In response to the Taliban’s statement Tuesday on its pledge to protect national infrastructure projects, Human Rights Watch deputy director for Asia division Phelim Kine stated that this move was an ironic about-face for the insurgent group but nonetheless a hopeful sign.

In an article published on the HRW website, Kine said: “That’s an ironic about-face for the insurgent group synonymous with years of atrocity, mayhem, and destruction, including attacks on the country’s electrical power grid. 

“But the Taliban’s interest in protecting infrastructure rather than destroying it is a hopeful signal given the country’s desperate need for infrastructure development to boost a war-ravaged economy in which 39 percent of Afghans live in poverty and 23 percent are unemployed. 

“Those disastrous economic indicators have been exacerbated by insecurity created by both corruption and an intensifying Taliban insurgency that is widening its control in parts of the country,” he wrote.

However, Kine went on to say that the Taliban’s record in honoring its commitments to limiting the scope and targets of its attacks makes the likelihood of the group switching gears from destroying infrastructure to protecting it an open question. 

“After all, despite the Taliban’s vow that it will ‘safeguard and protect the lives and properties of the civilian people,’ the latest update from the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that the Taliban remain responsible for most civilian casualties in the country’s long-running armed conflict,” he wrote.

Although the Taliban claims that protecting civilians is one of their main aims, the armed group continues to pursue a strategy of suicide bombings against civilians and attacks on populated areas. 

Government forces and groups who affiliate with Daesh also inflict rising numbers of civilian casualties.

Kine wrote that infrastructure development and protection is the responsibility of the Afghan government. “The Taliban should instead demonstrate its concern for ‘the interest of the people’ by abiding by the laws of war and immediately ceasing operations that target Afghan civilians.”

Meanwhile, the UK’s Guardian Wednesday reported that the Taliban is facing a cash crisis, with donors unwilling to bankroll an insurgency whose victims are increasingly civilians rather than foreign troops.

The Guardian reported Mullah Rahmatullah Kakazada, a senior member of the Taliban, stated that the Taliban was in an increasingly precarious financial position.

“The war is becoming unpopular because of all the bad publicity on civilian casualties,” he said. 

“These people who give money don’t want to spend it on mines that kill children.”

According to the report, the Taliban has long collected donations from sympathizers around the region, including wealthy Afghan and Arab businessmen in the Gulf.

However, the article states that the group is so cash-strapped that private hospitals in Pakistan are turning away injured fighters because they cannot settle their bills. 

According to the article, donations first slumped after the announcement of the death of Mullah Omar in July last year and then again after his successor Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was killed in a drone strike earlier this year. 

The Guardian states that in summer, current leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada clashed with Mullah Ibrahim Sadar, the head of the military council who is based in Helmand. 

A source reportedly said “Ibrahim defied demands to send cash to the Quetta Shura and in a letter taunted Akhundzada for living in safety in Pakistan.”

“Helmand used to send lots of funds to Quetta Shura in the Mansoor era. But Ibrahim has stopped sending money and instead told Akhundzada to move to Helmand,” a Taliban intelligence officer told the Guardian.

The article stated that Kakazada said there was widespread agreement among senior figures that the Taliban must try to negotiate an end to the conflict with the Afghan government, although many of its foot soldiers disagree.

“The fighters on the ground have no idea, but 90% of people in leadership positions believe it is not going to plan and we are not going to repeat the 1990s again,” he said.

He told the Guardian that some of the Taliban’s recent successes, such as overrunning the city of Kunduz, did not mean the movement could win an outright military victory.

“For the Kunduz operation the Taliban prepared for one year just to take a city for one week. Afghanistan has 34 provinces so it would take 34 years to take the country for just one week,” he said.

“We don’t have momentum. But the government can’t win either. It’s a stalemate but we are using all our energies on fighting and not thinking about peace.”

Kakazada told the Guardian that neither Mansoor nor other leading figures in the Taliban would allow any peace process to be dominated by Pakistan.

“The Taliban want to get away from the influence of Pakistan in order to have respect among Afghans,” he said. 

“They don’t want to give the impression they are being forced into talks in someone else’s interest.”

The Guardian reported that the level of anger towards Pakistan among some members of the Taliban was revealed last month in a letter written by Syed Mohammad Tayyab Agha, the former head of the Taliban’s Qatar office, to Akhundzada.

Agha reportedly demanded the Taliban dramatically reduce violence in Afghanistan and cut all ties with Pakistani intelligence, and said the Taliban’s leadership should abandon their sanctuary in Pakistan.

“How can the Taliban leadership, now camped in Pakistan, demand that people in Afghanistan or elsewhere pledge allegiance to them?” he wrote, according to Radio Free Europe, which obtained the letter.

“To be able to make independent decisions, you, the members of our leadership council, and heads of our various commissions, should leave Pakistan,” he wrote. 

“The presence of our movement’s key decision-makers and institutions in the prevailing situation there means Pakistan can impose things against the interests of our movement and Afghanistan.”

But the Guardian reported that Kakazada dismissed the idea as impractical. “If we left Pakistan we would not survive one week,” he said.