Germany's support for Pashtun Taliban leaders
Germany's backing of the Taliban is a notable anomaly in the
annals of democratic history. Despite being neither a geographical neighbor of
Afghanistan nor a global powerhouse, Germany has extensively involved itself in
the affairs of this distant country.
However, this level of interference is not without
precedent, as Germany has a longstanding tradition of supporting Pashtun
political leaders, a phenomenon that will be explored in greater detail below.
Following
the Taliban's ousting in December 2001, Germany hosted a pivotal meeting
involving various Afghan and international political factions to discuss
Afghanistan's future. This gathering, known as the InternationalConference on Afghanistan or the Bonn Conference, aimed to shape the country's
political trajectory for years to come. The conference ultimately led to the
selection of Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun figure widely seen as a proxy leader, as
the president of Afghanistan. He was later succeeded by another Pashtun leader,
Ashraf Ghani, in 2014. Notably, the conference elevated to power many of the
same politicians who had previously aligned themselves with the Taliban, while
marginalizing those Afghans who had actually played a key role in toppling the
Taliban regime.
On May 25,
2011, the international edition of the German magazine Der Spiegel published an
article revealing that the German government was facilitating clandestine
negotiations between the US government and Taliban representatives, which were
taking place on German territory.
"Germany Mediates Secret US-Taliban Talks: The
German government is mediating secret talks on German soil between the US
government and representatives of the Taliban." - Spiegel International
The meeting
in question occurred during the concurrent administrations of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama. As noted in the article, the
gathering brought together representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and the Taliban.
"On the
American side, representatives of the State Department and the CIA are taking
part. At this stage, it is mid-ranking officials from the Obama administration
who are involved (…) The key figure on the Afghan side is described
on the list of negotiators as a "relative" of Taliban leader Mullah
Omar. This appears to refer to Tayyab Agha, a man in his mid-30s with a long,
thin beard, who used to work as office manager for Mullah Omar when he was the
so-called emir of Afghanistan. Today, Agha is something along the lines of
Mullah Omar's personal spokesman.", Spiegel wrote.
This report
by Spiegel indicates that even back then Germany was actively advocating for
the Taliban, with the German Foreign Ministry expressing hopes that the group
would renounce violence, acknowledge the Afghan constitution, and sever ties
with al-Qaida. Thomas Ruttig, a researcher at the Afghanistan Analysts Network,
was quoted as saying that the latter goal was not entirely unrealistic.
However, it
is now widely acknowledged that the Taliban has no intention of abandoning its
terrorist activities, despite facing international pressure.
In the same
Spiegel article, Thomas Ruttig is quoted as downplaying the Taliban's extremist
ideology, stating that the group's leaders claim their agenda is limited to
regional interests and that, unlike al-Qaida, they do not aspire to establish a
global caliphate, citing the example that they do not aim to create an emirate
in Washington.
On August
15-31, 2021, the Taliban ultimately regained control of Afghanistan.
Subsequently, the German newspaper Die Welt revealed that the Merkel
administration had maintained contacts with Taliban leaders before, during, and
after the group's takeover of Afghanistan. This suggests that the Taliban's
confidence and motivation may have been bolstered by the support of foreign
countries.
31 August 2021 - February 2025 (Taliban rule over Afghanistan):
Between 31 August 2021 and February 2025 the German government seemed to help the Taliban withstand the crisis through several measures, which shall be detailed in the following:
-Germany's minister for foreign affairs Annalena Baerbock (The Greens party) is responsible for both bringing Pashtun Afghans from Pakistan (who usually are connected to the Taliban) to Germany and giving financial aid to the Taliban. According to media reports between 2022 and 2025 Germany foreign ministry transferred 24000 Afghans from Pakistan to Germany.
Update (25 February 2025): German paper Welt reported that a new charter
flight with more than 150 Afghans landed in Germany. Furthermore, the Welt article give details of the total number of Afghans flown to Germany via charter flights:
"In total,
Germany has promised to take in more than 48,000 Afghans since Afghanistan fell
to the Taliban in August 2021, including the latest arrivals, almost 36,000
people who were classified by the federal government as "particularly at
risk". According to WELT information, the costs so far amount to several
hundred million euros; this sum is significantly higher than the double-digit
million figure mentioned last time." (German original: "Insgesamt hat Deutschland nach dem Fall Afghanistans an die
Taliban im August 2021 mehr als 48.000 Afghanen eine Aufnahme zugesagt, mit den
neusten Ankömmlingen knapp 36.000 Personen, die von der Bundesregierung als
„besonders gefährdet“ eingestuft wurden, aufgenommen. Die Kosten belaufen sich
nach WELT-Informationen bislang auf mehrere Hundert Millionen Euro; damit ist
die Summe deutlich höher als der zuletzt genannte zweistellige Millionenwert.")
Screenshot of Welt's article on the most recent charter flight from Pakistan to Germany
Welt also names the location from where the Afghans are flown to German: "In Pakistan, where security talks are taking place and charter flights are starting (...)" (German original: "In Pakistan, wo Sicherheitsgespräche stattfinden und die
Chartflüge starten
(...)")
It seems that the ruling parties, SPD and the Greens, haven't told the public the true numbers and costs of these flights. The majority of Germans are against those flights and there have been reports about the possibility that terrorists were flewn to Germany as well.
Many
of the migrants the German government transferred to Germany, claim to
have been born in Kabul but there are reports that many are not even
Afghan but Pakistani citizens, as Pakistan has more Pashtuns than Afghanistan, and those who are from Afghanistan and live in Pakistan are mainly
Pashtuns. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan is a racist only-Pashtun group and many Pashtuns support the Taliban. Responsible for the charter flights are mainly three ministers of the German government, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock (the Greens), interior minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) and development minister Svenja Schulze (SPD). During the 2021 election campaigns of The Greens, Baerbock
publicly admitted that she has Afghan - who are probably of Pashtun ethnicity - friends. Many knife attacks have been carried out by Pashtun perpetrators. On the one hand German government is negotiating with the Taliban and thus bypasses anti-Taliban Afghans, while on the other hand it seeks to rescue Afghans from that regime.Afghan refugees in a Bundeswehr Airbus in a move to present Germany as a humanitarian country - politicising vulnerable Afghan refugess
Update (2 March 2025): Bild
reported that another charter flight with Afghan migrant from Pakistan will land in Berlin on 5 March 2025. This will be the second such flight after German elections and while the old government of SPD and the Greens is still ruling Germany.
Bild breaking news on the next charter flight from Afghanistan
This will likely increase resentments against people with Afghan origin in Germany. The current German government does it despite its defeat in the elections.
This move could have several reasons:
-using Afghans as a political factor to create problems and chaos for the next government, so that the next government has to negotiate with Taliban to deport them back (let's not forget that it was the same SPD-led government which deported Afghans to Afghanistan for the first time during the Taliban regime);
-Afghans are usually cheap labor, so they can be used in menial jobs, which no one else would take;
-a sort of revenge for their bad results in the elections etc.
According to the Bild article it isn't even clear, if the migrants are Afghan at all, as their true identities is unclear and their official identities are doubtful.
The flight will go directly to Berlin, where asylum seekers live in miserable conditions, already, according to an
article by Welt from 2 March 2025:
"Thousands
of asylum seekers and refugees are stuck in emergency accommodation in Berlin:
in a tent city, some are sleeping with up to 18 people in one room. Others are
housed in a gigantic former hotel complex." (German original: "
Tausende Asylbewerber
und Flüchtlinge stecken in Berlin in Notunterkünften fest: In einer Zeltstadt
schlafen die einen mit bis zu 18 Personen in einem Raum. Andere sind in einem
gigantischen früheren Hotelkomplex untergebracht").Earlier on the same day Welt wrote in an article calling the charter flights from Pakistan "State-Organized Madness" (German original: "Staatlich organisierter Irrsinn").
Let's hope that the next German government under chancellor Merz will stop this madness and won't fly random Afghans (who likey aren't Afghans in fact) from Pakistan to Germany.
On 17 February 2025 German paper Tagesspiegel quoted German spokesman of the foreign ministry as stating: "The
claim that there is no contact with the Taliban is false. There is occasional
contact at a technical level," The spokesman referred to
the existing German liaison office in Doha, Qatar. He added that “colleagues are also constantly traveling” from Doha, Qatar, to Afghanistan. Through this office, the German government is “in contact with representatives of the de facto government” of the Taliban in Kabul.
article on Germany's relationship with Taliban
Obviously, the German government officials were well aware that their meetings with the Taliban in Afghanistan were problematic and bad for their reputation. Else they would publicly announce them beforehand and/or report on the results following the meetings. But instead they kept a low profile on them and the public was never informed, except for this one side note published on 17 February 2025.
-On 12 February 2025 German paper Welt reported on how German government (a coalition between SPD and The Greens) donated 360 million to 1 billion Euros: "In
the German election campaign, development aid is mainly a side issue in the
migration debate. In a ZDF candidate round, for example, FDP leader Christian
Lindner recently claimed that Afghanistan had received one billion euros in
development aid in the past three years. (...) However, the official figures from the Development Ministry contradict
Lindner's statement: According to them, a total of around 360 million euros
flowed into Afghanistan between 2022 and 2024." (German original: "Im
Bundestagswahlkampf taucht Entwicklungshilfe vor allem als Seitenthema der
Migrationsdebatte auf. In einer ZDF-Kandidatenrunde etwa behauptete gerade erst
FDP-Chef Christian Lindner, dass Afghanistan in den vergangenen drei Jahren
eine Milliarde Euro Entwicklungshilfe bekommen habe. (...) Die offiziellen Zahlen des
Entwicklungsministeriums stehen jedoch im Widerspruch zu Lindners Äußerung:
Demnach flossen in den Jahren 2022 bis 2024 insgesamt rund 360 Millionen Euro
nach Afghanistan.")
You don't need to be an expert on Afghanistan to get the awareness that each and every organisation in Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban and that whatever money goes to Afghanistan via official channels goes directly to the Taliban. According to Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front (NRF) living in exile, the Taliban even created multiple NGOs to receive money. Also in this case it's obvious that the German government want to conceal the true amount of the money (1 billion Euros?) given to Taliban-allied NGOs, as revealed by former finance minister Christian Lindner, as no one from the government objected to the number mentioned by him. Responsible for the financial aid is Germany's Ministry
for Economic Cooperation and Development, led by Svenja Schulze (SPD).
-On 16 September 2024 German magazine Focus published an interview with Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, in which he confessed that European officials were in contact with the Taliban.
-while organisations affiliated with the Taliban receive financial aid, their supporters and lobbyists invest in international projects and even
build skyscrapers in Dubai.
-On 22 February 2025 German tabloid paper published how Tino Chrupalla, co-chairman of the far-right party AfD intended to visit the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Bild reported about Chrupalla's intention to visit Taliban
Because German security authorities strongly advised against it, the AfD politician is said to have changed his plans. Bild explains the reason:
"On 19 February 2025 there were firefights in front of the Taliban-controlled Ministry of the Interior in the Afghan capital Kabul, after which a bomb exploded. Fighters of the "Resistance Front" reportedly killed four Taliban and injured three others." While
Taliban's days are numbered, it seems that some politicians from outside want to prevent that for whatever reason.
In an interview with Deutsche Welle in September 2021, Chrupalla claimed that “99 percent of Afghans” were “satisfied with the Taliban’s seizure of power.”. He demanded the recognition the Taliban regime by Germany.
It seems that far-right politicians in the West are in favor of the Taliban. At the end of 2023 Herbert
F. a famous Austrian right-wing extremist flew to Afghanistan, despite a travel warning, to prove that the country was safe. Herbert F.
was kidnapped there by the Taliban and spent nine months in a Taliban prison facing the death penalty. He was only released through Qatar's mediation.
On 23 February 2025 BBC reported that British
couple Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife Barbie, 75, has been arrested two weeks ago by the Taliban in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The number of captives by the Taliban is on the rise. The reason is likely to get as many hostages as possible in order to blackmail governments to give them money.
But there are also those from the "humanitarian" side lobbying for the Taliban, among them Ralf Stegner from the SPD party, and former
German army colonel Reinhard Erös who has been running the Kinderhilfe Afghanistan since 1998, which builds and maintains schools,
orphanages and training centers in the country's eastern provinces.
Related videos:
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Ahmad Massoud: "Taliban have no legitimacy in Afghanistan"
Pashtun Taliban Commander: "Shoot NRF prisoners." (Sept. 2022)
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Taliban massacre Tajik Afghans
Taliban Shot Ashura Mourners In
Afghanistan
Taliban Killed Hundreds Of Afghan
Former Soldiers Since August 31, 2021
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Taliban And Terrorist Groups -
Afghan Cmdr. (Ret.) Of Tora Bora
Taliban's Racism Towards Shia
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Terrorist Taliban are in Europe
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