One of the intractable and enduring issues of our time is the conflict in Afghanistan and every now and then the question props up whether the Taliban would eventually hold peace talks with the government in Kabul or continue on the war path.

This issue cropped up again recently when a news report claimed that Taliban representatives held two rounds of secret talks with Afghan government officials in Qatar’s capital, Doha, during September and October. As expected, the Taliban issued quick denials, first by their Doha-based Political Commission member Suhail Shaheen and then by their official spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. The former termed the report a political ploy while the latter rejected it outright.

As the news was reported by a credible newspaper, The Guardian, quoting Afghan officials, it carried weight. The mention of the presence of US officials in the Doha meetings gave the news report further credibility. Taliban sources were also cited confirming the meetings. However, all those quoted were unnamed so it was difficult to ascertain their importance and motive for leaking the news report.

The news was then picked up and prominently flashed by other media organisations, though not much new was added to the original report. The office of President Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan High Peace Council, which is tasked to conduct peace talks with the armed groups, denied any knowledge of the Qatar meetings. This was surprising as the consent of President Ghani and the Afghan High Peace Council was necessary for undertaking peace talks.

According to media reports, Afghanistan’s top spymaster Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai twice held face-to-face talks in Doha with Mulla Abdul Mannan, the younger brother of late Taliban supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar. Sections of the Afghan media reported that Mohammad Hanif Atmar, the national security adviser to President Ghani, also attended these meetings. Most reports quoted Afghan officials, who obviously wanted to present this as a breakthrough.

Putting together bits and pieces from different sources, particularly the Taliban, one came to the conclusion that even if Mulla Mannan held the peace talks with Masoom Stanekzai, the head of the Afghan intelligence agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS), he did this on his own and was, therefore, unable to represent the Taliban. The Taliban Rehbari Shura (Leadership Council), their highest decision-making body, wasn’t in picture and the supreme leader Mulla Haibatullah Akhundzada, didn’t authorise any such meeting with the Afghan government. Besides, the Qatar-based Taliban Political Commission, headed by Sher Abbas Stanekzai, wasn’t represented in the meetings even though more than a dozen of its members are residing in Doha as guests of the Qatar government.

The next question that comes to mind is why Mulla Mannan went ahead with these unauthorised meetings with the Afghan government knowing pretty well that most Taliban leaders and members, more so the military commanders and fighters, are opposed to any talks with Kabul until some of their conditions are accepted. Some believe he couldn’t have taken the initiative without the blessing of the Taliban leadership. Others claiming to be close to the leading Taliban figures argued that Mulla Mannan is a weak person and not dependable. They argued that his only importance was being the only surviving brother of Mulla Omar, though this didn’t qualify him to become a top leader in the Taliban movement.

They pointed out that Mulla Omar enjoyed unparalleled respect as the founder of Taliban and this was the reason Taliban rank and file also respected his family members such as his eldest son Mulla Mohammad Yaqoob and brother Mulla Mannan.

The Guardian news report also mentioned that Mulla Yaqoob is expected to join the next round of talks initiated by his uncle Mulla Mannan with the Afghan government. This has focused attention on Mulla Yaqoob, who is in his mid-20s and is presently one of the two deputy leaders of the Taliban group, the other being the Haqqani network head Sirajuddin Haqqani. If Mulla Yaqoob were to join the peace talks, this would herald a major and damaging split in the Taliban movement. However, such a thing is improbable as Mulla Yaqoob has quickly risen through the ranks and could even become the ameer of the Taliban in the future. As Mulla Omar’s son, he is unlikely to do something that his father as a hardliner Taliban leader never did by refusing to recognise or negotiate with the Afghan government.

There have also been reports about some kind of bitterness in the relationship between Mulla Yaqoob and his uncle Mulla Mannan. If true, this would mean that the two could go their separate ways with Mulla Yaqoob staying loyal to the existing Taliban supreme leader Mulla Haibatullah and continuing to help him in reconciling with some of the dissident and inactive Taliban figures.

In such a scenario, peace talks with Mulla Mannan cannot yield anything. In fact, any Taliban figure defying the leadership and acting on his own immediately loses his importance and the rank and file is quick to abandon him. This happened to Agha Jan Motasim, a former Taliban minister and finance commission head who tried to set up a parallel body with help from the Afghan government and some foreigners and miserably failed.

Several other former Taliban figures met the same fate. Even the splinter Taliban faction led by Mulla Mohammad Rasool failed to build up on the support it enjoyed initially after challenging the then ameer Mulla Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor’s leadership and has now become insignificant and irrelevant due to major defections from its ranks.

As far as the Afghan government is concerned, it has a policy of negotiating with any prominent figure in the armed groups, particularly the Taliban who continue to pose a major military challenge to it in almost all the 34 provinces. Buoyed by its recent peace agreement with the former mujahideen leader and Hezb-i-Islami head Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, it wants to use the momentum to strike a deal with the Taliban. The deal with Hekmatyar hasn’t and won’t alter the military situation as he lacks fighters and, therefore, the unity government of President Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Dr Abdullah is aware that the conflict won’t end unless the Taliban are brought to the negotiations table.

All such past efforts made with Pakistan’s help didn’t make any headway. Pakistan had no role also in the peace talks involving Hekmatyar and the deal was hailed as a replicable example of Afghans talking to rival Afghans without any outside mediation.

Now that Afghanistan’s relations with Pakistan have hit a new low, Kabul presently seems to have no intention to ask Islamabad to facilitate the peace talks with the Taliban. This explains the desperation in Kabul to talk to any Taliban faction or a figure like Mulla Mannan.  Even if such meetings don’t yield much, such initiatives could cause further differences in the already fractious Taliban movement.

Pakistan’s influence on the Taliban leadership has been a matter of conjecture. One way that Pakistan could bring Taliban under pressure is to arrest their leaders. This happened recently when an important Rahbari Shura member Mulla Ahmadullah Nanay was taken into custody in Quetta or some years ago when deputy leaders Mulla Obaidullah and Mulla Abdul Ghani Biradar were arrested.

Islamabad’s influence isn’t decisive and it has proved inadequate to persuade the Taliban leadership to agree to peace talks with the Afghan government. Still Pakistan’s role in peacemaking in Afghanistan is certainly bigger than other countries and ignoring it in any such process would make it difficult to bring the Afghan conflict to an end.