One of India's friends in Afghanistan detained by Taliban, two others vow to keep fighting

Taliban took control of the Salma Dam, which the Government of India had built spending over Rs 1,775 crore

The Taliban has detained Mohammad Ismail Khan, one of New Delhi’s ‘old friends’ in Afghanistan, on Friday, as its militants occupied Herat, a provincial capital in the northwestern region of the country, and took control of the Salma Dam, which the Government of India had built spending over Rs 1,775 crore.

Two other ‘old friends’ India has in Afghanistan, Ata Muhammad Noor and Abdul Rashid Dostum, vowed to fight back the Taliban and drive the militants out of the northern region of the war-torn country. The Taliban, however, occupied the capitals of at least 18 of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan by Friday, with the Afghan National Defence and Security Force (ANDSF) finding it difficult to slow down the militants' advances towards Kabul.

Khan, 75, was detained by the Taliban after his militia and the ANDSF soldiers failed to hold out against the repeated attacks launched by the militants to wrest control of the capital of Herat in northwestern Afghanistan. His detention by the militants was confirmed by the Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter. Some reports from Herat and Kabul, however, indicated that his surrender to the militants was part of a deal between the local government officials and the Taliban. The videos and pictures of him surrounded by gun-toting militants were widely circulated on social media.

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The warlord, once known as “Lion of Herat”, had fought against the erstwhile Soviet Union’s army, which had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. He had also been a prominent member of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of warlords, which had fought against the Taliban in the 1990s with the support from India, Iran, Russia, Tajikistan and Turkey.

Khan’s latest visit to New Delhi was on April 8 this year when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had hosted him in his office and discussed with him the evolving situation in Afghanistan, in view of the imminent withdrawal of troops by the United States and its NATO allies from the conflict-ravaged country.

He had last month led his militia to fight alongside the ANDSF soldiers to repel the Taliban’s attack on Herat – the third largest city of Afghanistan.

After occupying Herat on Friday, the Taliban also took control of the Afghan-India Friendship Dam, a.k.a. Salma Dam, a hydroelectric and irrigation project located on the Hari River in the Chisti Sharif district of the province.

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India had spent Rs 1775.69 crore to build the dam in Afghanistan. The WAPCOS Limited took over 10 years to build the dam, with the remoteness of the site and security situation being the primary reasons for the delay in implementing the project. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had inaugurated it on June 4, 2016.

Two other ‘friends’ of India and ‘Northern Alliance’ veterans – Dostum and Noor – are camping in Mazar-e-Sharif, as the militias led by them are helping the ANDSF to repel the Taliban’s advances towards the Balkh province in northern Afghanistan. Jaishankar had hosted Dostum and Noor in New Delhi in September and October 2020, when India was working out plans to deal with the Taliban’s resurgence after the withdrawal of the US troops and to respond to Pakistan’s renewed bid to gain a strategic edge in Afghanistan.