From Kabul to Kashmir: How Amrullah Saleh, The Panjshir Hero With 'Nine Lives', Is Taking On Pakistan

Last Updated:May 15, 2025, 11:03 IST

Saleh’s fierce absorption to the Taliban and Pakistan’s interference successful Afghanistan has made him a cardinal fig successful the region’s analyzable geopolitics

Saleh has consistently accused Pakistan, peculiarly its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of supporting the Taliban and destabilizing Afghanistan. (Reuters/File)

Amrullah Saleh, the erstwhile vice-president of Afghanistan, has been 1 of the strongest voices successful India’s enactment since Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 Indian tourists successful J&K’s Pahalgam connected April 22. His backing of India pursuing Operation Sindoor aligns with his longstanding views — helium has been a steadfast professional of the Taliban, which overran and took power of Afghanistan successful 2021, and Pakistan’s meddling successful Afghan affairs, including Islamabad’s enactment to the Taliban.

Saleh’s long-stated advocacy for India’s relation successful countering coercion and his disapproval of Pakistan’s policies supply a broader geopolitical discourse to the existent situation.

Who Is Amrullah Saleh?

Saleh, who has served arsenic Afghanistan’s spy main and interior minister, became the country’s archetypal vice-president successful 2020, nether president Ashraf Ghani. His tenure, however, was short-lived arsenic the Taliban seized accelerated and decisive power of Afghanistan by unit connected August 15, 2021, pursuing the withdrawal of US troops.

While president Ghani was forced to fly the country, Saleh stayed backmost and relocated to the Panjshir Valley, a humanities bastion of anti-Taliban resistance. He declared himself the ‘caretaker president’ citing the Afghan constitution and formed the National Resistance Front (NRF) with Ahmad Massoud to reason Taliban rule. His assertion to presidency, however, lacks planetary recognition.

Despite the resistance, the Taliban captured Panjshir successful aboriginal September 2021. As per reports, Saleh had to fly to Tajikistan (he is an taste Tajik), but continues to enactment the NRF successful exile.

Throughout his vocation arsenic a spy main and a politician, Saleh has survived truthful galore assassination attempts that successful planetary circles helium is known arsenic having “nine lives".

Relevance In Geopolitics Of the Sub-Continent

Amrullah Saleh remains a important fig successful the Indian subcontinent’s geopolitics owed to his unwavering absorption to the Taliban and his accordant disapproval of Pakistan’s engagement successful fostering cross-border terrorism.

As a erstwhile Afghan quality main and vice president, Saleh has heavy penetration into determination information dynamics, militancy, and governmental influence. His adjacent ties with India, rooted successful years of strategical practice during the anti-Taliban resistance, presumption him arsenic a earthy state to New Delhi successful its determination information calculus.

In exile, his dependable continues to resonate successful planetary circles advocating for antiauthoritarian resilience successful Afghanistan and pushing backmost against Pakistan’s military-intelligence complex.

With the intensifying India-Pakistan rivalry, Saleh’s enactment for India pursuing Operation Sindoor reinforces his relation arsenic a symbolic yet strategically important subordinate successful South Asia’s evolving geopolitical landscape. His inheritance and enactment successful the anti-Taliban absorption person made him a cardinal fig successful the ongoing powerfulness conflict wrong Afghanistan, a federation strategically captious to some India and Pakistan.

Saleh’s views and actions person the imaginable to power determination stability, peculiarly regarding cross-border terrorism, the Afghan exile crisis, and the broader dynamics betwixt India, Pakistan, and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Saleh’s Opposition To Pakistan

Saleh has consistently accused Pakistan, peculiarly its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of supporting the Taliban and destabilizing Afghanistan. He has stated that Pakistan seeks to exert power implicit Afghanistan done its proxy, the Taliban. In a 2010 briefing to past US president Barack Obama, Saleh had emphasised that “the Pakistanis judge the West has lost" successful Afghanistan and are exploiting divisions among Western allies.

He has besides criticized Pakistan’s relation successful harbouring violent leaders, including Osama bin Laden, and has urged the planetary assemblage to clasp Pakistan accountable for its actions successful the region.

Given his staunch absorption to Pakistan, Saleh’s enactment for India successful the discourse of Operation Sindoor aligns with his humanities stance. His backing bolsters India’s presumption successful the portion and highlights the shared concerns of some nations regarding coercion and determination stability.

Saleh’s Support For India

Saleh was among the archetypal determination leaders to condemn the Pahalgam panic onslaught and nexus it to Pakistan. “It appears that the neighboring GHQ, seeking publicity and media attention, resorted to the worst mode to get it," helium had said connected April 23, the time aft the attack.

I powerfully condemn the violent onslaught successful Pahalgam, Kashmir, India. It appears that the neighboring GHQ, seeking publicity and media attention, resorted to the worst mode to get it.If the terrorists who carried retired the onslaught are captured, I reckon their weapons astir likely…

— Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) April 23, 2025

In the days that followed, Saleh called retired Pakistan’s long-standing enactment to coercion successful the region, besides highlighting its defence curate Khawaja Asif’s admittance of the aforesaid earlier planetary media.

"We were contractors for soiled jobs," says Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.My question: Has the declaration been extended with a caller customer, oregon person you renewed it with the erstwhile one? We spot nary wide grounds of its termination. https://t.co/HY5xW7TqVF

— Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) April 26, 2025

In a pointed examination betwixt India’s Operation Sindoor and Pakistan’s Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, Saleh highlighted respective strategical firsts successful India’s approach. He said India has showed newfound assurance and sovereignty, “bypassing" the UN Security Council, treating violent actors and their authorities sponsors—particularly wrong Pakistan—as a azygous entity.

He besides pointed retired that Pakistan had to seen IMF assistance amid the tensions, underscoring its inability to prolong prolonged conflict.

Operation Sindoor vs. Operation Bunyan Ul MarsoosSome of the firsts

One : Realizing the stalemated presumption oregon irrelevance of the UNSC, India didn’t question to petition sympathy from the 5 of the 1945. Operation Sindoor intelligibly demonstrated a beardown consciousness of self-confidence and…

— Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) May 10, 2025

In his latest post, Saleh said the April 22 onslaught tested India’s restraint, provoking a robust effect that shattered the illusion of Pakistan’s subject invulnerability, including strikes adjacent Rawalpindi. He added that India’s spiritual scholars issued their ain fatwa, breaking Pakistan’s monopoly connected Islamic spiritual narratives.

In contrast, Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, Saleh said, appeared mostly performative, with nary disposable impact, and the ceasefire seemed to forestall further escalation connected Pakistan’s side.

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