"Loya Jirga" Talabani in Kabul .. What are his goals? How do the opponents view it?

KABUL - Acting Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund

opened today, Thursday, a meeting in the capital, Kabul, in which more than 3,500 religious scholars and tribal leaders loyal to the Taliban participated, and it came along the lines of what was known historically as the "Loya Jirga" meeting in Afghanistan.

The meeting is being held behind closed doors and without direct media coverage, under tight security measures, and at a time when opponents of the new Afghan government describe it as an attempt to gain internal legitimacy.

The "Loya Jirga" is a tribal advisory body, the meeting of which is an ancient tradition in the history of Afghanistan, especially in the Pashtun tribes whose spread extends to some parts of Pakistan.

Where tribal chiefs, political and religious leaders and others meet to consult in solving their problems related to their political and public affairs.

Crowds of Afghan religious scholars and tribal leaders at a previous meeting of the Loya Jirga (Reuters)

To gain internal legitimacy

The Taliban - 10 months after it came to power in Afghanistan, and without the international community's recognition of the government that formed it - is trying to gain internal legitimacy through a meeting of scholars and tribal leaders, and view it as a gateway to international recognition.

The Taliban was founded in 1994, and researcher and historian Abdul Basit Jamal - to Al-Jazeera Net - says that the movement "conducted the first meeting to obtain legitimacy in 1996, and about 1,500 religious scholars participated in it in the southern province of Kandahar, and now it wants to reproduce that experience again to arrange its home." internal".

reject then accept

Prior to its seizure of power, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and former head of the reconciliation committee, Abdullah Abdullah, demanded that the Taliban hold a "loya jirga" to determine the country's political fate, but it did not accept, and then returned 10 months later and decided to hold it to legitimize its government, using the same mechanism. Which benefited its founder Mullah Muhammad Omar in 1996.

However, political researcher Hikmat Jalil points out a significant difference between the two meetings. The first came at a time when the Taliban movement was strong and cohesive and did not suffer from internal disputes, and it received the recognition of some countries, while the current meeting "aims at resolving internal differences and ensuring the continuation of Taliban rule." Jalil adds that "the common denominator between the two meetings is that political opponents and women are not invited."

unspoken agenda

The meeting, which lasts 3 days, is chaired by Mawlawi Habibullah Khan, the official of the jihadist school in Kandahar, and is assisted by Mawlawi Muhammad Ismail and Habibullah Samanghani.

A source in the presidential palace told Al Jazeera Net: "The leader of the Taliban movement, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, assigned Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar to arrange and hold the meeting in Kabul, and the main objective of it was to bring the support of scholars, and to search for a solution to thorny and controversial issues in Afghanistan." .

The Afghan government did not officially announce the meeting agenda, but Al Jazeera Net obtained a copy of it.

It stated that the discussion would revolve around "preventing corruption, not allowing the repetition of failed experiments in Afghanistan, supporting the Islamic Emirate, and the mechanism for supporting the Afghan government in maintaining stability in the country, considering all those who rebel and take up arms against the Islamic Emirate as a tyrant, and secure borders with neighbors."

The participants in the meeting will not touch on topics such as the education of Afghan women, the participation of political parties in governance, and relations with the international community, especially the United States.

A government source told Al-Jazeera Net, "When you read the agenda, you will not see the items that the Afghan people and the international community expect. These items are all to strengthen and consolidate the pillars of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, and most importantly put an end to the differences between its members, and the meeting can be considered an attempt to arrange the internal house only."

An event to raise Taliban flags in the capital, Kabul (European)

Opposition and a call for public dialogue

Some politicians in the previous government objected to the meeting of religious scholars and tribal leaders loyal to the Taliban movement. Islamic Unity Party leader Karim Khalili said, "This is not a loya jirga, but an internal meeting of the Taliban movement to discuss its affairs."

Khalili called - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - the leader of the Taliban movement to start negotiations with the Afghans, and to pave the way for peace throughout the country, adding, "The fate of the Afghan people must be decided in partnership with all political currents in Afghanistan."

For his part, the former Afghan Foreign Minister, Salahuddin Rabbani, the leader of the Islamic Jamiat party, accused the Taliban movement of using the name "Loya Jirga" as a tool to gain legitimacy, and said that "taking possession of power does not lead to stability."

Photo from a Loya Jirga meeting in the Afghan capital in 2013 (European)

loya jirga

The "Loya Jirga" is one of the traditional mechanisms for gaining political legitimacy in Afghanistan, and it had a prominent place in political history. The first meeting in its name was held in 1747 in Kandahar to elect Ahmad Shah Durrani as king of modern Afghanistan.

Historian and researcher Sharif Zadran told Al Jazeera Net, "Everyone knows the importance of the jirga in resolving issues in Afghanistan, and its content has changed during the past two decades as it has been used as a means to achieve the agenda of governments and foreigners, and now the Afghan people do not trust their decisions."

Since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, the "Loya Jirga" has been held 5 times in the government of former presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, and its decisions were not mandatory, unlike what people in Afghanistan are familiar with.