Suhail Shaheen: The Perilous Promises of the Afghan Taliban’s Most Prominent International Voice

Suhail Shaheen: The Perilous Promises of the Afghan Taliban’s Most Prominent International Voice

Muhammad Suhail Shaheen is the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar and the Afghan Taliban’s representative-designate to the United Nations. He was also a member of the Taliban’s 21-member negotiation team in Doha when it was negotiating with the U.S. These negotiations resulted in the Doha agreement of February 2020 that provided for the subsequent U.S withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Shaheen was born in Paktia, Afghanistan in the late 1970s and belongs to the Pashtun sub-tribe called Totakhel. He received his higher education from Kabul University and the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan (Afghan biographies, April 15). He is also fluent in Pashto, Urdu, Dari and English and currently resides in Doha along with his family, including two daughters and three sons who are being educated in state-run schools in Doha (The Print, April 13).

Shaheen is one of the key figures of the Taliban, who as a diplomat and member of the negotiation team, has significant experience in diplomacy. Living in Doha, he is familiar with global trends more than other Taliban leaders who lack a broader worldview. Hence, he has the potential, albeit not necessarily the will, to influence the Taliban to allow girls’ education and to provide women their rights, as his own daughters go to school in Doha (Twitter/@NasimiShabnam, May 11). Although he has not been directly involved in militancy, he has always played a role as the Taliban’s mouthpiece while defending its polices, including the ban on girls’ education, and numerous attacks.

Career as a Diplomat and Afterward

During the Taliban’s first regime from 1996-2001, Shaheen was the editor of the state-run newspaper Kabul Times and was later appointed by the Taliban as the deputy ambassador in Pakistan (Afghanistan Analyst Network, June 24, 2013). That Afghanistan embassy was the only embassy in Islamabad that was functional for a short period after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Shaheen served as the acting ambassador. In an interview in October 2001, he expressed his view that Afghanistan would be the “next Vietnam” for the U.S. (Youtube, October 8, 2001). Sometime later, after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, he was believed to be residing in the Shamshatu refugee camp near Peshawar, which was under Hizb-i-Islami’s supervision. There he wrote for a newspaper of Hizb-i-Islami and allegedly worked for the United Nations in Pakistan (Afghanistan Analysts Network, June 24, 2013).

When the “new” Taliban emerged and the movement gained momentum in 2005, Shaheen re-connected with the Taliban leadership. Before the opening of the Taliban’s political office at Doha, Taliban activities had remained underground. However, after the Taliban moved above ground, Shaheen became an active member and when the U.S. initiated peace talks with the Taliban in 2010, Shaheen became a member of the Taliban delegation. [1] Moreover, in December 2011 when the Taliban was negotiating with the U.S. to pave the way for its political office in Doha, Shaheen accompanied Tayyab Agha, who was former private secretary to Mullah Umar, and Shahbuddin Dilawar. [2]

When the Taliban finally opened a political office in Doha in June 2013, Shaheen was appointed as its spokesperson alongside Muhammad Naeem [3] and he briefed the media about the future process of negotiations with the U.S. (The Express Tribune, June 20, 2013). Shaheen further added that the Taliban would first talk to the U.S. because it was the main party to the conflict. The Taliban, therefore, since the start of the talks with the U.S. emphasized achieving an agreement with the U.S. and then the Afghan government. The talks lasted until the Doha agreement was signed with the U.S. in late February 2020. Shaheen frequently appeared in the media, including the BBC and CNN, and was active on Twitter, where he had more than 600,000 followers as of June 2022 (Twitter/suhailshaheen, June 24). Shaheen remained the Doha office spokesperson until he was replaced by Muhammad Naeem in September 2021. Since then, he has been in charge of the Doha political office and is the Taliban’s representative-designate to the United Nations. The Taliban is, however, still awaiting diplomatic recognition.

Shaheen on Girls’ Education and Afghanistan’s Future

Shaheen is among the more “moderate” Taliban leaders and has remained engaged with the Western media throughout his career. Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, he frequently gave interviews to various news agencies and channels about the future of Afghanistan under the Taliban. In all his interviews and tweets, he reiterated that the Taliban would not take any revenge on its rivals and political opponents and would respect human rights, freedom of speech and media and girls’ education (YouTube, August 15, 2021; Suhail Shaheen on Twitter, November 19, 2021). However, contrary to his claims, girls have yet to return to schools in Afghanistan nearly one year after the Taliban took power. Previously, the Taliban had announced that girls would return to schools by the end of March 2022, but that did not happen (Dawn, January 16). Although Shaheen does not seem to be against girls’ education, there are differences on the matter inside the Taliban shura that delayed the opening of girls’ schools. Shaheen admitted that his daughters attend schools in Qatar for which he was widely criticized because it is perceived that the Taliban has double-standards (NDTV, May 12).

Shaheen considers himself an Afghan nationalist and in an interview in 2020 he stated, “We have no properties or houses in foreign countries, while the Afghan politicians have houses and everything abroad; if Afghanistan destabilizes, they will go there. However, we have no properties abroad or any intention to live abroad but to liberate our masses from the foreign occupation.” He further added that since the U.S. invasion, the Taliban wanted to stabilize Afghanistan, but the U.S. did not listen to the Taliban and ignored its desire for a negotiated settlement. [4] It is pertinent to note that the Taliban wanted to become more mainstream following its collapse in late 2001, but the U.S. was not ready to accept this at the time. [5]

In September 2021, Shaheen was nominated as the representative-designate to the United Nations by the Taliban leadership following the takeover of Kabul (Pajhwok Afghan News, September 22, 2021). Shortly after, in February 2022, he was appointed as the head of the Taliban’s Doha political office (Tolo News, February 23). After this appointment, the Taliban sent a letter to the United Nations General Secretary António Guterres requesting that he allow the Taliban’s representative to take Afghanistan’s UN seat. The Taliban’s interim foreign minister, Amer Khan Muttaqi, wrote in the letter that as Ashraf Ghani’s government was ousted and, his designated envoy no longer could represent Afghanistan (Dawn, September 23, 2021). Despite this, the General Secretary dismissed the request on procedural grounds. If the United Nations had allowed the Taliban to have Shaheen as its representative-designate to address the General Assembly session, it would have given the impression that the United Nations was recognizing the Taliban before the Taliban had fulfilled many commitments it made before the takeover regarding women rights, girls’ education, the freedom of media and press, and an inclusive government, among others.

Conclusion

Suhail Shaheen has made significant progress rising in the ranks of the Taliban leadership in the past two decades. Despite his promises, the Taliban could not uphold many of its commitments. When the Taliban announced its interim government in early September 2021, it consisted of Taliban militant veterans with no representation from other militant groups or ethnic communities except two Tajiks and one Uzbek in the cabinet, which further undermined the idea of an inclusive Taliban government (Gandhara, September 8, 2021). Unlike many leaders in the Taliban, Shaheen has long been accustomed to the media spotlight due to his prominent role as Taliban spokesman in Doha.  Recently, however, when Shaheen has faced the international media, the non-fulfillment of the promises made by Taliban has put the Taliban spokesman on the back foot in his media interviews. This in turn has created a difficult if not embarrassing role for a person long accustomed to the media spotlight in the West.

References:

[1] Author’s interview with Suhail Shaheen, April 2020.

[2] Shahabuddin Dilawar is a senior member of the Taliban who was a member of the Taliban negotiation team since 2013 and now is the Minster of Mining and Petroleum. He has also served as the Taliban ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan during the Taliban regime from 1996-2001.

[3] Muhammad Naeem, the member of Doha political office, replaced Suhail Shaheen and was made Qatar office spokesperson in September 2021.

[4] Zafar Iqbal Yousafzai, The Troubled Triangle: US-Pakistan Relations under the Taliban’s Shadow (London/New York: Routledge, 2021), p. 126.

[5] For details, see Bette Dam’s report, The Secret life of Mullah Umar, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bf5692f4611a019a7c69ea6/t/5c77f4fdeef1a10b17f2abda/1551365379168/Secret+Life+of+Mullah+Omar-FINAL3.pdf.