in Tajikistan. Meanwhile, the ‘largest of the northern insurgent factions’ (ICG, 2022, p. i), the National Resistance Front (NRF), has failed to gain traction among majority Tajik communities in Balkh due to internal ethnically based politics that limit its support (pp. 12–13). So far, former governor Atta Mohammad Noor and former national vice president and warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum (an Uzbek) have neither taken any significant action against the Taliban nor leveraged their powerbases in the north.
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