Arab Gulf states must now balance need for ties with battle against extremists

RIYADH • After the American withdrawal from Afghanistan led to a swift takeover by the Taleban, Oman's top religious cleric congratulated the Afghan people on their "victory over the invaders".

But Grand Mufti Ahmed Al-Khalili stopped short of recognising the Islamist militant group controlling Afghanistan. In fact, he avoided mentioning it at all.

The mufti's ideological contortions - accepting the Taleban presence in Kabul without explicitly acknowledging its authority - are likely to be repeated across the Arab Gulf.

Countries including Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil exporter, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) must now balance the need to develop pragmatic relations with the fundamentalist movement even as they wage their own battles against Islamist extremism.

"The Gulf states are rattled, no doubt about it," said Middle Eastern politics professor Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics. "This represents a major setback for governments that have turned Islamists into the archenemy, such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, because it inspires and motivates religious activists worldwide and it shows that they can't rely on the United States to come to their aid."

Gulf states' relations with the Taleban will have significant implications for the United States, which maintains large military bases in the region and will rely on those nations as an outpost for Afghanistan once its pullout from that country is complete.

The region has changed dramatically since the Taleban held power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE were among just three countries to recognise the group.

Today, the hereditary monarchies of the Middle East largely view any popular Islamic movement as a threat to national security and their own primacy. That applies to militant groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and Al-Qaeda, as well as ideological movements calling for a religious democracy, like the Muslim Brotherhood.

The most notable exception is Qatar, which hosted Taleban leaders in exile and helped transform the group into a political actor with a seat at the table. This allowed the US to have a more consistent path of communication with a once-unreachable adversary.

Professor Gerges said: "Qatar has emerged as a key stakeholder in this global discussion with the Taleban and the Americans have been relying on Qatar to deliver the Taleban."

With the Taleban entrenched in Kabul, there is fear in the region - and beyond - that Afghanistan could turn into a magnet for religious extremists again. Afghanistan still harbours Al-Qaeda.

A reprise of the group's bombings in Saudi Arabia in the early 2000s, which struck both Western and Saudi targets, could derail Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's economic transformation plan. "Saudi Arabia hopes that the Taleban and all Afghan parties work to protect security, stability, lives and property," the kingdom's Foreign Ministry said in a cautious statement on Monday.

The smaller and more vulnerable UAE, which is increasingly casting itself as a regional broker, struck a friendlier tone - even as it took in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country on Sunday.

Mr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE President, called newly moderate statements from a Taleban spokesman "encouraging". "Afghanistan needs good relations with the international community to ensure a prosperous future," he wrote on Twitter.

BLOOMBERG